Henderson took the letter with a gesture of extreme annoyance, ran his eye through it, flung it from him on the table, and turned squarely round in his chair.

"Well, what of it?"

"To ruin poor Mrs. Fletcher and a hundred like her!" cried Margaret, with rising indignation.

"What have I to do with it? Did I make their investments? Do you think I have time to attend to every poor duck? Why don't people look where they put their money?"

"It's a shame, a burning shame!" she cried, regarding him steadily.

"Oh, yes; no doubt. I lost a hundred thousand yesterday; did I whine about it? If I want to buy anything in the market, have I got to look into every tuppenny interest concerned in it? If Mrs. Fletcher or anybody else has any complaint against me, the courts are open. I defy the whole pack!" Henderson thundered out, rising and b.u.t.toning his coat--"the whole pack!"

"And you have nothing else to say, Rodney?" Margaret persisted, not quailing in the least before his indignation. He had never seen her so before, and he was now too much in a pa.s.sion to fully heed her.

"Oh, women, women!" he said, taking up his hat, "you have sympathy enough for anybody but your husbands." He pushed past her, and was gone without another word or look.

Margaret turned to follow him. She would have cried "Stop!" but the word stuck in her throat. She was half beside herself with rage for a moment. But he had gone. She heard the outer door close. Shame and grief overcame her. She sat down in the chair he had just occupied. It was infamous the way Mrs. Fletcher was treated. And her husband--her husband was so regardless of it. If he was not to blame for it, why didn't he tell her--why didn't he explain? And he had gone away without looking at her. He had left her for the first time since they were married without kissing her! She put her head down on the desk and sobbed; it seemed as if her heart would break. Perhaps he was angry, and wouldn't come back, not for ever so long.

How cruel to say that she did not sympathize with her husband! How could he be angry with her for her natural anxiety about her old friend! He was unjust. There must be something wrong in these schemes, these great operations that made so many confiding people suffer. Was everybody grasping and selfish? She got up and walked about the dear room, which recalled to her only the sweetest memories; she wandered aimlessly about the lower part of the house. She was wretchedly unhappy. Was her husband capable of such conduct? Would he cease to love her for what she had done--for what she must do? How lovely this home was! Everything spoke of his care, his tenderness, his quickness to antic.i.p.ate her slightest wish or whim. It had been all created for her. She looked listlessly at the pictures, the painted ceiling, where the loves garlanded with flowers chased each other; she lifted and let drop wearily the rich hangings. He had said that it was all hers. How pretty was this vista through the luxurious rooms down to the green and sunny conservatory.

And she shrank instinctively from it all. Was it hers? No; it was his.

And was she only a part of it? Was she his? How cold his look as he went away!

What is this love, this divine pa.s.sion, of which we hear so much? Is it, then, such a discerner of right and wrong? Is it better than anything else? Does it take the place of duty, of conscience? And yet what an unbearable desert, what a den of wild beasts it would be, this world, without love, the pa.s.sionate, all-surrendering love of the man and the woman!

In the chambers, in her own apartments, into which she dragged her steps, it was worse than below. Everything here was personal. Mrs.

Fairchild had said that it was too rich, too luxurious; but her husband would have it so. Nothing was too costly, too good, for the woman he loved. How happy she had been in this boudoir, this room, her very own, with her books, the souvenirs of all her happy life!

It seemed alien now, external, unsympathetic. Here, least of all places, could she escape from herself, from her hateful thoughts. It was a chilly day, and a bright fire crackled on the hearth. The square was almost deserted, though the sun illuminated it, and showed all the delicate tracery of the branches and twigs. It was a December sun. Her easy-chair was drawn to the fire and her book-stand by it, with the novel turned down that she had been reading the night before. She sat down and took up the book. She had lost her interest in the characters.

Fiction! What stuff it was compared to the reality of her own life! No, it was impossible. She must do something. She went to her dressing-room and selected a street dress. She took pleasure in putting on the plainest costume she could find, rejecting every ornament, everything but the necessary and the simple. She wanted to get back to herself. Her maid appeared in response to the bell.

