XXXI.
HE SPEAKS THE MERE CONTRARY.
Love's Labor's Lost; i.—1.
"Edith," Arthur Fenton said, looking up from his paper at breakfast that morning, "Dr. Ashton is dead."
"Dead!" she exclaimed.
Her husband's indifferent tone shocked her. She was not without an unphrased feeling that death was so sacred or at least so solemn a subject that it should be treated with reverence. Any jesting upon it made her cringe, and the light mention of it seemed to her almost immoral.
"So the paper says," replied he; and he read aloud the paragraph containing the announcement of Dr. Ashton's sudden death from heart disease. "It is too bad," he commented. "He was a mighty smart fellow and square as a brick. I wonder what made him do it now."
"Made him do what?" she asked. "How strangely you talk. Made him die?"
"Yes; that's what I meant. I knew he had a trouble which would probably make him do it sooner or later, but I'd no idea it would come so soon."
"Arthur, what do you mean," Edith repeated, the tears coming into her eyes. "I don't like to hear you speak of death so—so—flippantly."
"Flippantly, my dear?" returned he. "I'm sure I don't know why you should use that word. If a man takes his life, why shouldn't I speak of it,—to you, that is; of course I should not in public."
"Takes his life!" she cried. "Do you mean—"
"Of course I know nothing about it," her husband replied as coolly as ever, and watching sharply the effect of his words; "but I presume Will took poison, poor old fellow."
She sank back in her chair, white and trembling.
"It is what might have been expected," she said. "It almost seems as if
Providence measured to him the portion of poor Frontier."
"Providence is noted for close observance of the lex talionis" sneered Arthur, "but Dr. Ashton didn't believe in the existence of that functionary, so it really ought to have passed him by. It would certainly have been more dignified."
"But, oh!" she cried out, apparently not hearing or not heeding his last words, "into what sort of a world have you brought me, Arthur? Are all your friends so desperate that they think only of taking their own lives? Have they no faith, no hope, no beyond? I feel as if it were all a dreadful nightmare! It cannot be you alone, for Mrs. Greyson and Dr. Ashton—Oh, Arthur, where has religion, where has morality gone? Oh, I cannot understand it! I cannot bear it!"
She laid her bowed head on her arms upon the pretty breakfast table, and sobbed as if her heart would break. Her husband looked at her with intense irritation, and an inward curse that he had ever married her. He sipped his coffee; he noted with admiration the rich, glowing hues of the dull blue bowl of nasturtiums which adorned the table.
"There, Edith," he said at length, "it is rather idle to cry over the sins of your neighbors. According to your creed each of us has enough of his own derelictions to answer for, without going abroad for things to repent. As for religion, I suppose girls who do Kensington work will use it for decorative purposes for some time to come, but thinking people long ago outgrew such folly. In regard to my friends, it is all a question of standards, as I've said no end of times. From my point of view they are very sensible people, and you a little bigot. Grant Herman believes some pious nonsense, though he has too good taste to obtrude it, and I dare say Bently and Rangely have their superstitions. There are probably ten thousand people in this good city of Boston—and for aught I know a hundred thousand—who believe, or, if you like, disbelieve, as I do."
"It cannot be true," was Edith's reply. "But if it is so, it is too sad to think of."
"Why, I suspect," Arthur continued lightly, "that the Pagans regard me as too orthodox lately, though you'd hardly agree with them."
She made no reply, and Arthur continued his breakfast in silence. The sun shone in at the windows, the soft coal fire sputtered in the grate, and to all appearance the room was full of cheerfulness. Edith leaned her head upon her hand and reflected sadly. She resolved that her husband should be weaned from the Pagans, if that were within her power. She seemed to herself to relinquish joy in life, and to devote herself wholly to duty.
The entrance of a servant with the morning letters interrupted further conversation, until Arthur tossed his wife a letter which Dr. Ashton had mailed at the same time he posted the missive which Helen received later in the day.
"There, you see," Fenton remarked. "Of course I show it to you in confidence."
The room swam before Edith as she read, but she forced herself to be outwardly calm, as she ran her eye over this note: