Chapter XV: The Prince Who Was a Thief 392 (12)

It was about this time that I had my first suspicion of anything untoward in their hitherto happy relations. I did not see him often now, but when I did visit them at their small apartment, could not help seeing that Mrs. Wray was proving almost too apt a pupil in the realm in which he had interested her. It was plain that she had been emancipated from quite all of her old notions as to the sinfulness of the stage, and in regard to reading and living in general. Plainly, Wray had proved the Prince Charming, who had entered the secret garden and waked the sleeping princess to a world of things she had never dreamed of. She had reached the place where she was criticizing certain popular authors, spoke of a curiously enlightened history of France she was reading, of certain bits of philosophy and poetry which her new club were discussing. From the nature of the conversation being carried on by the three of us I could see that Wray was beginning to feel that the unsophisticated young girl he had married a little while before might yet outstrip him in the very realm in which he had hoped to be her permanent guide. More than once, as I noticed, she chose to question or contradict him as to a matter of fact, and I think he was astonished if not irritated by the fact that she knew more than he about the import of a certain plot or the relativity of certain dates in history. And with the force and determination that had caused her to stand by her former convictions, she now aired and defended her new knowledge. Not that her manner was superior or irritating exactly; she had a friendly way of including and consulting him in regard to many things which indicated that as yet she had no thought of manifesting a superiority which she did not feel. “That’s not right, dearest. His name is Bentley. He is the author of a play that was here last year—_The Seven Rings of Manfred_—don’t you remember?” And Wray, much against his will, was compelled to confess that she was right.

Whenever he met me alone after this, however, he would confide the growing nature of his doubts and perplexities. Bessie was no more the girl she had been when he first met her than he was like the boy he had been at ten years of age. A great, a very great change was coming over her. She was becoming more aggressive and argumentative and self-centred all the time, more this, more that. She was reading a great deal, much too much for the kind of life she was called upon to lead. Of late they had been having long and unnecessary arguments that were of no consequence however they were settled, and yet if they were not settled to suite her she was angry or irritable. She was neglecting her home and running about all the time with her new-found friends. She did not like the same plays he did. He wanted a play that was light and amusing, whereas she wanted one with some serious moral or intellectual twist to it. She read only serious books now and was attending a course of lectures, whereas he, as he now confessed, was more or less bored by serious books. What was the good of them? They only stirred up thoughts and emotions which were better left unstirred. And she liked music, or was pretending she did, grand opera, recitals and that sort of thing, whereas he was not much interested in music. Grand opera bored him, and he was free to admit it, but if he would not accompany her she would go with one or both of those two wretched women he was beginning to detest. Their husbands had a little money and gave them a free rein in the matter of their social and artistic aspirations. They had no household duties to speak of and could come and go as they chose, and Wray now insisted that it was they who were aiding and abetting Bessie in these various interests and enthusiasms and stirring her up to go and do and be. What was he to do? No good could come if things went on as they were going. They were having frequent quarrels, and more than once lately she had threatened to leave him and do for herself here in New York, as he well knew she could. He was doing very well now and they could be happy together if only these others could be done away with.

It was only a month or two after this that Wray came to see me, in a very distrait state of mind. After attempting to discuss several other things quite casually he confessed that his young wife had left him. She had taken a room somewhere and had resumed work as a stenographer, and although he met her occasionally in the subway she would have nothing to do with him. She wanted to end it all. And would I believe it? She was accusing him of being narrow and ignorant and stubborn and a number of other things! Only think of it! And three or four years ago she had thought he was all wrong when he wanted to go rowing on Sunday or stay downtown to dinner of an evening. Could such things be possible? And yet he loved her, in spite of all the things that had come up between them. He couldn’t help it. He couldn’t help thinking how sweet and innocent and strange she was when he first met her, how she loved her parents and respected their wishes. And now see. “I wish to God,” he suddenly exclaimed in the midst of the “oldtime” picture he was painting of her, “that I hadn’t been so anxious to change her. She was all right as she was, if I had only known it. She didn’t know anything about these new-fangled things then, and I wasn’t satisfied till I got her interested in them. And now see. She leaves me and says I’m narrow and stubborn, that I’m trying to hold her back intellectually. And all because I don’t want to do all the things she wants to do and am not interested in the things that interest her, now.”

