§ iii
Claudine was nearly asleep when she heard that light tap at the door, but any voice calling “Mother!” could have aroused her from any sleep but death. She hastily put on her dressing-gown and opened the door. It was Andrée.
“I want to speak to you!” she said.
All sleep or fatigue fled from Claudine at once. There was something in that tone, something in the expression of her child’s face seen in the dim light of the hall, that froze her heart. She followed her to her own room, which was brilliantly illumined; it had somehow the appearance of a stage, a place pitilessly to expose a secret tragedy; and Andrée in her white dressing-gown and her soft black hair unbound looked a fit figure for any drama. Claudine asked herself, with a sinking heart, what was to be her part ...?
“Is anything wrong, darling?” she asked.
“There’s something I want to tell you.”
Claudine smiled mechanically, but her knees were weak, and she sank down on the bed.
“What is it, dear?” she asked.
“It’s very hard,” said Andrée. “It’s going to hurt you....”
“Don’t keep me waiting,” her mother said, almost sharply. “Tell me, Andrée!”
Andrée sat down beside her, and lifted one of her mother’s hands, looking at it with curious abstraction. Claudine didn’t stir.
“Now it’s come,” she thought. “That horrible, nameless disaster I have always dreaded for this creature I love too much. This will be something I cannot endure.”
At last Andrée’s voice came, steady and low.
“You remember Mr. Stephens, don’t you, Mother?”
“Yes ...” she murmured.
“We’re going to be married to-morrow.”
“Andrée! Andrée! What do you mean?”
“Just what I said, Mother.”
At first this seemed to Claudine merely preposterous, almost laughable; one of Andrée’s freaks.
“But, my dear, you don’t know the man,” she protested.
“Oh, yes, I do,” said Andrée, calmly. “We’ve been writing to each other since last July, and I’ve seen him quite often lately. And I’ve made up my mind. I knew everyone would make a row; that’s why I didn’t tell you until the last moment. Al’s going to Europe on Saturday, and I’m going with him.”
Nothing in that speech made the slightest impression upon Claudine except the name “Al.” That seemed to her of tremendous significance; the vulgar name of a vulgar young man; it made the affair a fantasy. She was not so much worried now as surprised.
“My dear Andrée—” she said. “You....” She paused, aware of the need for caution.
“I knew you wouldn’t understand,” said Andrée, bitterly. “You can’t see beneath the surface. I knew all the arguing and talking and reasoning there’d be, but it’s not going to make one bit of difference. I’m the one to decide, and I have decided. I want to be married quietly at the City Hall to-morrow, without any fuss and—talking. I wasn’t even going to tell you until afterward but—” She frowned. “Somehow I couldn’t. I wanted to make one more attempt to get you to understand.”
“To give you your chance,” was what she meant, and what her mother understood. This was the supreme moment to come close to her child—and she sat spellbound, like a figure in a nightmare, unable to speak, unable to make even a pretense at comprehension.
“He’s the finest man I’ve ever seen,” Andrée went on. “He’s honest and kind and—rather wonderful, I think.”
“But—he’s not suitable—” faltered Claudine.
“I knew you’d say that! You’ll tell me it’s disgraceful to marry a man ‘beneath’ me. Well, I don’t think he is, in any way. You’ll say—”
“If you’re going to take my part as well as your own, Andrée, there’s not much use in going on. I’m not so unsympathetic—or so narrow as you think.... I shouldn’t have opposed you. I should only have asked you to wait a little—”
“Because you think I’d change?”
“Only until I felt you were sure.”
“I am sure! I love Al! You don’t know how I feel about him. He’s so dear and—”
“Hush, Andrée!” she interrupted, almost sternly. There was a faint flush on her cheeks; this unrestraint, this vehemence, caused her a sort of shame. She had suddenly a thousand things to say—“Think if there should be children”—“Think of the personal habits of a man of his class”—And not one of them could she utter. Her almost morbid modesty, her long habit of restraint, forbade her. She grew desperate; she could urge nothing but her own love.
“Andrée,” she said, “I will tell you what I have never told anyone else in the world. I love you more than my other children! I always have. I—I think I don’t really love anyone else. You are all my life. You are all I care to live for. If you knew ...! When you were a baby.... Oh, Andrée! I used to sit watching you when you were asleep ... you were so pretty—and so strange.... It—made me turn away from God—I loved you so much more.... If you do this....”
“Oh, how cruel you are!” cried Andrée. “And how—unfair! How can you want me to spoil all my life and give up all my happiness, if you love me? How can you not let me alone? Don’t you see—don’t you understand—how I love him?”
“Andrée, that love is nothing to mine—I know!”
“And you don’t try to argue, or give reasons, or convince me. Or listen to my reasons. You only want to play on my feelings!”
