The Other Two
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The Other Two
Wharton, Edith, 1862-1937
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1995
About the print version
The Other Two
Collier's Weekly
Edith Wharton
Crowell-Collier Publishing Co.
Springfield, Ohio
February 13, 1904
Note: Volume 32, pages 15-17, 20. Copy used: St. Louis Public Library; P
Colliers 32.
Published: February 13, 1904
English fiction; prose Women Writers anonymous; Charles Dana Gibson illustration
24-bit color; 300 dpi
Revisions to the electronic version
December 1995 corrector Catherine Tousignant
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My Valentine. Drawn by Charles Dana Gibson.
-15-
"The Other Two." Collier's Weekly 32, 13 Feb. 1904: 15-17, 20.
By EDITH WHARTON, Author of "The Valley of Decision," etc.
I
Mr. Waythorn
WAYTHORN, on the drawing-room hearth, waited for his wife to come down to
dinner.
It was their first night under his own roof, and he was surprised at his
thrill of boyish agitation. He was not so old, to be sure -- his glass gave him
little more than the five-and-thirty years to which his wife confessed -- but he
had fancied himself already in the temperate zone; yet here he was listening for
her step with a tender sense of all it symbolized, with some old trail of verse
about the garlanded nuptial door-posts floating through his enjoyment of the
pleasant room and the good dinner just beyond it.
They had been hastily recalled from their honeymoon by the illness of Lily
Haskett, the child of Mrs. Waythorn's first marriage. The little girl, at
Waythorn's desire, had been transferred to his house on the day of her mother's
wedding, and the doctor, on their arrival, broke the news that she was ill with
typhoid, but declared that all the symptoms were favorable. Lily could show
twelve years of unblemished health, and the case promised to be a light one. The
nurse spoke as reassuringly, and after a moment of alarm Mrs. Waythorn had
adjusted herself to the situation. S
he was very fond of Lily -- her affection
for the child had perhaps been her decisive charm in Waythorn's eyes -- but she
had the perfectly balanced nerves which her little girl had inherited, and no
woman ever wasted less tissue in unproductive worry. Waythorn was therefore
quite prepared to see her come in presently, a little late because of a last
look at Lily, but as serene and well-appointed as if her good-night kiss had
been laid on the brow of health. Her composure was restful to him; it acted as
ballast to his somewhat unstable sensibilities. As he pictured her bending over
the child's bed he thought how soothing her presence must be in illness: her
very step would prognosticate recovery.
His own life had been a gray one, from temperament rather than circumstance,
and he had been drawn to her by the unperturbed gayety which kept her fresh and
elastic at an age when most women's activities are growing either slack or
febrile. He knew what was said about her; for, popular as she was, there had
always been a faint undercurrent of detraction. When she had appeared in New
York, nine or ten years earlier, as the pretty Mrs. Haskett whom Gus Varick had
unearthed somewhere -- was it in Pittsburgh or Utica? -- society, while promptly
accepting her, had reserved the right to cast a doubt on its own discrimination.
Inquiry, however, established her undoubted connection with a socially reigning
family, and explained her recent divorce as the natural result of a runaway
match at seventeen; and as nothing was known of Mr. Haskett it was easy to
believe the worst of him.
Alice Haskett's remarriage with Gus Varick was a passport to the set whose
recognition she coveted, and for a few years the Varicks were the most popular
couple in town. Unfortunately the alliance was brief and stormy, and this time
the husband had his champions. Still, even Varick's stanchest supporters
admitted that he was not meant for matrimony, and Mrs. Varick's grievances were
of a nature to bear the inspection of the New York courts. A New York divorce is
in itself a diploma of virtue, and in the semi- widowhood of this second
separation Mrs. Varick took on an air of sanctity, and was allowed to confide
her wrongs to some of the most scrupulous ears in town. But when it was known
that she was to marry Waythorn there was a momentary reaction. Her best friends
would have preferred to see her remain in the role of the injured wife, which
was as
-16-
becoming to her as crape to a rosy complexion. True, a decent time had elapsed,
and it was not even suggested that Waythorn had supplanted his predecessor.
Still, people shook their heads over him, and one grudging friend, to whom he
affirmed that he took the step with his eyes open, replied oracularly: "Yes --
and with your ears shut."
Waythorn could afford to smile at these innuendoes. In the Wall Street
phrase, he had "discounted"
them. He knew that society has not yet adapted
itself to the consequences of divorce, and that till the adaptation takes place
every woman who uses the freedom the law accords her must be her own social
justification. Waythorn had an amused confidence in his wife's ability to
justify herself. His expectations were fulfilled, and before the wedding took
place Alice Varick's group had rallied openly to her support. She took it all
imperturbably: she had a way of surmounting obstacles without seeming to be
aware of them, and Waythorn looked back with wonder at the trivialities over
which he had worn his nerves thin. He had the sense of having found refuge in a
richer, warmer nature than his own, and his satisfaction, at the moment, was
humorously summed up in the thought that his wife, when she had done all she
could for Lily, would not be ashamed to come down and enjoy a good dinner.