I shook my head. Of what value was advice in such a situation as this, especially from one who was satisfied that the mysteries of temperament of either were not to be unraveled or adjusted save by nature—the accidents of chance and affinity, or the deadly opposition which keep apart those unsuited to each other? Nevertheless, being appealed to for advice, I ventured a silly suggestion, borrowed from another. He had said that if he could but win her back he would be willing to modify the pointless opposition and contention that had driven her away. She might go her intellectual way as she chose if she would only come back. Seeing him so tractable and so very wishful, I now suggested a thing that had been done by another in a somewhat related situation. He was to win her back by offering her such terms as she would accept, and then, in order to bind her to him, he was to induce her to have a child. That would capture her sympathy, very likely, as well as insinuate an image of himself into her affectionate consideration. Those who had children rarely separated—or so I said.

The thought appealed to him intensely. It satisfied his practical and clerkly nature. He left me hopefully and I saw nothing of him for several months, at the end of which time he came to report that all was once more well with him. She had come back, and in order to seal the new pact he had taken a larger apartment in a more engaging part of the city. Bessie was going on with her club work, and he was not opposing her in anything. And then within the year came a child and there followed all those simple, homey, and seemingly binding and restraining things which go with the rearing and protection of a young life.

But even during that period, as I was now to learn, all was not as smooth as I had hoped. Talking to me in Wray’s absence once Bessie remarked that, delightful as it was to have a child of her own, she could see herself as little other than a milch cow with an attendant calf, bound to its service until it should be able to look after itself. Another time she remarked that mothers were bond-servants, that even though she adored her little girl she could not help seeing what a chain and a weight a child was to one who had ambitions beyond those of motherhood. But Wray, clerkly soul that he was, was all but lost in rapture. There was a small park nearby, and here he could be found trundling his infant in a handsome baby-carriage whenever his duties would permit. He would sit or walk where were others who had children of about the age of his own so that he might compare them. He liked to speculate on the charm and innocence of babyhood and was amused by a hundred things which he had never noticed in the children of others. Already he was beginning to formulate plans for little Janet’s future. It was hard for children to be cooped up in an apartment house in the city. In a year or two, if he could win Bessie to the idea, they would move to some suburban town where Janet could have the country air.

They were prospering now and could engage a nursemaid, so Mrs. Wray resumed her intellectual pursuits and her freedom. Throughout it all one could see that, respect Wray as she might as a dutiful and affectionate and methodical man, she could not love or admire him, and that mainly because of the gap that lay between them intellectually. Dissemble as he might, there was always the hiatus that lies between those who think or dream a little and those who aspire and dream much. Superiority of intellect was not altogether the point; she was not so much superior as different, as I saw it. Rather, they were two differing rates of motion, flowing side by side for the time being only, his the slower, hers the quicker. And it mattered not that his conformed more to the conventional thought and emotions of the majority. Hers was the more satisfactory to herself and constituted an urge which he feared rather than despised; and his was more satisfactory to himself, compromise as he would. Observing them together one could see how proud he was of her and of his relationship to her, how he felt that he had captured a prize, regardless of the conditions by which it was retained; and on the other hand one could easily see how little she held him in her thought and mood. She was forever talking to others about those things which she knew did not interest him or to which he was opposed.

For surcease she plunged into those old activities that had so troubled him at first, and now he complained that little Janet was being neglected. She did not love her as she should or she could not do as she was doing. And what was more and worse, she had now taken to reading Freud and Kraft-Ebbing and allied thinkers and authorities, men and works that he considered dreadful and shameful, even though he scarcely grasped their true significance.

One day he came to me and said: “Do you know of a writer by the name of Pierre Loti?”

“Yes,” I replied, “I know his works. What about him?”

“What do you think of him?”

“As a writer? Why, I respect him very much. Why?”

“Oh, I know, from an intellectual point of view, as a fine writer, maybe. But what do you think of his views of life—of his books as books to be read by the mother of a little girl?”

“Wray,” I replied, “I can’t enter upon a discussion of any man’s works upon purely moral grounds. He might be good for some mothers and evil for others. Those who are to be injured by a picture of life must be injured, or kept from its contaminating influence, and those who are to be benefited will be benefited. I can’t discuss either books or life in any other way. I see worthwhile books as truthful representations of life in some form, nothing more. And it would be unfair to any one who stood in intellectual need to be restrained from that which might prove of advantage to him. I speak only for myself, however.”

It was not long after that I learned there had been a new quarrel and that Bessie had left him once more, this time, as it proved, for good. And with her, which was perhaps illegal or unfair, she had taken the child. I did not know what had brought about this latest rupture but assumed that it was due to steadily diverging views. They could not agree on that better understanding of life which at one time he was so anxious for her to have—his understanding. Now that she had gone beyond that, and her method of going was unsatisfactory to him, they could not agree, of course.

