Chapter I––Prelude
Silence, the silence of double doors and of padded walls was upon the private room of the down-town office. Across the littered, ink-stained desk a man and a woman faced each other. Threads of gray lightened the hair of each. Faint lines, delicate as pencillings, marked the forehead of the woman and radiated from the angles of her eyes. A deep fissure unequally separated the brows of the man, and on his shaven face another furrow added firmness to the mouth. Their eyes met squarely, without a motion from faces imperturbable in middle age and knowledge of life.
The man broke silence slowly.
“You mean,” he hesitated, “what that would seem to mean?” 110
“Why not?” A shade of resentment was in the answering voice.
“But you’re a woman––”
“Well––”
“And married––”
The note of resentment became positive. “What difference does that make?”
“It ought to.” The man spoke almost mechanically. “You took oath before man and higher than man––”
The woman interrupted him shortly.
“Another took oath with me and broke it.” She leaned gracefully forward in the big chair until their eyes met. “I’m no longer bound.”
“But I––”
“I love you!” she interjected.
The man’s eyebrows lifted.
“Love?” he inflected.
“Yes, love. What is love but good friendship––and sex?”
The man was silent.
A strong white hand slid under the woman’s chin and her elbow met the desk.
“I meant what you thought,” she completed slowly. 111
“But I cannot––”
“Why?”
“It destroys all my ideas of things. Your promise to another––”
“I say he’s broken his promise to me.”
“But your being a woman––”
“Why do you expect more of me because I’m a woman? Haven’t I feelings, rights, as well as you who are a man?” She waited until he looked up. “I ask you again, won’t you come?”
The man arose and walked slowly back and forth across the narrow room. At length he stopped by her chair.
“I cannot.”
In swift motion his companion stood up facing him.
“Don’t you wish to?” she challenged.
The hand of the man dropped in outward motion of deprecation.
“The question is useless. I’m human.”
“Why shouldn’t we do what pleases us, then?” The voice was insistent. “What is life for if not for pleasure?”
“Would it be pleasure, though? Wouldn’t 112 the future hold for us more of pain than of pleasure?”
“No, never.” The words came with a slowness that meant finality. “Why need to-morrow or a year from now be different from to-day unless we make it so?”
“But it would change unconsciously. We’d think and hate ourselves.”
“For what reason? Isn’t it Nature that attracts us to each other and can Nature be wrong?”
“We can’t always depend upon Nature,” commented the man absently.
“That’s an artificial argument, and you know it.” A reprimand was in her voice. “If you can’t depend upon Nature to tell you what is right, what other authority can you consult?”
“But Nature has been perverted,” he evaded.
“Isn’t it possible your judgment instead is at fault?”
“It can’t be at fault, here.” The voice was neutral as before. “Something tells us both it would be wrong––to do––as we want to do.” 113
Once more they sat down facing each other, the desk between them as at first.
“Artificial convention, I tell you again.” In motion graceful as nature the woman extended her hand, palm upward, on the polished desk top. “How could we be other than right? What do we mean by right, anyway? Is there any judge higher than our individual selves, and don’t they tell us pleasure is the chief aim of life and as such must be right?”
The muscles at the angle of the man’s jaw tightened involuntarily.
“But pleasure is not the chief end of life.”
“What is, then?”
“Development––evolution.”
“Evolution to what?” she insisted.
“That we cannot answer as yet. Future generations must and will give answer.”
“It’s for this then that you deny yourself?” A shade almost of contempt was in the questioning voice.
The taunt brought no change of expression to the man’s face.
“Yes.”
The woman walked over to a bookcase, and, 114 drawing out a volume, turned the pages absently. Without reading a word, she came back and looked the man squarely in the face.
“Will denying yourself help the world to evolve?”
“I think so.”
“How?”
“My determination makes me a positive force. It is my Karma for good, that makes my child stronger to do things.”
“But you have no child,”––swiftly.
Their eyes met again without faltering.
“I shall have––sometime.”
Silence fell upon them.
“Where were you a century ago?” digressed the woman.
“I wasn’t born.”
“Where will your child be a hundred years from now?”
“Dead likewise, probably; but the force for good, the Karma of the life, will be passed on and remain in the world.”
Unconsciously they both rose to their feet.
“Was man always on the earth?” she asked. 115
The question was answered almost before spoken.
“No.”
“Will he always be here?”
“Science says ‘no.’”
The woman came a step forward until they almost touched.
“What then becomes of your life of denial?” she challenged.
“You make it hard for me,” said the man, simply.
“But am I not right?” She came toward him passionately. “I come near you, and you start.” She laid her hand on his. “I touch you, and your eyes grow warm. Both our hearts beat more quickly. Look at the sunshine! It’s brighter when we’re so close together. What of life? It’s soon gone––and then? What of convention that says ‘no’? It’s but a farce that gives the same thing we ask––at the price of a few words of mummery. Our strongest instincts of nature call for each other. Why shouldn’t we obey them when we wish?” She hesitated, and her voice became 116 tender. “We would be very happy together. Won’t you come?”
The man broke away almost roughly.
“Don’t you know,” he demanded, “it’s madness for us to be talking like this? We’ll be taking it seriously, and then––”
The woman made a swift gesture of protest.
