Chapter III: A Thousand Women in One

Philip Morley’s imagination was not in the habit of being appealed to by individuals, so often as his mind and heart. But that he had plenty of imagination, waiting for the human touch, was proved by its response to all that was beautiful in literature, music, and the other arts. Perhaps the fault lay in an absence of the kindred quality in most of the people of his intimate acquaintance, for his particular circle was Bostonian in the narrowest limitations, as well as the broadest boundaries, of that indefinable term, and imagination was not the salient quality possessed by the inhabitants of his world.

During his first glimpse of Edith Dudley, she had warmed his imagination, and after his second and third interviews she had fairly set it on fire. Her beauty changed but never decreased, and her sympathetic nature, with its wonderful responsiveness to each mood of her companion, was rendered the more fascinating to Philip by an inexplicable drawing back of her real self into its shell, when he probed for a deeper knowledge.

He had formed the habit of dropping in for a frequent cup of tea at the Eltons’, and though Mary at first made a congenial third in the conversations with her two friends, she gradually made excuses either for coming home late or going upstairs to rest.

Repose had not, until recently, figured on Mary Elton’s daily programme, but she had looked ill all through the autumn, and though she resented any inquiries, and snubbed all attempts to discover her malady, it was evident that physically she was not herself. She begged Philip to take her place in showing her guest the sights of Boston, and thus it happened that he became the envy of all his friends, by his constant attendance at the side of the beautiful girl who not only trod with him the conventional paths of the Back Bay, but explored the remoter ways of more unfashionable quarters.

There were soon plenty of other men who talked with her and walked with her, who danced with her and flirted with her. She began to identify herself with the life of the people around her, and to interest herself in whatever most absorbed her new friends.

She took an active part in various church clubs and organizations, under the guidance of her clerical conquest; she delighted her collegiate admirers by going with them to theatres and variety shows,--displaying all the unsophisticated enthusiasm of a child,--and she converted Miss Milton to a belief in the sincerity of butterflies by keeping a weekly appointment with five poor families in the North End. But in spite of these side-tracks for her interests and energies, it soon became evident to all that Philip Morley had appropriated the largest share of her time and thoughts for himself.

Between the girl and Philip, Mary Elton was a frequent and absorbing subject of conversation, and whenever she was mentioned, Philip received the same impression of repressed feeling in his companion’s voice and manner.

“I have never felt about any one as I feel about her,” Edith said to him one day. “You can’t understand what I mean. She knows me thoroughly, and when one’s character is very weak, and yet one is loved by a person of strength,--of one’s own sex,--it somehow gives one hope to keep up the fight.”

This interesting stage of unformulated sentiments between Edith Dudley and Philip Morley was broken in upon by the unexpected arrival in Boston of an old friend of Edith’s from Baltimore,--a man whose manners soon made it evident to shrewd observers that he was a rejected lover, as well as an accepted friend. His appearance suggested the villain in a modern melodrama, and one almost expected to hear gallery hisses arise from protesting Philistines when he appeared. He was dark, handsome, scrupulously polite, suspiciously unvillainous.

But from the moment Grant Lorimer appeared on the scene, Edith Dudley seemed to lose her poise and happy ease of manner. It was as if he exerted an influence which she could not resist, yet to which she did not wish to yield herself. Mary at once christened him Dr. Fell, for obvious reasons, and he seemed to justify the title if not the name, for he had seen her only once for a few moments, when he said to Edith, “Your friend Miss Elton is a very sick woman. I don’t mean nervous prostration and that sort of thing, but something really vital. I’ve been in hospitals. I know the signs.” Edith gave a cry of real pain.

“Oh, don’t say so! You don’t know what it would mean to me,” was her first selfish word. “It would be like taking a crutch away from a feeble old woman, to snatch Mary out of my life. You know what I am, Grant; you and she alone in the world understand my weakness.”

“Yes, and we both love you,” he stated firmly.

“Please don’t say so,” she shuddered.