The anticipation of such enjoyment was not, however, the sentiment expressed
by Mrs. Waythorn's charming face when she presently joined him. Though she had
put on her most engaging teagown she had neglected to assume the smile that went
with it, and Waythorn thought he had never seen her look so nearly worried.
"What is it?" he asked. "Is anything wrong with Lily?"
"No; I've just been in and she's still sleeping." Mrs. Waythorn hesitated.
"But something tiresome has happened."
He had taken her two hands, and now perceived that he was crushing a paper
between them.
"This letter?"
"Yes -- Mr. Haskett has written -- I mean his lawyer has written."
Waythorn felt himself flush uncomfortably. He dropped his wife's hands.
"What about?"
"About seeing Lily. You know the courts -- "
"Yes, yes," he interrupted nervously.
Nothing was known about Haskett in New York. He was vaguely supposed to have
remained in the outer darkness from which his wife had been rescued, and
Waythorn was one of the few who were aware that he had given up his business in
Utica and followed her to New York in order to be near his little girl. In the
days of his wooing, Waythorn had often met Lily on the doorstep, rosy and
smiling, on her way "to see papa."
"I am so sorry," Mrs. Waythorn murmured.
He roused himself. "What does he want?"
"He wants to see her. You know she goes to him once a week."
"Well -- he doesn't expect her to go to him now, does he?"
"No -- he has heard of her illness; but he expects to come here."
"Here?"
Mrs. Waythorn reddened under his gaze. They looked away from each other.
"I'm afraid he has the right. . . . You'll see. . . ." She made a proffer of
the letter.
Waythorn moved away with a gesture of refusal. He stood staring about the
softly lighted room, which a moment before had seemed so full of bridal
intimacy.
"I'm so sorry," she repeated. "If Lily could have been moved -- "
"That's out of the question," he returned impat
iently.
"I suppose so."
Her lip was beginning to tremble, and he felt himself a brute.
"He must come, of course," he said. "When is -- his day?"
"I'm afraid -- to-morrow."
"Very well. Send a note in the morning."
The butler entered to announce dinner.
Waythorn turned to his wife. "Come -- you must be tired. It's beastly, but
try to forget about it," he said, drawing her hand through his arm.
"You're so good, dear. I'll try," she whispered back.
Her face cleared at once, and as she looked at him across the flowers,
between the rosy candle-shades, he saw her lips waver back into a smile.
"How pretty everything is!" she sighed luxuriously.
He turned to the butler. "The champagne at once, please. Mrs. Waythorn is
tired."
In a moment or two their eyes met above the sparkling glasses. Her own were
quite clear and untroubled: he saw that she had obeyed his injunction and
forgotten.
Waythorn moved away with a gesture of refusal
II
A small effaced-looking man.
WAYTHORN, the next morning, went down town earlier than usual. Haskett was
not likely to come till the afternoon, but the instinct of flight drove him
forth. He meant to stay away all day -- he had thoughts of dining at his club.
As his door closed behind him he reflected that before he opened it again it
would have admitted another man who had as much right to enter it as himself,
and the thought filled him with a physical repugnance.
He caught the "elevated" at the employees' hour, and found himself crushed
between two layers of pendulous humanity. At Eighth Street the man facing him
wriggled out and another took his place. Waythorn glanced up and saw that it was
Gus Varick. The men were so close together that it was impossible to ignore the
smile of recognition on Varick's handsome overblown face. And after all -- why
not? They had always been on good terms, and Varick had been divorced before
Waythorn's attentions to his wife began. The two exchanged a word on the
perennial grievance of the congested trains, and when a seat at their side was
miraculously left empty the instinct of self-preservation made Waythorn slip
into it after Varick.
The latter drew the stout man's breath of relief.
"Lord -- I was beginning to feel like a pressed flower." He leaned back,
looking unconcernedly at Waythorn. "Sorry to hear that Sellers is knocked out
again."
"Sellers?" echoed Waythorn, starting at his partner's name.
Varick looked surprised. "You didn't know he was laid up with the gout?"
"No. I've been away -- I only got back last night." Waythorn felt himself
reddening in anticipation of the other's smile.
"Ah -- yes; to be sure. And Sellers's attack came on two days ago. I'm afraid
he's pretty bad. Very awkward for me, as it happens, because he was just putting
through a rather important thing for me."
