"O, Hell! I believe with Bernard Shaw: 'They say—what do they say? Let them say!' People will always find something to criticize. So long as I am satisfied it's nobody's business. I'm not afraid, girlie, of anyone taking you away from me." And he dismissed the subject.
My husband not only encouraged the idea of my working under the guiding hand of the sculptor but developed an enthusiasm which quite took away my breath. In one of his impulsive moods he rented a studio from an artist member of the Players' Club, who was planning to go abroad for a year. "It's just the thing she needs; something to occupy her mind. Besides, any little pleasure I can throw her way is coming to her, after the way she stood by when I was down on my luck. It isn't every wife who can support her husband, is it, old man?" And Will slipped his arm about my shoulders with an amused wink. He was in high humour these days.
There was a great scrubbing and cleaning before I pronounced the studio habitable. Will said I was not a true artist. I failed to find art and dirt synonymous or mutually connotating each the other.
The building which housed the studio was in a small street or, more properly, an area-way in the vicinity of lower Fifth Avenue within a stone's throw of Washington Square. John Gailbraith said it was his favourite part of the city. It came to be mine. Sometimes, after we had taken luncheon at a near-by restaurant, we would stroll in the square or sit on one of the benches. Our lounging neighbours were interesting studies in real life. John would point out the various foreign types and compare them with their countrymen on their native heath. At other times I would have our recently acquired cook-lady prepare a dainty lunch basket, which I carried to the studio, and at the noon-hour, while John made the tea, I laid the table. Here we would linger, absorbed in the discussion which with passing days grew more frank and intimate. I no longer felt cramped or warped. Expansion had become an almost measurable sensation. During our vari-toned pour-parler, one subject was by seemingly tacit consent taboo. No reference or allusion was ever made to my conjugal affairs. Whatever John Gailbraith thought or knew concerning Will's peccadillos, he gave no intimation. It was not possible that he had not heard of my husband's various liaisons. In fact, Will, himself, made no attempt to conceal the attentions of certain women who rang up at his home under flimsiest pretence. He joked lightly about their indiscretions and commented on the fact that he "was getting to be the real thing in the way of a matinée idol." The period following upon my son's death when Will had devoted himself to me with something of the sweetness of our early married life was short-lived. And if I closed my eyes and ears to the recurring lapses of his fidelity it was because I still hoped that some day he would need my love. Whether John Gailbraith believed there was an understanding between my husband and me I could only surmise. To have him regard me in the light of a complaisant wife gave me many uncomfortable moments, yet I could not touch upon the subject. The truth lovingly told is that I came nearer to being happy during those summer months than I had been for—how many years had passed since Will and I had set up housekeeping in the little furnished flat of halcyon days?...
When Will's absence from home became more frequent and of long duration I exerted myself to greet his return with a pleasant word and a serene face. And if, sometimes, I felt John's eyes upon me—those great gray eyes with large iris and the black fringed lids—I strove the harder to dissemble.
Sometimes Will would swoop down on us with a noisy party in tow and insist upon an impromptu dinner in the workshop. The suggestion was invariably hailed with delight by the women, who regarded the studio as an open sesame to forbidden fruit and free speech, while to the men it connoted models in the nude and bacchanalia.
On one occasion Will brought his star to see the minute whirling figure the sculptor had but recently completed in refutation of the criticism that his work was effective only in large design. Posing as a connoisseur, the lady had expressed the wish to see John's work. I think I hated her at first glance. There was something snake-like even in the movement of her body and in the craning of her long, thin neck from which a sharp jaw projected. She fascinated while she repelled. Being temperamentally reserved in the presence of strangers—and the lady temperamentally interested in the opposite sex—I had an opportunity to study her. My scrutiny was not unobserved. Indeed, she was always conscious of self, though apparently not self-conscious.
In the act of taking her leave she stopped quite suddenly and addressed herself to me: "And so you are Meesus Hartley.... What fine eyes you have ... such ... what ees the word? Yes, tangled, tangled depths ... and the shadows!... If I were a man I should make love to Meesus Hartley...." She shot a glance at John Gailbraith, then dropped her lids over her eyes. But the suggestion was not lost. It was not meant to be.
"Madame has a pleasing way of expressing herself," I drawled, meeting the much affected wide baby stare of her orbs with a like expression. Suggestion is insidiously effective. From the moment my husband's star had dropped the seed—thoughtlessly or maliciously, who shall say?—it took root. The calm surface over which I had been gliding during the past months ruffled and disturbed my equilibrium. The old camaraderie between John Gailbraith and me gave way to self-consciousness on my part. I felt what I imagined might have been the sensation which overwhelmed Mother Eve after eating of the Tree of Knowledge. For the first time during our intercourse I looked upon John Gailbraith as man—myself, woman. I caught myself expecting, anticipating, parrying any indication on his part which might be construed as a prelude to tenderness. My attitude became constrained, unnatural; his, more gracious, gentle, tactful. Perhaps he analyzed my mood as the natural result of gossip which connected my husband's name with that of the "star." That he pitied me heaped coals of fire upon my head—and his. I was glad of the opportunity which took him to Washington in response to a letter from a prospective patron and left me to myself.
With mathematical precision I questioned myself: Why should I permit the insinuations of a not disinterested woman to mar a friendship which had become dear to me and which I had hoped to retain all my life? Was friendship between persons of opposite sex not possible? Can there be no relationship between man and woman disassociated from sex? Had this man by look or word professed other than friendship for me? Had I professed or felt any emotion other than which I indicated? Then why permit the bond to be severed by a wholly suppositious breach? I resolved that upon John's return to the city I should take up the thread where I had left off. There was consolation in the determination.