A few days after this the two girls were in Mary’s room one morning, engaged in various jobs of leisurely domesticity, such as mending stockings, polishing finger nails, and running ribbons into sundry lace-trimmed garments. The conditions seemed to invite confidence, and Mary accepted the invitation by saying suddenly, “Edith, forgive my impertinence, put it down to my being physically upset, if you wish--but which do you mean to marry, Grant Lorimer or Philip Morley?”

The girl flushed. “And must I marry one?” she asked.

“I think you will have to. You see I know you.”

“Then why do you care for me?” Edith asked impulsively. “Why do you, who are all strength and conviction, care for a blank like me?”

“I don’t know,” Mary confessed. “I suppose it’s because you’re so extraordinarily pretty; and then you’re clever, too, and most good-looking women are fools.”

“I’m not a fool,” Edith acknowledged, “but then I’m not anything.”

“I know it, and it’s really refreshing in these over-strenuous days to find some one with no character at all. Excuse my frankness,--I love you just the same, Edith; that’s the funny part of it,--but it has only lately begun to dawn on me that you really might be said not to exist at all, unless there is some one with you to bring out some response, and then you are vivid as a rainbow. You are like that hero in Henry James’s story,--do you remember? They suddenly found that he simply melted into thin air, unless there was some other intelligence in the room to play upon his.”

Edith’s eyes grew blank and expressionless. “Yes, I am like that,” she said in a dull monotone. “I have been brought up from the cradle to produce an effect. My mother and my father bent all their efforts to make me into what they wished me to become. All my natural passions were curbed, all my impulses checked. I was not created by God, like other people,--I was manufactured by my parents. I am like one of those toys labeled ‘made in Germany.’”

“But it takes a long time to find you out,” Mary protested. “You’re a wonderfully good imitation of a human being. You don’t seem a bit mechanical.”

“Oh, I have been well educated,” Edith acknowledged, dispassionately. “When I am with people, I do not merely reflect their ideas, I can furnish others in the same line, only not in opposition. I have some intelligence, but I have no character, no beliefs, no convictions.”

“It is very strange,” Mary mused. “Are you happy?”

“Happy? No, I don’t think so, nor unhappy. I like to be with you. You have so much character and force that it is almost infectious. But I like any one I am with. If a strong will is brought to bear on mine, it can control me utterly. I am not bad by nature, any more than I am good. I am simply what the other person wants me to be. It is my misfortune, Mary; not my fault, but my curse--the curse of my inheritance, my bringing up. I am not deliberately a turncoat, a caterer, as you called me once to Mr. Morley. I am simply a cipher, waiting for a definite figure to stand in front of me, and give me meaning.” The girl was pathetic in her unavailing self-knowledge.

“You would interest the psychologists,” Mary said. “You are a living example of the power of suggestion.”

“Yes,” Edith continued earnestly, “I seem to have no Ego. There are hundreds of different individualities shut up inside me, waiting to pop out as they are wanted, yet none of them is _me_,--there is no real _me_. If I am suddenly asked, by a person I have never seen, what I think on a certain subject, I can’t answer till I feel what the other person’s point of view is, and then I express it as well as I can.”

“You’re like a prism, waiting for the sun of outside personality to shine on you and scatter your colors. Well, I go back to my first question,” Mary insisted; “which of them do you intend to marry?”

“How can you ask? I suppose whichever has the stronger will,--unless some outside influence or event is stronger than either,” the girl confessed hopelessly. “Mary, I tried--I mean I tried to try--not to let Philip Morley fall in love with me. But I couldn’t make the effort. I hoped that you would. You and he should have belonged to each other,--but you threw us together. I was utterly powerless and weak,--he is attracted by a pretty face and by a character that he can mould and influence. Mary, why did you not keep him for yourself? It would have been better for all.”

Mary rose to her feet and stamped. “_Me?_ What are you thinking of, Edith Dudley? Any man--even the most sensible man--would rather marry a pretty fool than an ugly and embittered jade like me. Not that you are a fool, you poor dear lovely nonentity, you! You are as clever and intelligent as you are fascinating; and I truly believe that you--a non-existent being almost--will bring more happiness to a self-reliant man like Philip than any of the strong-minded women he might marry. The whole question comes down to one of love. He loves you; he does not love--us.”

“Oh, why doesn’t he _feel_ what you are, Mary!” her friend exclaimed. But this was not a subject on which Mary cared to expand, although she always rose to the bait of her own character as a subject for discussion.

“I am likable, but not at all lovable,” she explained, with her relentless self-analysis. “There is no charm or illusion about me. Besides, look at my face!”

Edith Dudley did look at her friend’s small green eyes, indefinite hair and complexion, and too definite nose and mouth; but, with her never-failing desire to say the kindly thing, replied, “Some day some one will care tremendously for you. All men don’t fall in love with wax dolls. Besides, you are”--

“Now, my dear Edith, don’t tell me that I am interesting-looking, or have a sweet face! That is always the final insult of beauty to ugliness. I know perfectly well that I am extremely plain. I am not in the least self-deceived.”

“But there are so many more attractive qualities than mere flesh and blood good looks,” the beauty tritely suggested.

“Are there? Well, I would give every virtue I possess in exchange for that mere physical beauty you carry so lightly,” Mary exclaimed, with a bitter little laugh. “People who are good-looking and charming ought to find it easy to be amiable and sweet. They are born in harmony with the world. Every one is predisposed in their favor from the start, while we ugly people can hope to call forth no more flattering sentiment than a half-contemptuous pity.”

“What extreme statements you do make, Mary!” interposed Edith Dudley. “I don’t know any one who has more friends than you. What do they care whether you have a Grecian nose or not?”

“They don’t care,--that’s the pity of it,--and they think I don’t care either. By some strange system of reasoning they imagine that because my hair is straight and thin I must find it easy to tell the truth; and they fondly believe that because my mouth is large, I must enjoy visiting in the slums. People associate certain physical attributes with certain mental qualities; but all I can say is, that in my own case my character and my features are in constant warfare.”

Edith, having no comforting rejoinder ready, merely looked distressed, and Mary continued:--

“Of course I know that Charity, with a very big C, is the generally accepted refuge of the plain,--and I am expected to enjoy philanthropy more than frivolity, and to prefer committee meetings to dancing parties,--but the truth is, my soul or spirit or whatever you choose to call the thing that makes me _me_, and not somebody else, is not ugly at all. It enjoys the pleasant and prosperous side of life; it would like to have admiration and love affairs and all the agreeable things that you attractive people are born to as your natural inheritance. But fortunately I have a saving leaven of common sense and humor, which prevent my reaching out my skinny arms to grasp at blessings that are not meant for me. Sooner or later, I suppose, I must accept my inevitable destiny of philanthropist, but incidentally I shall turn into an embittered, caustic old maid, unless an early death cuts me down in my prime. Then, my dear, you would find that I had given promise of being ‘a noble woman.’ Premature death is the only artistic end for souls and faces that are uncongenially yoked together.”

Mary had worked herself into the state of rebellion that always followed any reference to her personal appearance.

“Do let’s change the subject,” she said, abruptly. “Let’s talk about you again. One thing I don’t understand is why you haven’t succumbed before this, and married some of the men who must have been crazy to get you. If you are a mere pipe for fortune’s finger to touch what stop she pleases, why haven’t you yielded to the persuasions of some of your suitors?”

“Because,” Edith explained with simple straightforwardness, “there has always been a stronger will brought to bear on me, before I could yield. My father was very ambitious for me, and he was a man of intense feelings. He always took me away before things reached a climax, and then some other man would come along, and he would feel more strongly than the last; and so it went, my father’s will controlling me more completely than that of any lover. Besides,” she explained ingenuously, “Grant Lorimer is the only one that knows I have no character. The others all thought me very strong; but they were mostly foreigners, and abroad, you know, the parents have so much more control over a girl. Mary,” she cried suddenly, “I am really afraid of Grant! Sooner or later he vows I must be his, and if that is to be, it’s better sooner than later, for later I may be married to some one else.”