"Ah?" Waythorn wondered
vaguely since when Varick had been dealing in
"important things." Hitherto he had dabbled only in the shallow pools of
speculation, with which Waythorn's office did not usually concern itself.
It occurred to him that Varick might be talking at random, to relieve the
strain of their propinquity. That strain was becoming momentarily more apparent
to Waythorn, and when, at Cortlandt Street, he caught sight of an acquaintance,
and had a sudden vision of the picture he and Varick must present to an
initiated eye, he jumped up with a muttered excuse.
"I hope you'll find Sellers better," said Varick civilly, and he stammered
back: "If I can be of any use to you -- " and let the departing crowd sweep him
to the platform.
At his office he heard that Sellers was in fact ill with the gout, and would
probably not be able to leave the house for some weeks.
"I'm sorry it should have happened so, Mr. Waythorn," the senior clerk said
with affable significance. "Mr. Sellers was very much upset at the idea of
giving you such a lot of extra work just now."
"Oh, that's no matter," said Waythorn hastily. He secretly welcomed the
pressure of additional business, and was glad to think that, when the day's work
was over, he would have to call at his partner's on the way home.
He was late for luncheon, and turned in at the nearest restaurant instead of
going to his club. The place was full, and the waiter hurried him to the back of
the room to capture the only vacant table. In the cloud of cigar-smoke Waythorn
did not at once distinguish his neighbors; but presently, looking about him, he
saw Varick seated a few feet off. This time, luckily, they were too far apart
for conversation, and Varick, who faced another way, had probably not even seen
him; but there was an irony in their renewed nearness.
Varick was said to be fond of good living, and as Waythorn sat despatching
his hurried luncheon he looked across half enviously at the other's leisurely
degustation of his meal. When Waythorn first saw him he had been helping himself
with critical deliberation to a bit of Camembert at the ideal point of
liquefaction, and now, the cheese removed, he was just pouring his cafe double
from its little two-storied earthen pot. He poured slowly, his ruddy profile
bent above the task, and one beringed white hand steadying the lid of the
coffee-pot; then he stretched his other hand to the decanter of cognac at his
elbow, filled a liqueur-glass, took a tentative sip, and poured the brandy into
his coffee-cup.
Waythorn watched him in a kind of fascination. What was he thinking of --
only of the flavor of the coffee and the liqueur? Had the morning's meeting left
no more trace in his thoughts than on his face? Had his wife so completely
passed out of his life that even this odd encounter with her present husband,
within a week after her remarriage, was no more than an incident in his da
y? And
as Waythorn mused, another idea struck him: had Haskett ever met Varick as
Varick and he had just met? The recollection of Haskett perturbed him, and he
rose and left the restaurant, taking a circuitous way out to escape the placid
irony of Varick's nod.
It was after seven when Waythorn reached home. He thought the footman who
opened the door looked at him oddly.
"How is Miss Lily?" he asked in haste.
"Doing very well, sir. A gentleman -- "
"Tell Barlow to put off dinner for half an hour," Waythorn cut him off,
hurrying upstairs.
He went straight to his room and dressed without seeing his wife. When he
reached the drawing-room she was there, fresh and radiant. Lily's day had been
good; the doctor was not coming back that evening.
At dinner Waythorn told her of Sellers's illness and of the resulting
complications. She listened sympathetically, adjuring him not to let himself be
overworked, and asking vague feminine questions about the routine of the office.
Then she gave him the chronicle of Lily's day; quoted the nurse and doctor, and
told him who had called to inquire. He had never seen her more serene and
unruffled. It struck him, with a curious pang, that she was very happy in being
with him, so happy that she found a childish pleasure in rehearsing the trivial
incidents of her day.
After dinner they went to the library, and the servant put the coffee and
liqueurs on a low table before her and left the room. She looked singularly soft
and girlish in her rosy pale dress, against the dark leather of one of his
bachelor armchairs. A day earlier the contrast would have charmed him.
He turned away now, choosing a cigar with affected deliberation.
"Did Haskett come?" he asked, with his back to her.
"Oh, yes -- he came."
"You didn't see him, of course?"
She hesitated a moment. "I let the nurse see him."
That was all. There was nothing more to ask. He swung round toward her,
applying a match to his cigar. Well, the thing was over for a week, at any rate.
He would try not to think of it. She looked up at him, a trifle rosier than
usual, with a smile in her eyes.
"Ready for your coffee, dear?"
He leaned against the mantelpiece, watching her as she lifted the coffee-pot.
The lamplight struck a gleam from her bracelets and tipped her soft hair with
brightness. How light and slender she was, and how each gesture flowed into the
next! She seemed a creature all compact of harmonies. As the thought of Haskett
receded, Waythorn felt himself yielding again to the joy of possessorship. They
were his, those white hands with their flitting motions, his the light haze of
hair, the lips and eyes. . . .
