"Oh, anything--it's been so long since I've heard any good music!" He joined her at the piano. "How about that beautiful thing you used to sing sometimes--Ma.s.senet's 'Elegy,' wasn't it? Don't you remember I always said I'd rather hear you sing that than listen to a grand opera?"

"Oh--I couldn't. I haven't sung for years."

"What a pity! I shouldn't think Donald would let you give it up."

"Donald doesn't care much for music." She felt as she spoke that she had in some way criticized her husband and hastened to make amends. "He's too busy--that's the reason. Donald is working very hard, and has to do a lot of work at home--nights. If I sang, it would bother him." She began to play the piece with considerable feeling and skill, and West, who was intensely fond of music, leaned over the piano and watched her happily. To have this woman all to himself seemed to him the only thing that fortune had denied him. The love which had lain so quiet all these years surged up within him with unsuspected force. His arms longed to draw her to him, to clasp her to his heart. He looked at her expressive, delicate face, her round, smooth neck, her dark, heavy hair, and wondered how Donald could bring himself to think that she could possibly be happy in the position of a mere household drudge. His reflections did Donald scant justice; the latter, poor fellow, was trying with all his strength to lift both Edith and himself out of their present environment, but Donald was a silent man, who endured all things patiently, and he expected his wife to do the same.

West's intentions, if, indeed, he admitted to himself that he had any at this time, were directed toward two ends--his own amus.e.m.e.nt and Edith's.

Perhaps amus.e.m.e.nt is not the exact word--it was more than that to him, for he could have amused himself with many women. He was really very fond of Edith, more so, perhaps, than he himself fully realized, and in giving her pleasure he gave himself pleasure as well. The idea of making love to her, of coming in any way between herself and Donald, had never entered his mind. After all, we so rarely erect barriers against certain experiences in life until after they have occurred, by which time barriers are no longer of any avail.

When Edith stopped playing, West begged her to go on, and presently, running into the accompaniment of "Oh, Promise Me," she began to sing in a clear, sweet voice which brought back to him the evenings, long before, when she had sung this song to him. Unconsciously the years pa.s.sed from them--he joined in the chorus of the song with his uncultivated, yet not unmusical, baritone, and once more they seemed back in the boarding-house parlor, she the young girl with life all before her, and he the happy-go-lucky Billy West, making and spending his small salary with joyous indifference as to the future.

He stayed until nearly half-past ten, hoping that Donald would return, but the latter evidently had been kept longer than he expected. Edith did not press him to remain--somehow, in spite of her old friendship for West, it seemed a bit queer, this sensation of being here alone in her apartment with a man other than her husband. She did not propose to conceal the fact of his having been there from Donald, but it seemed to her easier to tell Donald that Billy had called during his absence than to have him come in and find them together even as innocently engaged as they were. She knew that this feeling on her part was absurd, that Donald would not have the least idea of jealousy or suspicion--he was too clean minded a man for that. Her scruples arose from a deeper cause.

She had begun to think about West in a way that caused her to feel guilty of disloyalty to her husband when no disloyalty had occurred--to desire to avoid the appearance of evil where no evil existed. All that she had done had been to liken her life with Donald, to what it might have been had she married West. It is a curious fact that the best of women are willing at times to compare the husband at his worst, with the lover at his casual best, and judge both accordingly.

West rode back to his hotel in a maze of doubts. He was genuinely fond of Donald--he liked him better than any man he knew, and this, probably, because he was in all things so nearly the other's opposite. He wondered whether Donald would object in any way to the attentions he proposed showing Edith--whether he would become jealous, and feel that his wife's place was at home, rather than dashing about in a five-thousand-dollar automobile with another man. Perhaps it would be but natural that he should, although not by nature a jealous man, and West realized the confidence that he placed in both his wife and himself. What West did not realize was the effect which his money and the pleasures and luxuries it could command would have upon this woman whose married life had been one long lesson in economy. He had no conception of the contrast in Edith's life between a quiet existence in a Harlem flat and the land of dreams to which his money was the open sesame, the golden key, unlocking the barriers between poverty on the one hand and all that the heart could desire on the other. He did not, could not, realize the upheaval which would necessarily take place in her life, the dissatisfaction which must inevitably ensue, if she were once drawn into a whirl of pleasures and excitements to which her existence for so many years had been totally foreign. If she and Donald lunched or dined together at an expensive restaurant it was an event, commemorating some anniversary--such as their wedding or a birthday. West, on the contrary, regarded dropping into any of the hotels or cafes for luncheon or dinner as a most ordinary performance--he was forced to do it himself, and his only desire was for company. As for going to the theater, he knew that the best seats were always obtainable at the hotels, or on the sidewalk--at a small advance in price, it is true. But what difference did that make to a man who had a hundred dollars a day to spend and no reason whatever for not spending it?

Even before West's coming, the subtle poison of dissatisfaction had begun to eat its way into Edith's heart. Money had always appeared to her a vital necessity in life--her mother had taken care of that--but in the flush of youthful enthusiasm she had believed that, with Donald at her side, she could endure comparative poverty with a light heart, until he had made his fortune, as so many another man had done before him. She had not thought, however, that the time would be so long. West came into her life at a moment when she was fertile soil for the seeds of discontent which he so unconsciously was planting in her nature.

She greeted her husband with indifferent coldness upon his return, about half-past eleven, and told him of West's call. Donald was unfeignedly sorry that he had missed his friend, but showed no least trace of annoyance on learning that West and Edith had spent the evening together. "I hope he will come often," he said. "We have both been a bit lonely of late. It will do you good, dear, to have new interests in life. I am only sorry that I cannot do more for you myself." He drew her to him, and kissed her tenderly, but, somehow, under his caress she shivered and grew cold. "Billy is a splendid fellow, and I don't doubt you will be doing him a real kindness to help him amuse himself a bit until he has got settled in town. It makes a great difference to a man, to be away from New York for five years."

West had suggested to Edith that they take a trial trip in the new automobile the following Friday, but of this Edith said nothing at the time. It was not that she wished to conceal the fact, but it seemed to her pointed, and as though drawing especial attention to an unimportant matter, to speak of it at this time. So she said nothing. After all, she had nothing to conceal or be ashamed of. It is true that, in her more introspective moments, she saw a dim shadow of danger ahead; but she put it resolutely aside, and contented herself with a sophistry which has led many another along devious paths. "Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof."

CHAPTER V

It was early in March that West came to New York, and from then on Edith Rogers lived what was to her a new life. She had persuaded Donald to let her have a nurse for Bobbie, a young girl who came in every morning, took the child out in the park, amused him during the day, and helped with the housework. This left her comparatively free to spend a large part of her time with West. Their automobile trips became a matter of almost daily occurrence.

Thrown thus so much together, these two closed their eyes to the danger which they both knew was impending; they walked gayly upon the edge of a yawning chasm and refused to admit that one false step would send them both crashing down into an abyss of chaos and destruction. In a few weeks, from talking first of themselves, then of each other, during long days when Donald labored patiently in his office down-town, it was but a question of time when "you" and "me" became "we," and Edith would have missed Billy West from her life more than she would have missed Donald, because he had become more a part of it. Like a ship at anchor, with all sails set and filled by a strong and ever increasing gale, it was inevitably certain that before long either the anchor must give, or the white sails of her reputation be blown to rags and tatters--bitter state, indeed, for a wife and mother!

