The Ordeal of Elizabeth

by Anonymous

Yet the situation, unflattering though it was, had its advantages, which dawned upon him gradually, while Elizabeth still sobbed. He rose and paced up and down in front of her, thinking the matter over. After all, a wife was the last thing that he wanted—just then, when his career was opening out before him in unexpectedly brilliant colors. He realized perfectly the value of his own good looks, and the loss of prestige that marriage would involve. Matrimony is a mistake for an artist—he had told himself this many times in the last few months. And yet, having once made the mistake, having won this beautiful girl for his wife, how could he give her up. There was the chance that she might change her mind again, and return to her first love. Then it was sweet to feel that she was in his power, that he could at any time bring her to terms by threatening to publish the fact that she had concealed all this time. True, the marriage might be dissolved—he had not much doubt himself that it could be; but either this plan did not occur to Elizabeth, or she dreaded the inevitable gossip and publicity. At all events, it was not his place, he thought, to suggest it to her. He held the mastery of the situation, and he was determined to improve it to the uttermost. And having arrived at this conclusion, he suddenly stopped before her and spoke in a tone of unwonted resolution.

"Listen to me, Elizabeth," he said. "I don't know why you are making this scene. In what has the situation changed since—let us say, last week? I don't ask you to acknowledge our marriage at once—indeed it is impossible for me to do so, as I am not—worse luck—in a position just now to support a wife."

Elizabeth, in her surprise, stopped crying and stared up at him blankly. "You don't want the marriage acknowledged?" she repeated, utterly taken aback.

"Not just now," said Paul, calmly. "It would be as inconvenient for me, as it seems to be for you. No, all I ask is for you to see me occasionally, to think of me more kindly, and in time—perhaps in time, dearest, you will care for me again as you used to."

He went on to dilate on this hope. Elizabeth's tears as she listened, ceased. A feeling of relief stole over her, the reaction which follows so often upon violent distress. "In time," Paul said. Ah, yes, her heart answered, there is no knowing what wonders time may accomplish. It might even—who could tell?—find a way for her out of this terrible perplexity.

Yet the thought was illogical. Of what use was it to put off the evil day? There was a side of her nature which was brave and straightforward, which detested false pretences and evasions, and all the net-work of deception in which her secret had already involved her; which called out upon her boldly to tell the truth, since every day that she kept it hidden only made the final disclosure more difficult. But there was another side which counselled compromise, which shrank from facing the inevitable, which lived only in the present and refused to take thought for the future. And finally there was a side which did not reason, which simply remembered the look in a man's eyes, when he had spoken to her the day before of her picture.

How would it be if he knew the truth? Would he make allowances for her, would he be magnanimous enough to forgive? Ah, no, he had judged her harshly for no apparent reason. Such a discovery would put an end entirely to all his faith in her.

For she felt instinctively how it would strike him—this impulsive action of a thoughtless girl, who had rushed into marriage as if it were a mere farce, and taken upon herself, lightly, the most solemn vows, only to repent of them quite as readily. He would pronounce her hopelessly light and fickle, he would never believe that she was capable of any deeper feeling. His presentiment, distrust—whatever it was that had kept him from her—would be justified, and—and there would be the end of it. And the best thing that could happen, that stern inner voice called out.

But she would not listen to it—not yet, at least. She must see him once or twice first, probe his feelings a little more surely, prepare him a little, perhaps, to judge her more gently.... Some time—very soon, perhaps,—she would tell him herself, but—not now, not now....

Her head ached, she was physically exhausted, and Paul was waiting, impatiently, for her decision. She had an engagement, too, for luncheon—she remembered that mechanically.... In this matter-of-fact world of ours, the every-day and the tragic incidents of life jostle one another so closely.