She set down the coffee-pot, and reaching for the decanter of cognac,
measured off a liqueur-glass and poured it into his cup.
Waythorn uttered a sudden exclamation.
"What is the matter?" she said, startled.
"Not
hing; only -- I don't take cognac in my coffee."
"Oh, how stupid of me," she cried.
Their eyes met, and she blushed a sudden agonized red.
III
TEN DAYS later, Mr. Sellers, still house-bound, asked Waythorn to call on
his way downtown.
The senior partner, with his swaddled foot propped up by the fire, greeted
his associate with an air of embarrassment.
"I'm sorry, my dear fellow; I've got to ask you to do an awkward thing for
me."
Waythorn waited, and the other went on, after a pause apparently given to the
arrangement of his phrases: "The fact is, when I was knocked out I had just gone
into a rather complicated piece of business for -- Gus Varick."
"Well?" said Waythorn, with an attempt to put him at his ease.
"Well -- it's this way: Varick came to me the day before my attack. He had
evidently had an inside tip from somebody, and had made about a hundred
thousand. He came to me for advice, and I suggested his going in with
Vanderlyn."
"Oh, the deuce!" Waythorn exclaimed. He saw in a flash what had happened. The
investment was an alluring one, but required negotiation. He listened intently
while Sellers put the case before him, and, the statement ended, he said: "You
think I ought to see Varick?"
"I'm afraid I can't as yet. The doctor is obdurate. And this thing can't
wait. I hate to ask you, but no one else in the office knows the ins and outs of
it."
-17-
Waythorn stood silent. He did not care a farthing for the success of Varick's
venture, but the honor of the office was to be considered, and he could hardly
refuse to oblige his partner.
"Very well," he said, "I'll do it."
That afternoon, apprised by telephone, Varick called at the office. Waythorn,
waiting in his private room, wondered what the others thought of it. The
newspapers, at the time of Mrs. Waythorn's marriage, had acquainted their
readers with every detail of her previous matrimonial ventures, and Waythorn
could fancy the clerks smiling behind Varick's back as he was ushered in.
Varick bore himself admirably. He was easy without being undignified, and
Waythorn was conscious of cutting a much less impressive figure. Varick had no
head for business, and the talk prolonged itself for nearly an hour while
Waythorn set forth with scrupulous precision the details of the proposed
transaction.
"I'm awfully obliged to you," Varick said as he rose. "The fact is I'm not
used to having much money to look after, and I don't want to make an ass of
myself -- " He smiled, and Waythorn could not help noticing that there was
something pleasant about his smile. "It feels uncommonly queer to have enough
cash to pay one's bills. I'd have sold my soul for it a few years ago!"
Waythorn winced at the allusion. He had heard it rumored that a lack of funds
had been one of the determining causes of the Varick separation, but it did not
occur to him tha
t Varick's words were intentional. It seemed more likely that
the desire to keep clear of embarrassing topics had fatally drawn him into one.
Waythorn did not wish to be outdone in civility.
"We'll do the best we can for you," he said. "I think this is a good thing
you're in."
"Oh, I'm sure it's immense. It's awfully good of you -- " Varick broke off,
embarrassed. "I suppose the thing's settled now -- but if -- "
"If anything happens before Sellers is about, I'll see you again," said
Waythorn quietly. He was glad, in the end, to appear the more self-possessed of
the two.
The course of Lily's illness ran smooth, and as the days passed Waythorn grew
used to the idea of Haskett's weekly visit. The first time the day came round,
he stayed out late, and questioned his wife as to the visit on his return. She
replied at once that Haskett had merely seen the nurse downstairs, as the doctor
did not wish any one in the child's sick-room till after the crisis.
The following week Waythorn was again conscious of the recurrence of the day,
but had forgotten it by the time he came home to dinner. The crisis of the
disease came a few days later, with a rapid decline of fever, and the little
girl was pronounced out of danger. In the rejoicing which ensued the thought of
Haskett passed out of Waythorn's mind and one afternoon, letting himself into
the house with a latchkey, he went straight to his library without noticing a
shabby hat and umbrella in the hall.
In the library he found a small effaced-looking man with a thinnish gray
beard sitting on the edge of a chair. The stranger might have been a
piano-tuner, or one of those mysteriously efficient persons who are summoned in
emergencies to adjust some detail of the domestic machinery. He blinked at
Waythorn through a pair of gold-rimmed spectacles and said mildly: "Mr.
Waythorn, I presume? I am Lily's father."
Waythorn flushed. "Oh -- " he stammered uncomfortably. He broke off,
disliking to appear rude. Inwardly he was trying to adjust the actual Haskett to
the image of him projected by his wife's reminiscences. Waythorn had been
allowed to infer that Alice's first husband was a brute.
"I am sorry to intrude," said Haskett, with his over-the- counter politeness.
"Don't mention it," returned Waythorn, collecting himself. "I suppose the
nurse has been told?"
"I presume so. I can wait," said Haskett. He had a resigned way of speaking,
as though life had worn down his natural powers of resistance.
Waythorn stood on the threshold, nervously pulling off his gloves.
"I'm sorry you've been detained. I will send for the nurse," he said; and as
he opened the door he added with an effort: "I'm glad we can give you a good
report of Lily." He winced as the we slipped out, but Haskett seemed not to
notice it.
"Thank you, Mr. Waythorn. It's been an anxious time for me."
"Ah, well, that's past. Soon
she'll be able to go to you." Waythorn nodded
and passed out.
In his own room, he flung himself down with a groan. He hated the womanish
sensibility which made him suffer so acutely from the grotesque chances of life.
He had known when he married that his wife's former husbands were both living,
and that amid the multiplied contacts of modern existence there were a thousand
chances to one that he would run against one or the other, yet he found himself
as much disturbed by his brief encounter with Haskett as though the law had not
obligingly removed all difficulties in the way of their meeting.
Waythorn sprang up and began to pace the room nervously. He had not suffered
half so much from his two meetings with Varick. It was Haskett's presence in his
own house that made the situation so intolerable. He stood still, hearing steps
in the passage.
"This way, please," he heard the nurse say. Haskett was being taken upstairs,
then: not a corner of the house but was open to him. Waythorn dropped into
another chair, staring vaguely ahead of him. On his dressing-table stood a
photograph of Alice, taken when he had first known her. She was Alice Varick
then -- how fine and exquisite he had thought her! Those were Varick's pearls
about her neck. At Waythorn's instance they had been returned before her
marriage. Had Haskett ever given her any trinkets -- and what had become of
them, Waythorn wondered? He realized suddenly that he knew very little of
Haskett's past or present situation; but from the man's appearance and manner of
speech he could reconstruct with curious precision the surroundings of Alice's
first marriage. And it startled him to think that she had, in the background of
her life, a phase of existence so different from anything with which he had
connected her. Varick, whatever his faults, was a gentleman, in the
conventional, traditional sense of the term: the sense which at that moment
seemed, oddly enough, to have most meaning to Waythorn. He and Varick had the
same social habits, spoke the same language, understood the same allusions. But
this other man . . . it was grotesquely uppermost in Waythorn's mind that
Haskett had worn a made-up tie attached with an elastic. Why should that
ridiculous detail symbolize the whole man? Waythorn was exasperated by his own
paltriness, but the fact of the tie expanded, forced itself on him, became as it
were the key to Alice's past. He could see her, as Mrs. Haskett, sitting in a
"front parlor" furnished in plush, with a pianola, and a copy of "Ben Hur" on
the centre-table. He could see her going to the theatre with Haskett -- or
perhaps even to a "Church Sociable" -- she in a "picture hat" and Haskett in a
black frock-coat, a little creased, with the made-up tie on an elastic. On the
way home they would stop and look at the illuminated shop-windows, lingering
over the photographs of New York actresses. On Sunday after
noons Haskett would
take her for a walk, pushing Lily ahead of them in a white enameled
perambulator, and Waythorn had a vision of the people they would stop and talk
to. He could fancy how pretty Alice must have looked, in a dress adroitly
constructed from the hints of a New York fashion-paper; how she must have looked
down on the other women, chafing at her life, and secretly feeling that she
belonged in a bigger place.
For the moment his foremost thought was one of wonder at the way in which she
had shed the phase of existence which her marriage with Haskett implied. It was
as if her whole aspect, every gesture, every inflection, every allusion, were a
studied negation of that period of her life. If she had denied being married to
Haskett she could hardly have stood more convicted of duplicity than in this
obliteration of the self which had been his wife.
Waythorn started up, checking himself in the analysis of her motives. What
right had he to create a fantastic effigy of her and then pass judgment on it?
She had spoken vaguely of her first marriage as unhappy, had hinted, with
becoming reticence, that Haskett had wrought havoc among her young illusions. .
. . It was a pity for Waythorn's peace of mind that Haskett's very
inoffensiveness shed a new light on the nature of those illusions. A man would
rather think that his wife has been brutalized by her first husband than that
the process has been reversed.
"Why, how do you do?" she said with a distinct note of pleasure
IV
"MR. WAYTHORN, I don't like that French governess of Lily's."
Haskett, subdued and apologetic, stood before Waythorn in the library,
revolving his shabby hat in his hand.
Waythorn, surprised in his armchair over the evening paper, stared back
perplexedly at his visitor.