Not hearing from him for a time I called and found him living in the same large apartment they had taken. Its equipment was better suited to four than to one, yet after seven or eight months of absence on her part here he was, living alone, where every single thing must remind him of her and Janet. As for himself, apart from a solemnity and reserve which sprang from a wounded and disgruntled spirit, he pretended an indifference and a satisfaction with his present state which did not square with his past love for her. She had gone, yes; but she had made a mistake and would find it out. Life wasn’t as she thought it was. She had gone with another man—he was sure of that, although he did not know who the man was. It was all due to one of those two women she had taken up with, that Mrs. Drake. They were always interested in things which did not and could not interest him. After a time he added that he had been to see her parents. I could not guess why, unless it was because he was lonely and still very much in love and thought they might help him to understand the very troublesome problem that was before him.

It was a year and a half before I saw him again, during which time, as I knew, he continued to live in the apartment they had occupied together. He had become manager of a department of the agency by this time and was going methodically to and fro between his home and office. After living alone and brooding for more than a year, he came to see me one rainy November night. He looked well enough materially, quite the careful person who takes care of his clothes, but thinner, more tense and restless. He seated himself before my fire and declared that he was doing very well and was thinking of taking a long vacation to visit some friends in the West. (He had once told me that he had heard that Bessie had gone to California.) Yes, he was still living in the old place. I might think it strange, but he had not thought it worth while to move. He would only have to find another place to live in; the furniture was hard to pack; he didn’t like hotels.

Then of a sudden, noting that I studied him and wondered, he grew restless and finally stood up, then walked about looking at some paintings and examining a shelf of books. His manner was that of one who is perplexed and undetermined, of one who has stood out against a silence and loneliness of which he was intensely weary. Then of a sudden he wheeled and faced me: “I can’t stand it. That’s what’s the matter. I just can’t stand it any longer. I’ve tried and tried. I thought the child would make things work out all right, but she didn’t. She didn’t want a child and never forgave me for persuading her to have Janet. And then that literary craze—that was really my own fault, though. I was the one that encouraged her to read and go to theatres. I used to tell her she wasn’t up-to-date, that she ought to wake up and find out what was going on in the world, that she ought to get in with intelligent people. But it wasn’t that either. If she had been the right sort of woman she couldn’t have done as she did.” He paused and clenched his hands nervously and dramatically. It was as though he were denouncing her to her face instead of to me.

“Now, Wray,” I interposed, “how useless to say that. Which of us is as he should be? Why will you talk so?”

“But let me tell you what she did,” he went on fiercely. “You haven’t an idea of what I’ve been through, not an idea. She tried to poison me once so as to get rid of me.” And here followed a brief and sad recital of the twists and turns and desperation of one who was intensely desirous of being free of one who was as desirous of holding her. And then he added: “And she was in love with another man, only I could never find out who he was.” And his voice fell to a low, soft level, as though he was even then trying to solve the mystery of who it was. “And I know she had an operation performed, though I could never prove it.” And he gave me details of certain mysterious goings to and fro, of secret pursuits on his part, actions and evidences and moods and quarrels that pointed all too plainly to a breach that could never be healed. “And what’s more,” he exclaimed at last, “she tortured me. You’ll never know. You couldn’t. But I loved her.... And I love her now.” Once more the tensely gripped fingers, the white face, the flash of haunted eyes.

“One afternoon I stood outside of a window of an apartment house when I knew she was inside, and I knew the name of the man who was supposed to occupy it, only he had re-sublet it, as I found out afterwards. And she had Janet with her—think of that!—our own little girl! I saw her come to the window once to look out—I actually saw her in another man’s rooms. I ran up and hammered at the door—I tried to break it open. I called to her to come out but she wouldn’t, and I went to get a policeman to make him open the door. But when I got back a servant was coming up as though she had been out, and she unlocked the door and went in. It was all a ruse, and I know it. They weren’t inside. She had slipped out with Janet. And she had told me they were going to Westchester for the day.

“And another time I followed her to a restaurant when she said she was going to visit a friend. I suspected there was a man—the man I thought she was going with, but it was some one I had never seen before. When they came out and were getting into a cab I came up and told them both what I thought of them. I threatened to kill them both. And she told him to go and then came home with me, but I couldn’t do anything with her. She wouldn’t talk to me. All she would say was that if I didn’t like the way she was doing I could let her go. She wanted me to give her a divorce. And I couldn’t let her go, even if I had wanted to. I loved her too much. And I love her too much now. I do. I can’t help it.” He paused. The pain and regret were moving.

“Another time,” he went on, “I followed her to a hotel—yes, to a hotel. But when I got inside she was waiting for me; she had seen me. I even saw a man coming toward her—but not the one I believed was the one—only when he saw me he turned away and I couldn’t be sure that he was there to meet her. And when I tried to talk to her about him she turned away from me and we went back home in silence. I couldn’t do anything with her. She would sit and read and ignore me for days—days, I tell you—without ever a word.”