"I am going out, Marie."

"Will madame have the carriage?"

"No, I will walk; I need exercise. Tell Jackson not to serve lunch."

Yes, she would walk; for it was his carriage, after all.

It was after mid-day. In the keen air and the bright sunshine the streets were brilliant. Margaret walked on up the avenue. How gay was the city, what a zest of life in the animated scene! The throng increased as she approached Twenty-third Street. In the place where three or four currents meet there was the usual jam of carriages, furniture wagons, carts, cars, and hurried, timid, half-bewildered pa.s.sengers trying to make their way through it. It was all such a whirl and confusion. A policeman aided Margaret to gain the side of the square. Children were playing there; white-capped maids were pushing about baby-carriages; the sparrows chattered and fought with as much vivacity as if they were natives of the city instead of foreigners in possession. It seemed all so empty and unreal. What was she, one woman with an aching heart, in the midst of it all? What had she done? How could she have acted otherwise? Was he still angry with her? The city was so vast and cruel. On the avenue again there was the same unceasing roar of carts and carriages; business, pleasure, fashion, idleness, the stream always went by. From one and another carriage Margaret received a bow, a cool nod, or a smile of greeting. Perhaps the occupants wondered to see her on foot and alone. What did it matter? How heartless it all was! what an empty pageant! If he was alienated, there was nothing. And yet she was right. For a moment she thought of the Arbusers. She thought of Carmen. She must see somebody. No, she couldn't talk. She couldn't trust herself. She must bear it alone.

And how weary it was, walking, walking, with such a burden! House after house, street after street, closed doors, repellant fronts, staring at her. Suppose she were poor and hungry, a woman wandering forlorn, how stony and pitiless these insolent mansions! And was she not burdened and friendless and forlorn! Tired, she reached at last, and with no purpose, the great white cathedral. The door was open. In all this street of churches and palaces there was no other door open. Perhaps here for a moment she could find shelter from the world, a quiet corner where she could rest and think and pray.

She entered. It was almost empty, but down the vista of the great columns hospitable lights gleamed, and here and there a man or a woman--more women than men--was kneeling in the great aisle, before a picture, at the side of a confessional, at the steps of the altar. How hushed and calm and sweet it was! She crept into a pew in a side aisle in the shelter of a pillar; and sat down. Presently, in the far apse, an organ began to play, its notes stealing softly out through the great s.p.a.ces like a benediction. She fancied that the saints, the glorified martyrs in the painted windows illumined by the sunlight, could feel, could hear, were touched by human sympathy in their beat.i.tude. There was peace here at any rate, and perhaps strength. What a dizzy whirl it all was in which she had been borne along! The tones of the organ rose fuller and fuller, and now at the side entrances came pouring in children, the boys on one side, the girls on another-school children with their books and satchels, the poor children of the parish, long lines of girls and of boys, marshaled by priests and nuns, streaming in--in frolicsome mood, and filling all the pews of the nave at the front. They had their books out, their singing-books; at a signal they all stood up; a young priest with his baton stepped into the centre aisle; he waved his stick, Margaret heard his sweet tenor voice, and then the whole chorus of children's voices rising and filling all the house with the innocent concord, but always above all the penetrating, soaring notes of the priest-strong, clear, persuading. Was it not almost angelic there at the moment? And how inspired the beautiful face of the singer leading the children!

Ah, me! it is not all of the world worldly, then. I don't know that the singing was very good: it was not cla.s.sical, I fear; not a voice, maybe, that priest's, not a chorus, probably, that, for the Metropolitan. I hear the organ is played better elsewhere. Song after song, chorus after chorus, repeated, stopped, begun again: it was only drilling the little urchins of the parochial schools--little ragam.u.f.fins, I dare say, many of them. What was there in this to touch a woman of fashion, sitting there crying in her corner? Was it because they were children's voices, and innocent? Margaret did not care to check her tears. She was thinking of her old home, of her own childhood, nay, of her girlhood--it was not so long ago--of her ideals then, of her notion of the world and what it would bring her, of the dear, affectionate life, the simple life, the school, the little church, her room in the cottage--the chamber where first the realization of love came to her with the odors of May. Was it gone, that life?--gone or going out of her heart? And--great heavens!--if her husband should be cold to her! Was she very worldly?

Would he love her if she were as unworldly as she once was? Why should this childish singing raise these contrasts, and put her at odds so with her own life? For a moment I doubt not this dear girl saw herself as we were beginning to see her. Who says that the rich and the prosperous and the successful do not need pity?

Was this a comforting hour, do you think, for Margaret in the cathedral?

Did she get any strength, I wonder? When the singing was over and the organ ceased, and the children had filed out, she stole away also, wearily and humbly enough, and took the stage down the avenue. It was near the dinner-hour, and Henderson, if he came, would be at home any moment. It seemed as if she could not wait--only to see him!

XVIII

Do you suppose that Henderson had never spoken impatiently and sharply to his wife before, that Margaret had never resented it and replied with spirit, and been hurt and grieved, and that there had never been reconciliations? In writing any biography there are some things that are taken for granted with an intelligent public. Are men always gentle and considerate, and women always even-tempered and consistent, simply by virtue of a few words said to the priest?

But this was a more serious affair. Margaret waited in a tumult of emotion. She felt that she would die if she did not see him soon, and she dreaded his coming. A horrible suspicion had entered her mind that respect for her husband, confidence in him, might be lowered, and a more horrible doubt that she might lose his love. That she could not bear.

And was Henderson unconscious of all this? I dare say that in the perplexing excitement of the day he did recall for a moment with a keen thrust of regret the scene of the morning-his wife standing there flushed, wounded, indignant. "I might have turned back, and taken her in my arms, and told her it was all right," he thought. He wished he had done so. But what nonsense it was to think that she could be seriously troubled! Besides, he couldn't have women interfering with him every moment.

How inconsiderate men are! They drop a word or a phrase--they do not know how cruel it is--or give a look--they do not know how cold it is--and are gone without a second thought about it; but it sinks into the woman's heart and rankles there. For the instant it is like a mortal blow, it hurts so, and in the brooding spirit it is exaggerated into a hopeless disaster. The wound will heal with a kind word, with kisses.

Yes, but never, never without a little scar. But woe to the woman's love when she becomes insensible to these little stabs!

Henderson hurried home, then, more eagerly than usual, with reparation in his heart, but still with no conception of the seriousness of the breach. Margaret heard the key in the door, heard his hasty step in the hall, heard him call, as he always did on entering, "Margaret! where is Margaret?" and she, sitting there in the deep window looking on the square, longed to run to him, as usual also, and be lifted up in his strong arms; but she could not stir. Only when he found her did she rise up with a wistful look and a faint smile. "Have you had a good day, child?" And he kissed her. But her kiss was on her lips only, for her heart was heavy.

"Dinner will be served as soon as you dress," she said. What a greeting was this! Who says that a woman cannot be as cruel as a man? The dinner was not very cheerful, though Margaret did her best not to appear constrained, and Henderson rattled on about the events of the day. It had been a deuce of a day, but it was coming right; he felt sure that the upper court would dissolve the injunction; the best counsel said so; and the criminal proceedings--"Had there been criminal proceedings?"

asked Margaret, with a stricture at her heart--had broken down completely, hadn't a leg to stand on, never had, were only begun to bluff the company. It was a purely malicious prosecution. And Henderson did not think it necessary to tell Margaret that only Uncle Jerry's dexterity had spared both of them the experience of a night in the Ludlow Street jail.

"Come," said Henderson--"come into the library. I have something to tell you." He put his arm round her as they walked, and seating himself in his chair by his desk in front of the fire, he tried to draw Margaret to sit on his knee.

"No; I'll sit here, so that I can see you," she said, composed and unyielding.

He took out his pocket-book, selected a slip of paper, and laid it on the table before him. "There, that is a check for seven hundred dollars.

I looked in the books. That is the interest for a year on the Fletcher bonds. Might as well make it an even year; it will be that soon."

"Do you mean to say--" asked Margaret, leaning forward.

"Yes; to brighten up the Christmas up there a little."

"--that you are going to send that to Mrs. Fletcher?" Margaret had risen.

"Oh, no; that wouldn't do. I cannot send it, nor know anything about it. It would raise the--well, it would--if the other bondholders knew anything about it. But you can change that for your check, and n.o.body the wiser."

"Oh, Rodney!" She was on his knee now. He was good, after all. Her head was on his shoulder, and she was crying a little. "I've been so unhappy, so unhappy, all day! And I can send that?" She sprang up. "I'll do it this minute--I'll run and get my check-book!" But before she reached the door she turned back, and came and stood by him and kissed him again and again, and tumbled up his hair, and looked at him. There is, after all, nothing in the world like a woman.

"Time enough in the morning," said Henderson, detaining her. "I want to tell you all about it."

What he told her was, in fact, the case as it had been presented by his lawyers, and it seemed a very large, a const.i.tutional, kind of case. "Of course," he said, "in the rivalry and compet.i.tion of business somebody must go to the wall, and in a great scheme of development and reorganization of the transportation of a region as big as an empire some individual interests will suffer. You can't help these changes. I'm sorry for some of them--very sorry; but nothing would ever be done if we waited to consider every little interest. And that the men who create these great works, and organize these schemes for the benefit of the whole public, shouldn't make anything by their superior enterprise and courage is all nonsense. The world is not made that way."

The explanation, I am bound to say, was one that half the world considers valid; it was one that squeezed through the courts. And when it was done, and the whole thing had blown over, who cared? There were some bondholders who said that it was rascally, that they had been boldly swindled. In the clubs, long after, you would hear it said that Hollowell and Henderson were awfully sharp, and hard to beat. It is a very bad business, said the Brandon parliament, and it just shows that the whole country is losing its moral sense, its capacity to judge what is right and what is wrong.

I do not say that this explanation, the nature of which I have only indicated, would have satisfied the clear mind of Margaret a year or two before. But it was made by the man she loved, the man who had brought her out into a world that was full of sunlight and prosperity and satisfied desire; and more and more, day by day, she saw the world through his eyes, and accepted his estimate of the motives of people--and a low estimate I fear it was. Who would not be rich if he could? Do you mean to tell me that a man who is getting fat dividends out of a stock does not regard more leniently the manner in which that stock is manipulated than one who does not own any of it? I dare say, if Carmen had heard that explanation, and seen Margaret's tearful, happy acceptance of it, she would have shaken her pretty head and said, "They are getting too worldly for me."

In the morning the letter was despatched to Miss Forsythe, enclosing the check for Mrs. Fletcher--a joyful note, full of affection. "We cannot come," Margaret wrote. "My husband cannot leave, and he does not want to spare me"--the little hypocrite! he had told her that she could easily go for a day "but we shall think of you dear ones all day, and I do hope that now there will not be the least cloud on your Christmas."

It seems a great pity, in view of the scientific organization of society, that there are so many sensibilities uncla.s.sified and unprovided for in the otherwise perfect machinery. Why should the beggar to whom you toss a silver dollar from your carriage feel a little grudge against you? Perhaps he wouldn't like to earn the dollar, but if it had been accompanied by a word of sympathy, his sensibility might have been soothed by your recognition of human partnership in the goods of this world. People not paupers are all eager to take what is theirs of right; but anything in the semblance of charity is a bitter pill to swallow until self-respect is a little broken down. Probably the resentment lies in the recognition of the truth that it is much easier to be charitable than to be just. If Margaret had seen the effect produced by her letter she might have thought of this; she might have gone further, and reflected upon what would have been her own state of mind two years earlier if she had received such a letter. Miss Forsythe read it with a very heavy heart. She hesitated about showing it to Mrs. Fletcher, and when she did, and gave her the check, it was with a sense of shame.

"The insolence of the thing!" cried Mrs. Fletcher, as soon as she comprehended it.