"You'll excuse my asking to see you," Haskett continued. "But this is my last
visit, and I thought if I could have a word with you it would be a better way
than writing to Mrs. Waythorn's lawyer."
Waythorn rose uneasily. He did not like the French governess either; but that
was irrelevant.
"I am not so sure of that," he returned stiffly; "but since you wish it I
will give your message to -- my wife." He always hesitated over the possessive
pronoun in addressing Haskett.
The latter sighed. "I don't know as that will help much. She didn't like it
when I spoke to her."
Waythorn turned red. "When did you see her?" he asked.
"Not since the first day I came to see Lily -- right after she was taken
sick. I remarked to her then that I didn't like the governess."
Waythorn made no answer. He remembered distinctly that, after that first
visit, he had asked his wife if she had seen Haskett. She had lied to him then,
but she had respected his wishes since; and the incident cast a curious light on
her character. He was sure she would not have seen Haskett that first day if she
had divin
ed that Waythorn would object, and the fact that she did not divine it
was almost as disagreeable to the latter as the discovery that she had lied to
him.
"I don't like the woman," Haskett was repeating with mild persistency. "She
ain't straight, Mr. Waythorn -- she'll teach the child to be underhand. I've
noticed a change in Lily -- she's too anxious to please -- and she don't always
tell the truth. She used to be the straightest child, Mr. Waythorn -- " He broke
off, his voice a little thick. "Not but what I want her to have a stylish
education," he ended.
Waythorn was touched. "I'm sorry, Mr. Haskett; but frankly, I don't quite see
what I can do."
Haskett hesitated. Then he laid his hat on the table, and advanced to the
hearth-rug, on which Waythorn was standing. There was nothing aggressive in his
manner; but he had the solemnity of a timid man resolved on a decisive measure.
"There's just one thing you can do, Mr. Waythorn," he said. "You can remind
Mrs. Waythorn that, by the decree of the courts, I am entitled to have a voice
in Lily's bringing up." He paused, and went on more deprecatingly: "I'm not the
kind to talk about enforcing my rights, Mr. Waythorn. I don't know as I think a
man is entitled to rights he hasn't known how to hold on to; but this business
of the child is different. I've never let go there -- and I never mean to."
The scene left Waythorn deeply shaken. Shamefacedly, in indirect ways, he had
been finding out about Haskett; and all that he had learned was favorable. The
little man, in order to be near his daughter, had sold out his share in a
profitable business in Utica, and accepted a modest clerkship in a New York
manufacturing house. He boarded in a shabby street and had few acquaintances.
His passion for Lily filled his life. Waythorn felt that this exploration of
Haskett was like groping about with a dark-lantern in his wife's past; but he
saw now that there were recesses his lantern had not explored. He had never
inquired into the exact circumstances of his wife's first matrimonial rupture.
On the surface all had been fair. It was she who had obtained the divorce, and
the court had given her the child. But Waythorn knew how many ambiguities such a
verdict might cover. The mere fact that Haskett retained a right over his
daughter implied an unsuspected compromise. Waythorn was an idealist. He always
refused to recognize unpleasant contingencies till he found himself confronted
with them, and then he saw them followed by a special train of consequences. His
next days were thus haunted, and he determined to try to lay the ghosts by
conjuring them up in his wife's presence.
When he repeated Haskett's request a flame of anger passed over her face; but
she subdued it instantly and spoke with a slight quiver of outraged motherhood.
"It is very ungentlemanly of him," she said.
The word grated on Waythorn. "That is neithe
r here nor there. It's a bare
question of rights."
She murmured: "It's not as if he could ever be a help to Lily -- "
Waythorn flushed. This was even less to his taste. "The question is," he
repeated, "what authority has he over her?"
She looked downward, twisting herself a little in her seat. "I am willing to
see him -- I thought you objected," she faltered.
In a flash he understood that she knew the extent of Haskett's claims.
Perhaps it was not the first time she had resisted them.
"My objecting has nothing to do with it," he said coldly; "if Haskett has a
right to be consulted you must consult him."
She burst into tears, and he saw that she expected him to regard her as a
victim.
Haskett did not abuse his rights. Waythorn had felt miserably sure that he
would not. But the governess was dismissed, and from time to time the little man
-20-
demanded an interview with Alice. After the first outburst she accepted the
situation with her usual adaptability. Haskett had once reminded Waythorn of the
piano-tuner, and Mrs. Waythorn, after a month or two, appeared to class him with
that domestic familiar. Waythorn could not but respect the father's tenacity. At
first he had tried to cultivate the suspicion that Haskett might be "up to"
something, that he had an object in securing a foothold in the house. But in his
heart Waythorn was sure of Haskett's single-mindedness; he even guessed in the
latter a mild contempt for such advantages as his relation with the Waythorns
might offer. Haskett's sincerity of purpose made him invulnerable, and his
successor had to accept him as a lien on the property.