One of the things about West which appealed to her most was his ever ready sympathy. Donald, made of sterner stuff, realized that sympathy, overdone, weakens one's powers of resistance, and exaggerates one's burdens. He expected his wife to bear what life accorded to her in the way of hardship as patiently as he himself did. West, on the contrary, was always sympathetic. Edith's cares, her worries, her troubles, he at once made his own, and seemed only content if he could in some way relieve them. That he had the means to do so, and could not, made it all the harder for him. He would have given her anything he possessed, yet knew she could accept only the veriest trifles. Flowers, theater tickets, automobile rides, served to intensify, rather than lessen, her longings for the things she must perforce do without. Expensive restaurants implied expensive costumes, hats, jewels, which she did not have and could not get, and she often wondered that her companion did not feel ashamed of her in her home-made clothes.

By some system of more-than-rigid economy known only to herself she had managed to procure a few of the things she felt she most needed: a long automobile coat--reduced because shop-worn--a motor hat and veil, and an evening gown which had once been part of the theatrical outfit of a well-known star, and which she had picked up, second-hand, at a little shop on Sixth Avenue. It was very magnificent; she felt almost ashamed to wear it so often, but she knew that it showed off her charms to the greatest advantage, having been designed, primarily, with that end in view. Had she ever stopped to ask herself why she wanted to exhibit these charms to West she would probably have been unable to answer her own question, but she had long ago ceased to catechize herself--sufficient it was that Billy was pleased that she looked well, and that Donald did not blame her. She was floating happily along from day to day, not daring to ask herself what the outcome of it all would be.

She was seldom alone with West--alone, that is, in the sense of being to themselves. She had not dared, after that first night, to have him at the apartment--they had met at the doorstep, and their hours together were spent over restaurant tables, or in theater seats, or the automobile. She had a terrible fear that some time or other West would reach out his arms to her and she knew that, if he did, she would go to him without a question. He had a.s.sisted her in avoiding such a _contretemps_, for he, too, knew his power, and was fighting to hold what he had, rather than lose it in a vague and mysterious future, at the character of which he could only guess. On one or two occasions, when they had come in from automobiling, and West was waiting until Donald should arrive from the office, preparatory to their all going to dinner together, she had purposely brought Bobbie into the room. Once when they had so come in, Bobbie was out with his nurse, and she had wondered if Billy would take advantage of the fact. Much as she feared it, she was conscious of a fierce hope that he would. These two were like firebrands--he longed in every fiber to take her into his arms and kiss her, and she knew it. She equally hungered for his embraces, and he knew that this was so; in both their minds this maddening thought had become a reality--a thousand times. She had acted it to herself over and over, as he had done, and had felt, in her imagination, every thrill of delight which this physical contact would give her, yet something, some leash of conscience as yet not worn to the breaking point, held them apart.

On this particular occasion he sat far from her, and held on to his half-smoked cigar as though it had been his salvation. She busied herself turning idly the leaves of a magazine. He knew, if he threw that cigar away, he would go over to her and take her in his arms, and kiss her, and he dared not to do it--for fear of what might come thereafter.

In April, he had been obliged to go away for three weeks, in connection with some business affairs in the West, and the separation had come almost as a relief to both of them. They had endured as far as human flesh and blood could endure. West told her of the matters which made it necessary for him to go, but she felt that they were not so important as he represented, and knew in her heart that he was going away because he wanted to give both himself and her an opportunity to readjust themselves, to think matters over calmly, without the presence of each other to affect their judgment.

The time of his absence seemed interminably long. Edith found that most of the long series of introspective a.n.a.lyses to which she subjected herself terminated in a mad desire to have him back again in New York.

His absence had shown her how absolutely she had been depending upon him, how his going had taken from her everything that made her life joyous and happy, leaving only the dull background of duty and work, two things that she had come to regard merely as unfortunate necessities of existence.

During his absence she spent a great deal more time with Bobbie than she had been in the habit of doing of late, and found to her surprise that the child depended upon her and thought of her less than he had done before. His nurse was a kind-hearted young girl, who had come to love the little boy deeply and mothered him in all sorts of ways. He had got out of the habit of seeing his mother all day as he had done in the past and, with the easy forgetfulness of childhood, clamored for Nellie, as the girl was called, and their daily walks in the park, the games she had thought out to amuse him, the easy comradeship that made her his playfellow rather than a superior and distant grown-up. Edith resented this, at first, but soon ceased her attempts to change matters and busied herself in making dresses for the coming summer.

