III
The following morning, Thursday, August Turnbull was forced to go into the city. He drove to the Turnbull Bakery in a taxi and dispatched his responsibilities in time for luncheon uptown and an early afternoon train to the shore. The bakery was a consequential rectangle of brick, with the office across the front and a court resounding with the shattering din of ponderous delivery trucks. All the vehicles, August saw, bore a new temporary label advertising still another war bread; there was, too, a subsidiary patriotic declaration: “Win the War With Wheat.”
He was, as always, fascinated by the mammoth trays of bread, the enormous flood of sustenance produced as the result of his energy and ability. Each loaf was shut in a sanitary paper envelope; the popular superstition, sanitation, had contributed as much as anything to his marked success. He liked to picture himself as a great force, a granary on which the city depended for life; it pleased him to think of thousands of people, men, women and children, waiting for his loaves or perhaps suffering through the inability to buy them.
August left a direction for a barrel of superlative flower to be sent to his cottage, and then with a curious feeling of expectancy he departed. He was unable to grasp the cause of his sudden impatience to be again at the sea. On the train, in the Pullman smoking compartment, his coat swinging on a hook beside him, the vague haste centered surprisingly about the person of Miss Beggs. At first he was annoyed by the reality and persistence of her image; then he slipped into an unquestioning consideration of her.
Never had he seen a more healthy being, and that alone, he told himself, was sufficient to account for his interest. He liked marked physical well-being; particularly, he added, in women. A sick wife, for example, was the most futile thing imaginable; a wife should exist for the comfort and pleasure of her husband. What little Miss Beggs—her name, he now remembered from the checks made out for her, was Meta Beggs—had said was as vigorous as herself. He realized that she had a strong, even rebellious personality. That, in her, however, should not be encouraged—an engaging submission was the becoming attitude for her sex.
He proceeded immediately into the ocean, puffing strenuously and gazing about. No women could be seen. They never had any regularity of habit, he complained silently. After dinner—a surfeit of tenderloin Bordelaise—he walked up the short incline to the boardwalk, where on one of the benches overlooking the sparkling water he saw a slight familiar figure. It was Miss Beggs. Her eyes dwelt on him momentarily and then returned to the horizon.
“You are a great deal alone,” he commented on the far end of the bench.
“It's because I choose to be,” she answered sharply.
An expression of displeasure was audible in his reply, “You should have no trouble.”
“I ought to explain,” she continued, her slim hands clasped on shapely knees; “I mean that I can't get what I want.”
“So you prefer nothing?”
She nodded.
“That's different,” August Turnbull declared. “Anybody could see you're particular. Still, it's strange you haven't met—well, one that suited you.”
“What good would it do me—a school-teacher, and now a companion!”
“You might be admired for those very things.”
“Yes, by old ladies, male and female. Not men. There's just one attraction for them.”
“Well——”
She turned now and faced him with a suppressed bitter energy. “Clothes,” she said.
“That's nonsense!” he replied emphatically. “Dress is only incidental.”
“When did you first notice me?” she demanded. “In bathing. That bathing suit cost more than any two of my dresses. It is absolutely right.” August was confused by the keenness of her perception. It wasn't proper for a woman to understand such facts. He was at a loss for a reply. “Seven men spoke to me in it on one afternoon. It is no good for you to try to reassure me with platitudes; I know better. I ought to, at least.”
August Turnbull was startled by the fire of resentment smoldering under her still pale exterior. Why, she was like a charged battery. If he touched her, he thought, sparks would fly. She was utterly different from Emmy, as different as a live flame from ashes.
It was evident that having at last spoken she intended to unburden herself of long-accumulated passionate words.
“All my life I've had to listen to and smile sweetly at ridiculous hypocrisies. I have had to teach them and live them too. But now I'm so sick of them I can't keep it up a month longer. I could kill some one, easily. In a world where salvation for a woman is in a pair of slippers I have to be damned. If I could have kept my hair smartly done up and worn sheer batiste do you suppose for a minute I'd be a companion to Mrs. Turnbull? I could be going out to the cafes in a landaulet.”
“And looking a lot better than most that do,” he commented without premeditation.
She glanced at him again, and he saw that her eyes were gray, habitually half closed and inviting.
“I've had frightfully bad luck,” she went on; “once or twice when it seemed that I was to have a chance, when it appeared brighter—everything went to pieces.”
“Perhaps you want too much,” he suggested.
“Perhaps,” she agreed wearily; “ease and pretty clothes and—a man.” She added the latter with a more musical inflection than he had yet heard.
“Of course,” he proceeded importantly, “there are not a great many men. At least I haven't found them. As you say, most people are incapable of any power or decision. I always maintain it's something in the country. Now in——” He stopped, re-began: “In Europe they are different. There a man is better understood, and women as well.”
“I have never been out of America,” Miss Beggs admitted.
“But you might well have been,” he assured her; “you are more Continental than any one else I can think of.”
He moved toward the middle of the bench and she said quickly: “You must not misunderstand. I am not cheap nor silly. It might have been better for me.” She addressed the fading light on the sea. “Silly women, too, do remarkably well. But I am not young enough to change now.” She rose, gracefully drawn against space; her firm chin was elevated and her hands clenched. “I won't grow old this way and shrivel like an apple,” she half cried.
It would be a pity, he told himself, watching her erect figure diminish over the boardwalk. He had a feeling of having come in contact with an extraordinarily potent force. By heaven, she positively crackled! He smiled, thinking of the misguided people who had employed her, ignorant of all that underlay that severe prudent manner. At the same time he was flattered that she had confided in him. It was clear she recognized that he, at least, was a man. He was really sorry for her—what an invigorating influence she was!
She had spoken of being no longer young—something over thirty-five he judged—and that brought the realization that he was getting on. A few years now, ten or twelve, and life would be behind him. It was a rare and uncomfortable thought. Usually he saw himself as at the most desirable age—a young spirit tempered by wisdom and experience. But in a flash he read that his prime must depart; every hour left was priceless.
The best part of this must be dedicated to a helpless invalid; a strong current of self-pity set through him. But it was speedily lost in a more customary arrogance. August Turnbull repeated the favorite aphorisms from Frederick Rathe about the higher man. If he believed them at all, if they applied to life in general they were equally true in connection with his home; in short—his wife. Emmy Turnbull couldn't really be called a wife. There should be a provision to release men from such bonds.
It might be that the will-to-power would release itself. In theory that was well enough, but practically there were countless small difficulties. The strands of life were so tied in, one with another. Opinion was made up of an infinite number of stupid prejudices. In short, no way presented itself of getting rid of Emmy.
His mind returned to Meta Beggs. What a woman she was! What a triumph to master her contemptuous stubborn being!