Part 15 (1/2)
I laughed--a good, hearty laugh, for this shy reference to my affair of the heart tickled me. I enjoyed to the full only in long retrospect the look he gave me.
”As soon as a man falls in love,” said he, ”trustees should be appointed to take charge of his estate.”
”You're wrong there, old man,” I replied. ”I've never worked harder or with a clearer head than since I learned that there are”--I hesitated, and ended lamely--”other things in life.”
Langdon's handsome face suddenly darkened, and I thought I saw in his eyes a look of savage pain. ”I envy you,” said he with an effort at his wonted lightness and cynicism. But that look touched my heart; I talked no more of my own happiness. To do so, I felt would be like bringing laughter into the house of grief.
XVI. TRAPPED AND TRIMMED
There are two kinds of dangerous temptations--those that tempt us, and those that don't. Those that don't, give us a false notion of our resisting power, and so make us easy victims to the others. I thought I knew myself pretty thoroughly, and I believed there was nothing that could tempt me to neglect my business. With this delusion of my strength firmly in mind, when Anita became a temptation to neglect business, I said to myself: ”To go up-town during business hours for long lunches, to spend the mornings selecting flowers and presents for her--these things _look_ like neglect of business, and would be so in some men. But _I_ couldn't neglect business. I do them because my affairs are so well ordered that a few hours of absence now and then make no difference--probably send me back fresher and clearer.”
When I left the office at half-past twelve on that fateful Wednesday in June, my business was never in better shape. Textile Common had dropped a point and a quarter in two days--evidently it was at last on its way slowly down toward where I could free myself and take profits. As for the Coal enterprise nothing could possibly happen to disturb it; I was all ready for the first of July announcement and boom. Never did I have a lighter heart than when I joined Anita and her friends at Sherry's. It seemed to me her friendliness was less perfunctory, less a matter of appearances. And the sun was bright, the air delicious, my health perfect. It took all the strength of all the straps Monson had put on my natural spirits to keep me from being exuberant.
I had fully intended to be back at my office half an hour before the Exchange closed--this in addition to the obvious precaution of leaving orders that they were to telephone me if anything should occur about which they had the least doubt. But so comfortable did my vanity make me that I forgot to look at my watch until a quarter to three. I had a momentary qualm; then, rea.s.sured, I asked Anita to take a walk with me. Before we set out I telephoned my right-hand man and partner, Ball. As I had thought, everything was quiet; the Exchange was closing with Textile sluggish and down a quarter. Anita and I took a car to the park.
As we strolled about there, it seemed to me I was making more headway with her than in all the times I had seen her since we became engaged. At each meeting I had had to begin at the beginning once more, almost as if we had never met; for I found that she had in the meanwhile taken on all, or almost all, her original reserve. It was as if she forgot me the instant I left her--not very flattering, that!
”You accuse me of refusing to get acquainted with you,” said I, ”of refusing to see that you're a different person from what I imagine. But how about you? Why do you still stick to your first notion of me? Whatever I am or am not, I'm not the person you condemned on sight.”
”You _have_ changed,” she conceded. ”The way you dress--and sometimes the way you act. Or, is it because I'm getting used to you?”
”No--it's--” I began, but stopped there. Some day I would confess about Monson, but not yet. Also, I hoped the change wasn't altogether due to Monson and the dancing-master and my imitation of the tricks of speech and manner of the people in her set.
She did not notice my abrupt halt. Indeed, I often caught her at not listening to me. I saw that she wasn't listening now.
”You didn't hear what I said,” I accused somewhat sharply, for I was irritated--as who would not have been?
She started, gave me that hurried, apologetic look that was bitterer to me than the most savage insult would have been.
”I beg your pardon,” she said. ”We were talking of--of changes, weren't we?”
”We were talking of _me_” I answered. ”Of the subject that interests you not at all.”
She looked at me in a forlorn sort of way that softened my irritation with sympathy. ”I've told you how it is with me,” she said. ”I do my best to please you. I--”
”d.a.m.n your best!” I cried. ”Don't try to please _me_. Be yourself. I'm no slave-driver. I don't have to be conciliated. Can't you ever see that I'm not your tyrant? Do I treat you as any other man would feel he had the right to treat the girl who had engaged herself to him? Do I ever thrust my feelings or wishes--or--longings on you? And do you think repression easy for a man of my temperament?”
”You have been very good,” she said humbly.
”Don't you ever say that to me again,” I half commanded, half pleaded. ”I won't have you always putting me in the position of a kind and indulgent master.”
She halted and faced me.
”Why do you want me, anyhow?” she cried. Then she noticed several loungers on a bench staring at us and grinning; she flushed and walked on.
”I don't know,” said I. ”Because I'm a fool, probably. My common sense tells me I can't hope to break through that sh.e.l.l of self-complacence you've been cased in by your family and your a.s.sociates. Sometimes I think I'm mistaken in you, think there isn't any real, human blood left in your veins, that you're like the rest of them--a human body whose heart and mind have been taken out and a machine subst.i.tuted--a machine that can say and do only a narrow little range of conventional things--like one of those French dolls.”