She saw West again on a drizzly afternoon in May. His frequent letters had told her of his life while away and of the day of his return. He had called rather unexpectedly about three o'clock, and they had gone for a walk in the park. He seemed strangely silent, at first, and neither of them spoke much for a few moments; they walked along side by side, inwardly trying to bridge the gap which the past few weeks had made in their lives. Presently he spoke.

"I cannot tell you how glad I am to be back again. I used to like the West, but I do not think I could ever live there again."

She said what was nearest her heart. "I am glad, too--very glad," then grew confused and silent.

"I brought you a little souvenir," he said, taking a small package from his pocket, and handing it to her. She opened the box it contained and drew out a magnificent gold chain purse. "I had it made from some of the gold from our mine," he continued hesitatingly; "I thought you might like it."

"Oh, Billy!" she cried, and looked up at him with darkening eyes. "How lovely of you to think of me! It is beautiful--beautiful." She gloated over its exquisite workmanship with all the joy of suddenly possessing something which had always seemed very far away.

"I hoped you would like it," he said.

"Oh--I do--more than I can tell you. I never expected to have one, though I have longed for it all my life." She smiled, dangling the purse delightedly from its gold chain. "I only wish I had more to put in it,"

she concluded thoughtlessly.

"So do I--Edith--so do I." His tone betrayed the intensity of his feelings. "I wish I could do more for you--but I haven't the right--I haven't the right." His voice trailed off helplessly. "I only wish I had."

She said nothing to this. It was perilous ground and they both knew it.

"How is Donald?" he asked suddenly.

"Oh, he's very well. Busy as ever. Won't you come in and see us this evening?"

"No--not this evening. I have a man with me from Denver that I must be with. He is going on to Boston at midnight. One of our directors," he added by way of explanation. "But we must take a ride in the machine to-morrow. I suppose it will be quite rusty for want of use."

"I suppose so. I've missed our trips."

He looked at her closely. "Yes, I can see that," he said, "you do not look so well--you are pale and tired. What have you been doing with yourself?"

"Oh, nothing much. Sewing, mostly." She did not tell him that her princ.i.p.al occupation had been waiting for him to return.

"You need the fresh air. Suppose we take a run down to Garden City and have luncheon there. I'll look in and see Donald in the morning and say h.e.l.lo. Does he know I am back?"

"No--I don't think so. I didn't mention it."

He said nothing to this at first and did not even look at her. "I wonder if Donald minds my--our--our going about so much together," he ventured, at last. "Do you think he does?"

"I don't think so," she replied. "Why should he? I think he is rather glad that I have had so much pleasure." She hesitated a moment, then went on. "He has never said anything. You know how fond he is of you."

"Yes--I know it." He spoke as though the thought brought up unpleasant ideas. "Isn't life a terrible tragedy?" he said, as though to himself.

"The things we want most, it seems, we can never, never have, without hurting someone else to get them."

"Donald says that is sure proof that we ought not to have them," she said in a low voice.

"And do you think so, too?" he asked eagerly.

"I--I do not know."

He hesitated a moment, then went on impetuously. "Is duty after all everything in the world? Is there not a duty to ourselves as well as to others? May not one duty conflict with another, and make it hard to know which one we ought to follow? Must two people make themselves utterly wretched, to give happiness to a third? Isn't it somehow sort of unequal--paying too great a price for a thing that is not worth it?"

She did not answer him, nor did he expect her to do so. He was in reality only thinking aloud--expressing the thoughts which had been uppermost in his mind for the past three weeks, and, woman-like, she took refuge in silence, for she knew that were she to answer him truthfully she would agree with him.