“You have no feelings!” cried Claudine. “You have no heart! You don’t care!”
“Oh, don’t I?” said Andrée, and she suddenly began to sob. “Go away! Go away! I’ve told you—now let me alone!” she sobbed.
Claudine crossed the room to the bureau and began moving about the little jars and bottles with trembling hands.
“I won’t—reproach you,” she said. “I won’t.... I’ll try to understand.... I want to see—Mr. Stephens. Where does he live?”
“I shan’t tell you.”
“Yes, you must. You can trust me, Andrée. I won’t—I promise you I won’t tell anyone else. I won’t do anything to stop you.... I only want to hear him. I want to hear—all he has to say.
Andrée hesitated a moment.
“Very well!” she said at last. “I think I’d like you to. I’ll trust you.... He’s at the Biltmore.... I’m not afraid of anything you can say to him!”
“No,” said Claudine, dully. She was folding up some bits of ribbon, quite mechanically, and putting them into the bureau drawer. The room was very untidy; there lay Andreé’s pretty dress across a chair, and her beribboned petticoat fallen on the floor. And her slippers on the dressing-table.... Was it worth while to pick them up? Was it worth while ever to draw another breath? She looked at Andrée, lying face downward on the bed, and her heart was not moved. No; this was the last possible sensation, the very end of everything; she was going to sink now and be drowned. She went out of the room and closed the door.
Gilbert hadn’t stirred. She lay down beside him and closed her eyes, and at once anguish, like a fierce beast, sprang at her throat.
CHAPTER TWO
THE BITTER TRIUMPH
“I’M going shopping early this morning,” said Claudine, at the breakfast-table the next morning. “There are some very good bargains advertised.... How soon do you think you could send the car back, Gilbert?”
Now Gilbert, although he scoffed at feminine shopping and bargains, nevertheless respected all this as one of the bulwarks of family life. Women must and ought to go shopping. So he said:
“Take the car. I’ll go in the Subway,” in the tone of an exasperated martyr.
Her destination, however, was the Biltmore. She was filled with a feverish anxiety to get there; she was in terror lest Mr. Stephens should have gone out, that he would be beyond her reach, that Andrée might see him or hear from him before she did. She was going to the desk to enquire for him, when she caught sight of him, standing up, reading a newspaper, and she approached him and touched him on the arm.
“Mr. Stephens!” she said. “Have you a few moments to spare?”
He was not pleased to see her; she fancied that his face turned a little pale; but he greeted her with a sort of subdued courtesy.
“Where can we talk?” she asked. “I have something to say....”
“I have a little sitting-room; if you don’t mind—” he said.
She followed him into the lift, still smiling brightly, a smile which he saw reflected in the looking-glass and which alarmed him by its expression of triumph. If he could have read her thoughts as well, his alarm would have vanished. It was her firm resolution to look bright, brave, self-assured; she hoped that her air would not only impress him but herself as well.
“Oh, God!” she was praying under her breath. “Oh, just this once, make me equal to the situation! I always fail; I’m always beaten! Oh, let me, only this one time, win!”
He opened the door of his sitting-room, and they entered. She began at once, the instant the door closed behind them.
“Mr. Stephens,” she said, “I have heard from Andrée what you propose to do.”
He bowed his head, and said nothing. She realized, with surprise, that he was not without dignity; that there was nothing in any way contemptible either in his manner or his appearance.
“I am astonished,” she went on, “that you should have done such an—unworthy thing. Andrée is very young and impressionable, and you have taken advantage of this to influence her. She neither knows nor realizes what she has undertaken.”
“Excuse me,” he said. “But I’m sure she does. I haven’t tried to influence her. I’ve—I’ve given this a lot of thought, Mrs. Vincelle. At first I was afraid Andrée couldn’t be happy with me ... but ... now I do think so.”
“Why, Mr. Stephens?”
His fair face flushed.
“It’s pretty hard to explain,” he said, “but I think—well, I think I understand her, and can get on with her. I—well—I know I’m—different, in some ways—but I can’t see that that matters.”
“It does matter,” she said, gently. “More than you realize. It may be quite wrong, but it is a fact, Mr. Stephens, that marriages of—of this sort are very, very rarely successful.”
“What kind are?” he asked, with equal gentleness. “As far as I can see, the chances are overwhelmingly against any marriage being really successful. It’s—I see it like this: if two people love each other, they ought to take the risk, they ought to face all the chances as—as gallantly as they can, and do the best they can in what’s bound to be a difficult position. Personally, I don’t believe in marriage, but I can see that nothing else is practicable just now. All I can do is to make it as little like an ordinary marriage as possible—leave Andrée as free as I can—”
“Mr. Stephens—I’m sorry ... but I cannot consent to this.”