“Yes,” I said, “but the folly of all that. The uselessness, the hopelessness. How could you?”

“I know, I know,” he exclaimed, “but I couldn’t help it. I can’t now. I love her. I can’t help that, can I? I’m miserable without her. I see the folly of it all, but I’m crazy about her. The more she disliked me the more I loved her. And I love her now, this minute. I can’t help it. There were days when she tortured me so that I vomited, from sheer nervousness. I was sick and run down. I have been cold with sweat in her presence and when she was away and I didn’t know where she was. I have walked the streets for hours, for whole days at a time, because I couldn’t eat or sleep and didn’t know what to do. By God!” Once more the pause and a clenching of the hands. “And all I could do was think and think and think. And that is all I do now really—think and think and think. I’ve never been myself since she went away. I can’t shake it off. I live up there, yes. But why? Because I think she might come back some day, and because we lived there together. I wait and wait. I know it’s foolish, but still I wait. Why? God only knows. And yet I wait. Oh,” he sighed, “and it’s three years now. Three years!”

He paused and gazed at me and I at him, shaken by a fact that was without solution by any one. Here he was—the one who had understood so much about women. But where was she, the one he had sought to enlighten, to make more up-to-date and liberal? I wondered where she was, whether she ever thought of him even, whether she was happy in her new freedom. And then, without more ado, he slipped on his raincoat, took up his umbrella, and stalked out into the rain, to walk and think, I presume. And I, closing the door on him, studied the walls, wondering. The despair, the passion, the rage, the hopelessness, the love. “Truly,” I thought, “this is love, for one at least. And this is marriage, for one at least. He is spiritually wedded to that woman, who despises him, and she may be spiritually wedded to another man who may despise her. But love and marriage, for one, at least, I have seen here in this room to-night, and with mine own eyes.”

XI

FULFILMENT

Hearing the maid tap lightly on her door for the third or fourth time, Ulrica uttered a semiconscious “Come.” It was her usual rising hour but to-day she was more depressed than usual, although the condition was common enough at all times. The heavy drag of a troubled mental state was upon her. Was it never to end? Was she never to be happy again? After several weeks of a decidedly acceptable loneliness, during which Harry had been in the west looking after his interminable interests, he was about to return. The weariness of that, to begin with! And while she could not say that she really hated or even disliked him deeply (he was too kind and considerate for that), still his existence, his able and different personality, constantly forced or persuaded upon her, had come to be a bore. The trouble was that she did not truly love him and never could. He might be, as he was, rich, resourceful and generous to a fault in her case, a man whom the world of commerce respected, but how did that avail her? He was not her kind of man. Vivian before him had proved that. And other men had been and would be as glad to do as much if not more.

Vivian had given all of himself in a different way. Only Harry’s seeking, begging eyes pleading with her (after Vivian’s death and when she was so depressed) had preyed upon and finally moved her to sympathy. Life had not mattered then, (only her mother and sister), and she had become too weary to pursue any career, even for them. So Harry with his wealth and anxiety to do for her—

(The maid entered softly, drew back the curtains and raised the blinds, letting in a flood of sunshine, then proceeded to arrange the bath.)

It had been, of course, because of the magic of her beauty—how well she knew the magic of that!—plus an understanding and sympathy she had for the miseries Harry had endured in his youth, that had caused him to pursue her with all the pathetic vehemence of a man of fifty. He was not at all like Vivian, who had been shy and retiring. Life had seemed to frighten poor Vivian and drive him in upon himself in an uncomplaining and dignified way. In Harry’s case it had acted contrariwise. Some men were so, especially the old and rich, those from whom life was slipping away and for whom youth, their lost youth, seemed to remain a colored and enthralling spectacle however wholly gone. The gifts he had lavished upon her, the cars, the jewels, this apartment, stocks and bonds, even that house in Seadale for her sister and mother! And all because of a beauty that meant so little to her now that Vivian was gone, and in the face of an indifference so marked that it might well have wearied any man.

How could she go on? (She paused in her thoughts to survey and follow her maid, who was calling for the second time.) Though he hung upon her least word or wish and was content to see her at her pleasure, to run her errands and be ever deferential and worshipful, still she could not like him, could barely tolerate him. Before her always now was Vivian with his brooding eyes and elusive, sensitive smile; Vivian, who had never a penny to bless himself with. She could see him now striding to and fro in his bare studio, a brush in one hand, or sitting in his crippled chair meditating before a picture or talking to her of ways and means which might be employed to better their state. The pathos!

“_I cannot endure that perfume, Olga!_”

In part she could understand her acceptance of Harry after Vivian (only it did not seem understandable always, even to her), for in her extreme youth her parents had been so very poor. Perhaps because of her longings and childish fears in those days she had been marked in some strange way that had eventually led her to the conviction that wealth was so essential. For her parents were certainly harassed from her sixth to her thirteenth years, when they recovered themselves in part. Some bank or concern had failed and they had been thrown on inadequate resources and made to shift along in strange ways. She could remember an old brick house with a funereal air and a weedy garden into which they had moved and where for a long time they were almost without food. Her mother had cried more than once as she sat by the open window looking desolately out, while Ulrica, not quite comprehending what it was all about, had stared at her from an adjacent corner.

“_Will madame have the iris or the Japanese lilac in the water?_”

She recalled going downtown once on an errand and slipping along shyly because her clothes were not good. And when she saw some schoolgirls approaching, hid behind a tree so they should not see her. Another time, passing the Pilkington at dinner-time, the windows being open and the diners visible, she had wondered what great persons they must be to be able to bask in so great a world. It was then perhaps that she had developed the obsession for wealth which had led to this. If only she could have seen herself as she now was she would not have longed so. (She paused, looking gloomily back into the past.) And then had come the recovery of her father in some way or other. He had managed to get an interest in a small stove factory and they were no longer so poor—but that was after her youth had been spoiled, her mind marked in this way.

And to crown it all, at seventeen had come Byram the inefficient. And because he was “cute” and had a suggestion of a lisp; was of good family and really insane over her, as nearly every youth was once she had turned fourteen, she had married him, against her parents’ wishes, running away with him and lying about her age, as did he about his. And then had come trying times. Byram was no money-maker, as she might have known. He was inexperienced, and being in disfavor with his parents for ignoring them in his hasty choice of a wife, he was left to his own devices. For two whole years what had she not endured—petty wants which she had concealed from her mother, furniture bought on time and dunned for, collectors with whom she had to plead not to take the stove or the lamp or the parlor table, and grocery stores and laundries and meat-markets which had to be avoided because of unpaid bills. There had even been an ejectment for non-payment of rent, and job after job lost for one reason and another, until the whole experiment had been discolored and made impossible even after comfort had been restored.

“_I cannot endure the cries of the children, Olga. You will have to close that window._”

No; Byram was no money-maker, not even after his parents in far-distant St. Paul had begun to help him to do better. And anyhow by then, because she had had time to sense how weak he was, what a child, she was weary of him, although he was not entirely to blame. It was life. And besides, during all that time there had been the most urgent pursuit of her by other men, men of the world and of means, who had tried to influence her with the thought of how easily her life could be made more agreeable. Why remain faithful to so young and poor a man when so much could be done for her. But she had refused. Despite Byram’s lacks she had small interest in them, although their money and skill had succeeded in debasing Byram in her young and untrained imagination, making him seem even weaker and more ridiculous than he was. But that was all so long ago now and Vivian had proved so much more important in her life. While even now she was sorry for Harry and for Byram she could only think of Vivian, who was irretrievably gone. Byram was successful now and out of her life, but maybe if life had not been so unkind and they so foolish——

“_You may have Henry serve breakfast and call the car!_”

And then after Byram had come Newton, big, successful, important, a quondam employer of Byram, who had met her on the street one day when she was looking for work, just when she had begun to sense how inefficient Byram really was, and he had proved kind without becoming obnoxious or demanding. While declaring, and actually proving, that he wished nothing more of her than her good-will, he had aided her with work, an opportunity to make her own way. All men were not selfish. He had been the vice-president of the Dickerson Company and had made a place for her in his office, saying that what she did not know he would teach her since he needed a little sunshine there. And all the while her interest in Byram was waning, so much so that she had persuaded him to seek work elsewhere so that she might be rid of him, and then she had gone home to live with her mother. And Newton would have married her if she had cared, but so grieved was she by the outcome of her first love and marriage that she would not.

“_The sedan, yes. And I will take my furs._”

And then, living with her mother and making her own way, she had been sought by others. But there had been taking root and growing in her an ideal which somehow in the course of time had completely mastered her and would not even let her think of anything else, save in moments of loneliness and the natural human yearning for life. This somehow concerned some one man, not any one she knew, not any one she was sure she would ever meet, but one so wonderful and ideal that for her there could be no other like him. He was not to be as young or unsophisticated as Byram, nor as old and practical as Newton, though possibly as able (though somehow this did not matter), but wise and delicate, a spirit-mate, some such wondrous thing as a great musician or artist might be, yet to whom in spite of his greatness she was to be all in all. She could not have told herself then how she was to have appealed to him, unless somehow surely, because of her great desire for him, her beauty and his understanding of her need. He was to have a fineness of mind and body, a breadth, a grasp, a tenderness of soul such as she had not seen except in pictures and dreams. And such as would need her.