“Don’t. Let’s be honest––with each other, at least. I’m tired of pretending to be other than I am. Why did you say ‘being true to my husband’? You know it’s mockery. Is it being true to live with a man I hate because man’s law demands it, rather than true to you whom Nature’s law sanctions? Don’t speak to me of society’s right and wrong! I despise it. There is no other tribunal than Nature, and Nature says ‘Come.’”
The man sat down slowly and dropped his head wearily into his hands.
“I say again, I cannot. I respect you too much. We’re intoxicated now being together. In an hour, after we’re separate––”
She broke in on him passionately.
“Do you think a woman says what I have said on the spur of the moment? Do you think 117 I merely happened to see you to-day, merely happened to say what I’ve said? You know better. This has been coming for months. I fought it hard at first; with convention, with your idea of right and wrong. Now I laugh at them both. Life is life, and short, and beyond is darkness. Think what atoms we are; and we struggle so hard. Our life that seems to us so short––and so long! A thousand, perhaps ten thousand such, end to end, and we have the life of a world. And what is that? A cycle! A thing self-created, self-destructive: then of human life––nothingness. Oh, it’s humorous! Our life, a ten thousandth part of that nothingness; and so full of tiny––great struggles and worries!” She was silent a moment, her throat trembling, a multitude of expressions shifting swiftly on her face.
“Do you believe in God?” she questioned suddenly.
“I hardly know. There must be––”
“Don’t you suppose, then, He’s laughing at us now?” She hesitated again and then went on, almost unconsciously. “I had a dream a 118 few nights ago.” The voice was low and very soft. “It seemed I was alone in a desert place, and partial darkness was about me. I was conscious only of listening and wondering, for out of the shadow came sounds of human suffering. I waited with my heart beating strangely. Gradually the voices grew louder, until I caught the meaning of occasional words and distinctly saw coming toward me the figure of a man and a woman bearing a great burden, a load so great that both together bent beneath the weight and sweat stood thick upon their brows. The edges of the burden were very sharp so that the hands of the man and the woman bled from the wounds and their shoulders were torn grievously where the load had shifted: those of the woman more than the man, for she bore more of the weight. I marvelled at the sight.
“Suddenly an intense brightness fell about me and I saw, near and afar, other figures each bearing similar burdens. The light passed away, and I drew near the man and questioned him. 119
“‘What rough load is that you carry?’ I asked.
“‘The burden of conventionality,’ answered the man, wearily and with a note of surprise in his voice.
“‘Why do you bear it needlessly?’ I remonstrated.
“‘We dare not drop it,’ said the woman, hopelessly, ‘lest that light, which is the searchlight of public opinion, return, showing us different from the others.’
“Even as she spoke the illumination again fell upon us, and by its brightness I saw a drop of blood gather slowly from the wounds on the woman’s hand and fall into the dust at her feet.”
A silence fell upon the inmates of the tiny muffled office.
“But the burden isn’t useless,” said the man, gently. “The condemnation of society is an hourly reality. From the patronage of others we live. The sun burns us, but we submit, for in return it gives life.”
The woman arose with an abrupt movement, and looked down at him coldly. 120
“Are you a man, and use those arguments?” An expression akin to contempt formed about her mouth. “Are you afraid of a united voice the individuals of which you despise?”
The first hint of restrained passion was in the answering voice.
“You taunt me in safety, for you know I love you.” He looked up at her unhesitatingly. “Man’s law is artificial, that I know; but it’s made for conditions which are artificial, and for such it’s right. Were we as in the beginning, Nature’s law, which beside the law of man is no law, would be right; but we’re of the world as it is now. Things are as they are, and we must conform or pay the price.” He hesitated. His face settled back into a mask. “And that price of non-conformity is too high,” he completed steadily.
The eyes of the woman blazed and her hands tightened convulsively.
“Oh, you’re frozen––fossilized, man! I called you man! You’re not a man at all, but a nineteenth century machine! You’re run like a motor, from a power house; by the force of conventional thought, over wires of red 121 tape. Fie on you! I thought to meet a human being, not a lifeless thing.” She looked at him steadily, her chin in the air, a world of scorn in her face. “Go on sweating beneath the useless load! Go on building your structure of artificiality that ends centuries from now in nothingness! Here’s happiness to you in your empty life of self-effacement, with your machine prompted acts, years considered!” Without looking at him, one hand made scornful motion of dismissal. “Good-bye, ghost of man; I wash my hands of you.”
“Wait, Eleanor!” The man sprang to his feet, the mask lifting from his face, and there stood revealed a multitude of emotions, unseen of the world, that flashed from the depths of his brown eyes and quivered in the angles of his mouth. He came quickly over and took her hand between his own.
“I’m proud of you,”––a world of tenderness was in his voice––“unspeakably proud––for I love you. I’ve done my best to keep us apart, yet all the time I believed with you. Nature is higher than man, and no power on earth can prove it otherwise.” He looked 122 into the softest of brown eyes, and his voice trembled. “Beside you the world is nothing. Its approval or its condemnation are things to be laughed at. With you I challenge conventionality––society––everything.” He bent over her hand almost reverently and touched it softly with his lips.