He looked full at her with a level and grave glance.
“The way I see it—it’s a personal matter between Andrée and me. No one else has any right to interfere. And no one can interfere. I—you don’t know how much I admire you, Mrs. Vincelle, but—I didn’t think it was necessary to consult you, or anyone else. That’s all very well in the case of a man who wants money—any sort of favours from his wife’s family. But I don’t. It’s only for Andrée to decide.”
“And I simply don’t count,” said Claudine, with a slight smile.
“I know a mother’s love is a very strong—” he began.
“You don’t know anything about it! You think it’s a sentiment; you think it’s beautiful to see a mother bending over a cradle. You understand that women love their babies. But when the babies have grown up, you forget the mothers. Do you think they evaporate, or disappear? Or turn into troublesome, ridiculous mothers-in-law? But we don’t! We go on! If Andrée were a child, you’d think I was right to struggle for her. You talk about mothers being left free to do what they think best for their children. But because she’s older, and I still want to protect her—”
“But—don’t you see?—you don’t need to protect her from anyone—like me—who—who worships her! Do listen just for a moment! All I want in the world is to make her happy. I want her to have a splendid, free life. I don’t want to tie her to me. I want her as she is now. I don’t want to change her and—fetter her. I understand her. She’d never endure being bound; she’s so proud and independent—”
“And so silly and unstable. That’s what you don’t understand! But it’s no use arguing. I know what it would mean for her. I’m not talking about convictions. I’m talking about life as it is, as she will have to live it. Andrée’s an egoist. She’s fickle and headstrong, and so terribly unstable.”
“Let her be,” he said, stoutly. “I’m not. I’m strong enough and—and earnest enough to put up with anything like that.”
“Oh, don’t you see? She’ll think anything you want to suggest to her, but she’ll always act according to her own impulses and desires.”
(“Just the contrary to me,” she reflected, irrelevantly. “People can make me do anything, but they never change my ideas....”)
“But that’s just what I want her to do!” protested Stephens. “That’s my idea of marriage—that we should both—”
“Don’t argue!” she cried, with sudden violence. “You cannot do this! If you really think any of the things you once said to me—if you have any compassion, and kind human feeling, you can’t try to make your happiness on another person’s pain. You can’t ignore me!”
“But—” he began, “isn’t that just a little—selfish?”
She clasped her hands desperately.
“You can’t do it!” she cried. “You’re kind. You cannot hurt me so!”
He wished to point out to her the extreme unfairness of her position but the sight of her anguish was too much for him. Even when he looked away, he seemed still to see her tear-filled eyes, her face suddenly so worn, so much older, its fine tranquillity, which he had so much admired, its dignity, gone. It was like a sacrilege.
“Please don’t! Please don’t!” he entreated. “I can’t bear to see you suffer!... If you’d only realize that I’m trying to make Andrée happy—”
“Can’t you have a little mercy on me?” she said. “Even if you think I’m wrong? Andrée is—my whole life; I’ve let everything else go. I haven’t any life of my own, or any hopes.... Nothing but her. Oh, I’d go on my knees to you!”
“No, no!” he cried, shocked profoundly, both by her suffering and by her amazing unscrupulousness. “Mrs. Vincelle! I beg you!”
“Then listen to me! Think of me! Put aside your theories and your principles.... Isn’t it something to be kind—even to me? Isn’t it better to be kind than—”
But she could not go on; she buried her face in her hands and wept silently. She looked so small, so helpless, so terribly fallen from her almost superhuman aloofness....
“Please don’t!” he entreated, again. “I’ve always had such a great respect for you.... I—you don’t know how I’ve thought about you.... I wouldn’t hurt you for anything in the world! Look here! Really!... Please listen! We’ll wait.”
She looked up, careless of her tear-stained face, quick to seize her advantage.
“Give me my chance?”
“What do you mean?” he asked, a little alarmed.
“You’ve done all this—you’ve persuaded her secretly—behind my back. Let me have a little time!”
“To turn her against me?”
“Yes, if I can.”
They were both silent for a moment.
“All right!” he said. “If she can be as easily turned as that, it had better be done before it’s too late.... But I don’t believe you can. I’m not afraid to have you try. I trust—Andrée.”
“I’m going to England and Germany on—business. I’ll be gone about two months.”
“And will you promise not to write to her or to see her for two months?”
“I’ll have to see her once before I go, to explain. That’ll be to-day. After that, I’ll—” He paused and smiled a little, very kindly. “You’ll have your chance, Mrs. Vincelle!”
She rose and held out her hand, and he took it, rather timidly.
“Good-bye!” she said.
“But—if you find you can’t change her—” he said. “At the end of two months—will you consent to our being married?”
“What difference will it make, whether I do, or not?” she asked, bitterly.