“_To Thorne and Company’s first, Fred._”

Somewhere she had seen pictures of Lord Byron, of Shelley, Liszt and Keats, and her soul had yearned over each, the beauty of their faces, the record of their dreams and seekings, their something above the common seeking and clayiness (she understood that now). They were of a world so far above hers. But before Vivian appeared, how long a journey! Life had never been in any hurry for her. She had gone on working and seeking and dreaming, the while other men had come and gone. There had been, for instance, Joyce with whom, had she been able to tolerate him, she might have found a life of comfort in so far as material things went. He was, however, too thin or limited spiritually to interest a stirring mind such as hers, a material man, and yet he had along with his financial capacity more humanity than most, a kind of spiritual tenderness and generosity at times towards some temperaments. But no art, no true romance. He was a plunger in real estate, a developer of tracts. And he lacked that stability and worth of temperament which even then she was beginning to sense as needful to her, whether art was present or not. He was handsomer than Byram, a gallant of sorts, active and ebullient, and always he seemed to sense, as might a homing pigeon, the direction in which lay his own best financial opportunities and to be able to wing in that direction. But beyond that, what? He was not brilliant mentally, merely a clever “mixer” and maker of money, and she was a little weary of men who could think only in terms of money. How thin some clever men really were!

“_I rather like that. I’ll try it on._”

And so it had been with him as it had been with Byram and Newton, although he sought her eagerly enough! and so it was afterward with Edward and Young. They were all worthy men in their way. No doubt some women would be or already had been drawn to them and now thought them wonderful. Even if she could have married any one of them it would only have been to have endured a variation of what she had endured with Byram; with them it would have been of the mind instead of the purse, which would have been worse. For poor Byram, inefficient and inexperienced as he was, had had some little imagination and longings above the commonplace. But these, as contrasted with her new ideal——

“_Yes, the lines of this side are not bad._”

Yes, in those days there had come to her this nameless unrest, this seeking for something better than anything she had yet known and which later, without rhyme or reason, had caused her to be so violently drawn to Vivian. Why had Vivian always grieved so over her earlier affairs? They were nothing, and she regretted them once she knew him.

“_Yes, you may send me this one, and the little one with the jade pins._”

And then after Young had come Karel, the son of rich parents and well-placed socially in Braleigh. He was young, well-informed, a snob of sorts, although a gentle one. The only world he knew was that in which his parents had been reared. Their ways had been and always would be his, conservatism run mad. At thirty the only place to go in summer was Macomber Beach, and in winter the only place to be was in Braleigh. There he could meet his equals twenty times a day. They went to the same homes, the same hotels, the same parties the year round. It was all the life he wanted, and it was all the life she would have been expected to want. But by then she was being hopelessly held by this greater vision and something within had said: “No, no, no!”

“_You were making over my ermine cape. Is it finished?_”

And Loring! He, for a change, was a physician there in Braleigh and lived with his sister in Lankester Way, near her home, only hers was in a cheaper street. He was young and good-looking but seemed to think only of his practice, how it was to make him and achieve her perhaps, although it had all seemed so commonplace and practical to her. He was so keen as to his standing with the best people, always so careful of his ways and appearance, as though his life depended upon it. He might have married more to his social and financial advantage but he had wanted her. And she had never been able to endure him—never seriously tolerate his pursuit.

“_Yes, if you would alter these sleeves I might like it._”

Whenever he saw her he would come hustling up. “My, but it’s nice to see you again, Ulrica. You are always the same, always charming, always beautiful—now don’t frown. Have you changed your mind yet, Ulrica? You don’t want to forget that I’m going to be one of the successful men here some day. Please do smile a little for me. I’ll be just as successful as Joyce or any of them.”

“And is it just success you think I want?” she had asked.

“Oh, I know it isn’t just that, but I’ve had a hard time and so have you. I know it wouldn’t do any good to offer you only success, but what I mean is that it makes everything so much easier. With you I could do anything—” and so he would ramble on.