Mr. Sellers was sent to Europe to recover from his gout, and Varick's affairs
hung on Waythorn's hands. The negotiations were prolonged and complicated; they
necessitated frequent conferences between the two men, and the interests of the
firm forbade Waythorn's suggesting that his client should transfer his business
to another office.
Varick appeared well in the transaction. In moments of relaxation his coarse
streak appeared, and Waythorn dreaded his geniality; but in the office he was
concise and clear-headed, with a flattering deference to Waythorn's judgment.
Their business relations being so affably established, it would have been absurd
for the two men to ignore each other in society. The first time they met in a
drawing-room, Varick took up their intercourse in the same easy key, and his
hostess's grateful glance obliged Waythorn to respond to it. After that they ran
across each other frequently, and one evening at a ball Waythorn, wandering
through the remoter rooms, came upon Varick seated beside his wife. She colored
a little, and faltered in what she was saying; but Varick nodded to Waythorn
without rising, and the latter strolled on.
In the carriage, on the way home, he broke out nervously: "I didn't know you
spoke to
Varick."
Her voice trembled a little. "It's the first time -- he happened to be
standing near me; I didn't know what to do. It's so awkward, meeting everywhere
-- and he said you had been very kind about some business."
"That's different," said Waythorn.
She paused a moment. "I'll do just as you wish," she returned pliantly. "I
thought it would be less awkward to speak to him when we meet."
Her pliancy was beginning to sicken him. Had she really no will of her own --
no theory about her relation to these men? She had accepted Haskett -- did she
mean to accept Varick? It was "less awkward," as she had said, and her instinct
was to evade difficulties or to circumvent them. With sudden vividness Waythorn
saw how the instinct had developed. She was "as easy as an old shoe" -- a shoe
that too many feet had worn. Her elasticity was the result of tension in too
many different directions. Alice Haskett -- Alice Varick -- Alice Waythorn --
she had been each in turn, and had left hanging to each name a little of her
privacy, a little of her personality, a little of the inmost self where the
unknown god abides.
"Yes -- it's better to speak to Varick," said Waythorn wearily.
"Earth's Martyrs." By Stephen Phillips.
V
THE WINTER wore on, and society took advantage of the Waythorns' acceptance
of Varick. Harassed hostesses were grateful to them for bridging over a social
difficulty, and Mrs. Waythorn was held up as a miracle of good taste. Some
experimental spirits could not resist the diversion of throwing Varick and his
former wife together, and there were those who thought he found a zest in the
propinquity. But Mrs. Waythorn's conduct remained irreproachable. She neither
avoided Varick nor sought him out. Even Waythorn could not but admit that she
had discovered the solution of the newest social problem.
He had married her without giving much thought to that problem. He had
fancied that a woman can shed her past like a man. But now he saw that Alice was
bound to hers both by the circumstances which forced her into continued relation
with it, and by the traces it had left on her nature. With grim irony Waythorn
compared himself to a member of a syndicate. He held so many shares in his
wife's personality and his predecessors were his partners in the business. If
there had been any element of passion in the transaction he would have felt less
deteriorated by it. The fact that Alice took her change of husbands like a
change of weather reduced the situation to mediocrity. He could have forgiven
her for blunders, for excesses; for resisting Hackett, for yielding to Varick;
for anything but her acquiescence and her tact. She reminded him of a juggler
tossing knives; but the knives were blunt and she knew they would never cut her.
And then, gradually, habit formed a protecting surface for his sensibilities.
If he paid for each day's comfort with
the small change of his illusions, he
grew daily to value the comfort more and set less store upon the coin. He had
drifted into a dulling propinquity with Haskett and Varick and he took refuge in
the cheap revenge of satirizing the situation. He even began to reckon up the
advantages which accrued from it, to ask himself if it were not better to own a
third of a wife who knew how to make a man happy than a whole one who had lacked
opportunity to acquire the art. For it was an art, and made up, like all others,
of concessions, eliminations and embellishments; of lights judiciously thrown
and shadows skillfully softened. His wife knew exactly how to manage the lights,
and he knew exactly to what training she owed her skill. He even tried to trace
the source of his obligations, to discriminate between the influences which had
combined to produce his domestic happiness: he perceived that Haskett's
commonness had made Alice worship good breeding, while Varick's liberal
construction of the marriage bond had taught her to value the conjugal virtues;
so that he was directly indebted to his predecessors for the devotion which made
his life easy if not inspiring.
