III
Paul found Christine just beginning to grow alarmed.
“It’s nearly one o’clock,” she said. “I thought—”
Her husband sat down and lit a cigarette.
“The silly girl has things in such a mess,” he said, “I thought it would only be decent to stay and help her a little.”
“Of course,” Christine agreed.
She was uneasy at Paul’s appearance. He looked pale and tired and severe. There were smudges on his face and on his collar; and then she caught sight of a grimy handkerchief tied around his wrist.
“Have you hurt yourself, Paul, darling?” she asked anxiously. “Do let me see—”
“Certainly not!” he answered, frowning. “I’m not one of those clumsy imbeciles who are always getting hurt!”
This was the first time that Paul had ever behaved quite so much like a married man; but Christine was prepared for it, and was tactful.
“She’s a very pretty girl, isn’t she?” she asked.
“She may be pretty,” Paul answered judiciously; “but she’s not the type that appeals to me. Personally, I think she’s the very worst type of modern woman. She’s—there’s nothing feminine about her. She’s an egotist.” He paused. “After all,” he went on, “what a woman should be is a man’s comrade and companion. They should share their work and their play. This idea of a woman having all sorts of absurd privileges, and behaving like an empress, simply because she’s a woman, is monstrous!”
Christine made a heroic effort not to cry. She knew Paul was not speaking of herself. Never had she behaved like an empress, or wished to do so, and she did share the work loyally. Of course it wasn’t his fault if her share was composed of very monotonous, dusty, dull little tasks, and of course it wasn’t his fault that there was mighty little play to be shared.
He went on, in that severe tone, talking about women, and she was certainly one of them. Indeed, she had a guilty consciousness that she was more of a woman than Paul suspected. She tried to stifle her shameful, ignoble feelings, and when she couldn’t stifle them, she hid them. Never should Paul know how she felt about Miss Banks. He expected his wife to be a comrade, and a comrade she would be, at any cost.
Thus it was that a curious situation arose. Paul would denounce Miss Banks with great energy, while continuing to go and see her and to assist her; but Christine, who avoided the girl as far as possible, defended her chivalrously.
Miss Banks now had a telephone, and knew how to use it. Suddenly, in the middle of a calm, sensible evening, her voice would come over the wire, asking Paul to come and mend a leak, or kill a rat, or investigate a mysterious noise. Paul always said no, he wouldn’t go, but Christine always persuaded him to go—and generally cried after he had gone, because he so obviously wished to be persuaded.
He never suggested that Christine should accompany him. Neither did Miss Banks. Indeed, she said things about tame husbands that prevented Paul from even considering such an idea.
Why he liked to see the girl he couldn’t understand. She was as rude, as impertinent, as mocking, as she chose to be. She frankly admitted that she liked to “take him down a peg.” She made fun of him, she kept him busy at arduous and humiliating tasks. And all this, instead of crushing him, had the odd effect of making him—well, Christine’s private word for it was “bumptious.”
He really was bumptious. He was bumptious while he killed rats for Miss Banks, and still more bumptious when he got home and told Christine about it.
Generally, when he went down to the cottage, he stayed there a long time. After he had finished the work she set for him, Miss Banks would graciously let him sit before her fire, and smoke, and be baited. One night, however, he came home so promptly that he almost caught Christine in tears. Although he was so much upset, he probably would not have noticed.
“That girl’s a little too much!” he said. “Of course, I make allowances for her being so silly and spoiled, but—”
“Who spoils her?” inquired Christine unexpectedly.
“Who? Why, every one, I suppose,” he answered, a little taken aback.
“Why?” asked Christine.
Well, Paul didn’t know. He said it didn’t matter; that wasn’t the point. The[Pg 66] point was, apparently, that Miss Banks didn’t understand what a man would put up with and what he would not put up with. Paul said he had already done too much for her, and would no longer submit to her outrageous claims.
“If she’s so blamed independent,” he said, “then let her be independent, and shift for herself!”
And their peaceful evenings began again. Christine was delighted. She didn’t mind Paul’s being bumptious and talking so sternly about women. In her heart she thought it was rather pathetic and sweet and young. She was very sorry that Miss Banks had hurt him, for he was hurt, though he called it disgust. He had firmly believed that the girl couldn’t get on without him, couldn’t light a fire or open a reluctant door; yet he hadn’t been near the cottage for a week, and she still lived.
Now, in his heart, Paul didn’t care two straws for Miss Banks. He believed that there never had been, and probably never would be, a woman in any way comparable to his own Christine. Christine was beautiful, good, kind, sensible, and brave; only Christine admired him and Miss Banks didn’t, and by some diabolic art Miss Banks had aroused in him a violent desire to be admired by her.
Paul was almost ashamed to remember how boastful he had sometimes been, with what an air of unconcern he had done things frightfully difficult for him to do; but not once had Miss Banks praised or thanked him, or even been agreeable to him. Nevertheless he was obliged to go on and on.
He missed all that when it ceased. He felt like a warrior tamely at home after the war. He didn’t miss the outrageous girl, but he greatly missed the inspiration she had given him to exert himself mightily. He found it irksome to sit still and read in the evening, without the least chance of an emergency arising in which he could distinguish himself. He became restless and sometimes a little irritable.
Christine, seeing this, believed that he was unhappy because he had quarreled with Miss Banks. That made Christine bitterly unhappy herself.
She set to work with all her heart, then, to win back her hero. She kept the most miraculous order in the house, and cooked the most appetizing meals. She worked out a number of ways in which to save more money. She read “Post-War Conditions in Beluchistan” and other such books, in order to discuss them with Paul. She dressed her hair in a new way. She did all she could think of to make herself and her home delightful to him.
He noticed everything, or almost everything, and he praised her; yet his praise lacked something for which she longed. It was sincere, but it had no enthusiasm. In some way she failed.
She had always accepted Paul’s theories without reservation. It seemed reasonable to her that Paul should wish to find a helpmeet and comrade in his wife, and it also seemed reasonable to believe that Paul really knew what he wanted. When she made of herself exactly what he said he wanted, it seemed reasonable to expect that he would be satisfied; and yet he wasn’t. He tried not to show it, but he wasn’t.