“_To McCafferey’s, the Post Street entrance._”

But the shrewd hard eyes and dapper figure and unvaried attention to _his interests_ had all bored and after a time alienated her, since her ideal seemed to dwarf and discolor every one and everything. Was there not something somewhere much bigger than all this, these various and unending men, she had asked herself, some man not necessarily so successful financially but different? She had felt that she would find him somewhere, must indeed if her life was to mean anything to her. Always her great asset, her beauty, had been looked upon as the one thing she must keep for this other. And so it had gone, man after man and flirtation after flirtation. It had seemed as though it would never end. Even after she had transferred her life to the great city, to work, to go upon the stage if need be, there were more of these endless approaches and recessions; but, like the others, they had come and gone, leaving only a faint impression. Not until that day at Althea’s party in the rooming-house in which they both lived had she found the one who touched her.

And then—

“_And now to the Willoughby._”

It was late afternoon and just as she was returning from her task of seeking work in connection with the stage that they met. There he was in Althea’s room, tall, spare, angular, slightly sallow and cloisterish, his heavy eyebrows low above his sunken eyes as though he sought to shut himself in to himself, and with those large dark eyes fixed ruminatively and yet somewhat uncertainly upon all, even her when she came. And from Althea she gathered that he was a painter of strange dark landscapes and decorations which many of those who knew seemed to think were wonderful but which as yet had achieved no recognition at all. Worse, he was from the Rockies, a sheep-rancher’s son, but had not been able to endure ranching. His future was still very far before him, and, as one could sense, he was so innocent of any desire to be put forward; he seemed half the time to be a—dream. By some strange freak of luck he was still there when she entered, sitting in a corner not entirely at ease, because, as he told her later, he was strange to such affairs and did not know when to go.

_The brightness of the buildings in the spring sun!_

And she had looked at his hands, at his commonplace clothes, and then, a little troubled by his gaze, had withdrawn hers. Again and again her eyes sought his or his hers, as though they were furtively surveying each other; as though each was unable to keep his eyes off the other. And by degrees there was set up in her a tremendous something that was like music and fear combined, as though all at once she had awakened and comprehended. She was no longer the complete master of herself, as she had always imagined, but was now seized upon and possessed by this stranger! In brief, here he was, her dream, and now she could do nothing save gaze nervously and appealingly—for what? Those dark, sombre eyes, the coarse black hair and sallow skin! Yes, it was he indeed, her love, her star, the one by whose mystic light she had been steering her course these many years. She sensed it. Knew it. He was here before her now as though saying: “Come.” And she could only smile foolishly without speaking. Her hands trembled and her throat tightened until she almost choked. “I never saw any one more beautiful than you,” he had said afterwards when they talked, and she had thrilled so that it was an effort not to cry out. And then he had sighed like a child and said: “Talk to me, about anything—but don’t go, will you?”

_The air—the air—this day!_

And so, realizing that he valued her for this one gift at least, her beauty, she had sought now to make him understand that she was his without, however, throwing herself beggingly before him. With her eyes, her smile, her every gesture, she had said: “I am yours! I am yours! Can’t you see?” At last, in his shy way, he had seemed to comprehend, but even then, as he afterwards confessed, he could not believe that anything so wonderful could follow so speedily upon contact, that one could love, adore, at sight. She had asked where he lived and if she might come and see his work, and with repressed intensity he had said: “I wish you would! I wish you could come to-day!” It had made her sad and yet laugh, too, for joy.

_That single tree blooming in this long, hard block!_

There and then, with only the necessary little interludes which propriety seemed to demand, and with longing and seeking on the part of each, had begun that wondrous thing, their love. Only it seemed to have had no fixed beginning,—to have been always—just been. For the day she had called him up his voice had so thrilled her that she could scarcely speak. She had still felt she had known him for so long. How could that have been?

“I was afraid you might not call,” he had said tremulously, and she had replied: “And I was wondering if you really wanted me to.”

And when she sought him out in his studio she had found it to be such a poor mean room over a stable, in a mean street among a maze of mean streets, and yet had thought it heaven. It was so like him, so bare and yet wonderful—a lovely spiritual mood set over against tawdry materials and surroundings.

“_Drive me through the East Side, Fred._”

Better, she had found him painting or perhaps merely pretending to. He had on that old long gray linen duster which later became so familiar a thing to her. And to one side of him and his easel on a table were some of the colors of his palette, greens and purples and browns and blues. He had said so softly as he opened the door to her: “My painting is all bluffing to-day. I haven’t been able to think of anything but you, how you might not come, how you would look—” And then, without further introduction or explanation, under the north light of his roof window filtering down dustily upon them, he had put his arms about her and she her lips to his, and they had clung together, thinking only of each other, their joy and their love. And he had sighed, a tired sigh, or one of great relief after a strain, such a strain as she herself had been under.