“Have you no will at all?” exclaimed Mary, passionately and with a touch of scorn.

“Absolutely none,” Edith acknowledged sadly; “only the will to acquiesce in the strongest influence that touches me. My one safety from Grant Lorimer is to have Philip Morley show more strength of will, and make me marry him, yet I know I shouldn’t make him happy long. I can’t love any one, Mary. I feel everything a little, but nothing much. I can’t even cry, though I can shed tears. I would give all my good looks, that you admire so unduly, to be capable of feeling as strongly about _anything_ as you do about--your nose, for instance.”

“Well, there seems to be no satisfying us, does there?” Mary commented with a short, cynical laugh. “My only hope is that I shan’t live to see the people I care most for--myself among them, of course--made unhappy. I can’t help feeling that if you married Philip Morley, the strength of his love would create a soul and heart in you, and if you once had the spirit of life and feeling breathed into you, you would be the most perfect wife a man could dream of possessing.”

Mary closed her eyes a moment, and a spasm of pain passed over her face. “Heaven keep me from ever witnessing that happiness!” she groaned, too indistinctly for Edith to hear the words. Suddenly her tone changed abruptly, and she straightened herself up. “Edith, I may as well tell you that I’ve got something pretty serious the matter with me. I’ve suspected it for some time, but I only found out yesterday.”

Edith gave a sharp “Oh!” of sympathy. “Tell me, dear,” she said softly.

“No, that’s just what I don’t mean to do,--at any rate not yet. I do hate this modern fashion of having one’s insides the subject of general conversation. It positively makes me blush, when I stop to think how much I know about the organs of people with whom I am scarcely on bowing terms. I did hope I could escape this fad of being operated on; it’s worse than bridge whist.”

That Mary was not in a mood for sympathy was very evident, and her friend’s genius for tact led her to do the right thing in replying, “You may trust me, Mary, to say nothing about your illness to any one till you wish me to, and you’ll please me immensely by letting me do anything I can to make the next few weeks easier.” This unemotional little speech was followed by a matter-of-fact kiss deposited on Mary’s sallow cheek, after which Edith obeyed her friend’s unspoken wish, and left her alone.

During the week that followed this conversation, Grant Lorimer’s attentions to Edith redoubled in violence. It was unfortunate that Philip Morley should have selected this period of emotional storm and stress to declare his love and humbly ask for its reward. Edith Dudley’s will was temporarily dominated and controlled by that of her Southern lover, and to Philip’s pleadings she could only dumbly shake her head, and whisper painfully, “I can’t, I can’t.”

What she would have liked to say was, “Wait a week till Grant Lorimer goes away, as he has to do for a time, and then try again;” but instead of that her refusal had the sound of finality to Philip’s inexperienced ears.

The combination of Philip’s strong and genuine love, and Mary’s strong and genuine hate of Grant Lorimer, availed to keep the girl from actually yielding to the persuasions of the man who knew her weakness; but though the combined pressure of wills was sufficient to prevent her accepting one lover, it was not sufficient to keep her from refusing the other. Thus an equal balance was temporarily maintained.

At this crisis in her love affairs Edith was invited to go with a party to the White Mountains for a week, and though she regretted leaving Mary in her poor state of health, the will of the invalid was so much stronger than hers, that she found herself constrained to accept. Mary had grasped the situation pretty correctly, and she rightly guessed that the best thing for all was her guest’s absence for a time. Fortunately Grant Lorimer’s mother was ill enough to demand his presence in Baltimore, and home he was obliged to go, with his campaign of conquest unaccomplished.

Left to herself, Mary breathed a sigh of stoicism rather than resignation, gave up her fight with appearances, and acknowledged herself to be really ill.