Part 34 (2/2)
”Why shouldn't he know? That is the course of development. Without changing ideals there would be stagnation.”
”Perhaps,” she returned, and he thought he caught a note of weariness in her voice. ”But I don't blame Frank--now. I rather blame him then.
He swept me off my feet; stampeded me. My parents helped him, and I was only half disposed to resist. You see, I had this other matter on my mind, and for the first time in my life I felt the need of protection.
Besides, I took a matter-of-fact view of marriage. I thought that sentiment--love, if you like--was a thing of books, an invention of poets and fiction writers. Practical people would be practical in their marriages, as in their other undertakings. To marry Frank seemed a very practical course. My father a.s.sured me that Frank had in him qualities of large success. He would make money; he would be a prominent man in circles of those who do things. These predictions he has fulfilled.
Frank has been all I expected--then.”
”But you have changed your opinion of marriage--of the essentials of marriage?”
”Do YOU need to ask that? I was beginning to see the light--beginning to know myself--even before I married him, but I didn't stop to a.n.a.lyze.
I plunged ahead, as I have always done, trusting not to get into any position from which I could not find a way out. But there are some positions from which there is no way out.”
Grant reflected that possibly his experience had been somewhat like hers in that respect. He, too, had been following a path, unconcerned about its end.... Possibly for him, too, there would be no way out.
”Frank has been all I expected of him,” she repeated, as though anxious to do her husband justice. ”He has made money. He spends it generously.
If I live here modestly, with but one maid, it is because of a preference which I have developed for simplicity. I might have a dozen if I asked it, and I think Frank is somewhat surprised, and, it may be, disappointed, that I don't ask it. Although not a man for display himself, he likes to see me make display. It's a strange thing, isn't it, that a husband should wish his wife to be admired by other men?”
”Some are successful in that,” Grant remarked.
”Some are more successful than they intend to be.”
”Frank, for instance?” he queried, pointedly.
”I have not sought any man's admiration,” she went on, with her astonis.h.i.+ng frankness. ”I am too independent for that. What do I care for their admiration? But every woman wants love.”
Grant had changed his position, and sat with his elbows upon his knees, his chin resting upon his hands. ”You know, Zen,” he said, using her Christian name deliberately, ”the picture I drew that day by the river?
That is the picture I have carried in my mind ever since--shall carry to the end. Perhaps it has led me to be imprudent--”
”Imprudent?”
”Has brought me here to-night, for example.”
”You had my invitation.”
”True. But why develop another situation which, as you say, has no way out?”
”Do you want to go?”
”No, Zen, no! I want to stay--with you--always! But organized society must respect its own conventions.”
She arose and stood by his chair, letting her hand fall beside his cheek.
”You silly boy!” she said. ”You didn't organize society, nor subscribe to its conventions. Still, I suppose there must be a code of some kind, and we shall respect it. You had your chance, Denny, and you pa.s.sed it up.”
”Had my chance?”
”Yes. I refused you in words, I know, but actions speak louder--”
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