_That one little cloud in the sky!_

And then after a time, he had shown her the picture he was painting, a green lush sea-marsh with a ribbon of dark enamel-like water laving the mucky strand, and overhead heavy, sombre, smoky clouds, those of a sultry summer day over a marsh. And in the distance, along the horizon, a fringe of trees showing as a filigree. But what a mood! Now it hung in the Wakefield Gallery—and— (Harry had helped to place it there for her!) But then he had said, putting his brushes aside: “But what is the use of trying to paint now that you are here?” And she had sighed for joy, so wonderful was it all.

_The crowds in these East Side streets!_

Yet what had impressed her most was that he made no apology for the bareness and cheapness of his surroundings. Outside were swarming push carts and crowds, the babble of the great foreign section, but it was all as though he did not hear. Over a rack at the back of the large bare room he had hung a strip of faded burnt orange silk and another of clear light green, which vivified what otherwise would have been dusty and gray. Behind this, as she later discovered, were his culinary and sleeping worlds.

And then, of course, had come other days.

_But how like that first day was this one, so fresh and bright!_

There was no question here of what was right or wrong, conventional or otherwise. This was love, and this her beloved. Had she not sought him in the highways and the byways? At the close of one afternoon, as she was insisting that she must continue her search for work, now more than ever since neither he nor she had anything, he had said sadly: “Don’t go. We need so little, Ulrica. Don’t. I can’t stand it now.” And she had come back. “No,” she had replied, “I won’t—I can’t—not any more, if you want me.”

And she had stayed.

And that wondrous, beautiful love-life! The only love-life she had ever known.

But just the same she had seen that she must redouble her efforts to make her way, and had. Six hundred dollars she had brought to the city was nearly all gone, and as for Vivian, his allotment was what he could earn, a beggar’s dole. During the days that followed, each bringing them closer, he had confessed more and more of the difficulties that confronted him, how hard it was to sell his wares. And she—it was needful for her to reopen the pages of her past. She had not been happy or prosperous, she told him; fortune might have been hers for the taking but she could not endure those who came with it. Now that she had the misery of her soul’s ache removed she must find something to do. The stage was her great opportunity. And plainly his life was one which had always been and must be based on the grudged dole that life offers to those who love its beauty and lift their eyes. So few, as yet, knew of his work or had been arrested by it. Yet if he persisted, as she felt,—if that wondrous something in his work which had attracted the sensitive and selective did not fail—

_The hot, bare redness of the walls of these streets, so flowerless, so bleak, and yet so alive and human!_

But all too well she understood that his life, unless changed by her, would ever be the meagre thing it had been. Beauty was his, but no more,—a beauty of mind and of dreams and of the streets and the night and the sea and the movements of life itself, but of that which was material he had nothing. That was for those whom she had been unable to endure. Only by a deft synthesis of those wondrous faculties which concern beauty was he able to perceive, respond to, translate the things which he saw and felt, and these were not of matter. Rather, they were epitomes, his pictures, of lands and skies and seas and strange valleys of dreams, worlds in miniature. But what transmutations and transferences! She was never weary of the pictures he made. Nor was she ever weary of the picture he made before his easel, tenuous and pale and concerned, his graceful hands at work with the colors he synthetized. The patience, the stability, the indifference to all but that which was his to do!

“_Into Bartow Street, Fred._”

And in him, too, was no impatience with life for anything it might have failed to provide. Instead, he seemed ever to be thinking of its beauties and harmonies, the wonder of its dawns and sunsets, the colors and harmonies of its streets, buildings, crowds, silences. Often of a morning when it was yet dark he would arise and open a door that gave out onto a balcony and from there gaze upon the sky and city. And at any time it was always an instinct with him to pause before anything that appealed to either of them as beautiful or interesting. And in his eye was never the estimating glint of one who seeks to capture for profit that which is elemental and hence evanescent, but only the gaze of the lover of beauty, the worshiper of that which is profitable to the soul only.

_The very street! The very studio!_

Although she was ignorant of the spirit or the technique of art she had been able to comprehend it and him, all that he represented as a portion of beauty itself, the vast and supernal beauty toward which the creative forces of life in their harsh and yet tender ways seem impelled at times.

Had she not understood very well that it was as beauty that she appealed to him, at first anyhow, an artistry of face and form plus a certain mood of appreciation or adoration or understanding which was of value to him? How often had he spoken of her lavender-lidded eyes, the whiteness and roundness of her arms, the dark gold of her hair, the sombre unrevealing blue of the iris of her eyes! Here strange it was that these seemed to enthrall and hold him at times, leaving him, if not weak, at least childlike in her hands. He had never seemed to weary of her and during all their days together she could feel his unreasoning joy in her.

_His one-time yellow curtains exchanged for green ones!_