From this phase he passed into that of complete acceptance. He ceased to
satirize himself because time dulled the irony of the situation and the joke
lost its humor with its sting. Even the sight of Haskett's hat on the hall table
had ceased to touch the springs of epigram. The hat was often seen there now,
for it had been decided that it was better for Lily's father to visit her than
for the little girl to go to his boarding-house. Waythorn, having acquiesced in
this arrangement, had been surprised to find how little difference it made.
Haskett was never obtrusive, and the few visitors who met him on the stairs were
unaware of his identity. Waythorn did not know how often he saw Alice, but with
himself Haskett was seldom in contact.
One afternoon, however, he learned on entering that Lily's father was waiting
to see him. In the library he found Haskett occupying a chair in his usual
provisional way. Waythorn always felt grateful to him for not leaning back.
"I hope you'll excuse me, Mr. Waythorn," he said rising. "I wanted to see
Mrs. Waythorn about Lily, and your man asked me to wait here till she came in."
"Of course," said Waythorn, remembering that a sudden leak had that morning
given over the drawing-room to the plumbers.
He opened his cigar-case and held it out to his visitor, and Haskett's
acceptance seemed to mark a fresh stage in their intercourse. The spring evening
was chilly, and Waythorn invited his guest to draw up his chair to the fire. He
meant to find an excuse to leave Haskett in a moment; but he was tired and cold,
and after all the little man no longer jarred on him.
The two were inclosed in the intimacy of their blended cigar- smoke when the
door opened and Varick walked into the
room. Waythorn rose abruptly. It was the
first time that Varick had come to the house, and the surprise of seeing him,
combined with the singular inopportuneness of his arrival, gave a new edge to
Waythorn's blunted sensibilities. He stared at his visitor without speaking.
Varick seemed too preoccupied to notice his host's embarrassment.
"My dear fellow," he exclaimed in his most expansive tone, "I must apologize
for tumbling in on you in this way, but I was too late to catch you down town,
and so I thought -- " He stopped short, catching sight of Haskett, and his
sanguine color deepened to a flush which spread vividly under his scant blond
hair. But in a moment he recovered himself and nodded slightly. Haskett returned
the bow in silence, and Waythorn was still groping for speech when the footman
came in carrying a tea-table.
The intrusion offered a welcome vent to Waythorn's nerves. "What the deuce
are you bringing this here for?" he said sharply.
"I beg your pardon, sir, but the plumbers are still in the drawing-room, and
Mrs. Waythorn said she would have tea in the library." The footman's perfectly
respectful tone implied a reflection on Waythorn's reasonableness.
"Oh, very well," said the latter resignedly, and the footman proceeded to
open the folding tea-table and set out its complicated appointments. While this
interminable process continued the three men stood motionless, watching it with
a fascinated stare, till Waythorn, to break the silence, said to Varick: "Won't
you have a cigar?"
He held out the case he had just tendered to Haskett, and Varick helped
himself with a smile. Waythorn looked about for a match, and finding none,
proffered a light from his own cigar. Haskett, in the background, held his
ground mildly, examining his cigar-tip now and then, and stepping forward at the
right moment to knock its ashes into the fire.
The footman at last withdrew, and Varick immediately began: "If I could just
say half a word to you about this business -- "
"Certainly," stammered Waythorn; "in the dining-room -- "
But as he placed his hand on the door it opened from without, and his wife
appeared on the threshold.
She came in fresh and smiling, in her street dress and hat, shedding a
fragrance from the boa which she loosened in advancing.
"Shall we have tea in here, dear?" she began; and then she caught sight of
Varick. Her smile deepened, veiling a slight tremor of surprise. "Why, how do
you do?" she said with a distinct note of pleasure.
As she shook hands with Varick she saw Haskett standing behind him. Her smile
faded for a moment, but she recalled it quickly, with a scarcely perceptible
side-glance at Waythorn.
"How do you do, Mr. Haskett?" she said, and shook hands with him a shade less
cordially.
The three men stood awkwardly before her, till Varick, always the most
self-possessed, dashed into an explanatory ph
rase.
"We -- I had to see Waythorn a moment on business," he stammered, brick-red
from chin to nape.
Haskett stepped forward with his air of mild obstinacy. "I am sorry to
intrude; but you appointed five o'clock -- " he directed his resigned glance to
the time-piece on the mantel.
She swept aside their embarrassment with a charming gesture of hospitality.
"I'm so sorry -- I'm always late; but the afternoon was so lovely." She stood
drawing her gloves off, propitiatory and graceful, diffusing about her a sense
of ease and familiarity in which the situation lost its grotesqueness. "But
before talking business," she added brightly, "I'm sure every one wants a cup of
tea."
She dropped into her low chair by the tea-table, and the two visitors, as if
drawn by her smile, advanced to receive the cups she held out.
She glanced about for Waythorn, and he took the third cup with a laugh.