“What shall become of me and my child, if things do not improve?” continued Mrs. Arnold as she began sobbing.
“I know that you will be ordered off to active service and then you will be killed and what shall become of me? There will be nothing left for me to survive upon under this government.”
“Never mind, my dear, I shall try and get West Point. Then our fortunes will soon change. We will not have all of the expenses of living in the city; we can then pay off our debts. Besides I have some commercial ventures that I expect to bring in some returns very soon. I know how you must feel when you see how much money the FitzMaurices and the Millings and the Redmans have and we do not have anything but my meagre pay to live upon.
“But remember, my dearest, I shall do all in my power to make you happy,—even to giving up my life. Oh! Margaret, bear up a little longer and I shall be able to gratify every desire that you may have. You know how much I love you, and how happy we have been with our boy!”
Quickly turning toward her husband, the beautiful and young Mrs. Arnold put her face poutingly up to his to be kissed, as she said:
“Benedict, I know that you love me, and I am afraid that you love me more than I deserve.”
The Arnold household had to contend with two conditions that are sure to disrupt the tranquility of a home. One was the imperious, unreasoning ambition of the wife to shine socially, and the other was the recognition, by the husband, that his own social position was not equal to the position that his wife was entitled to hold by reason of education, family and environment.
Arnold had won fame in a few years on account of his brilliant and daring military exploits, but his reckless and obstinate nature had brought him into disrepute. He lacked finesse and diplomacy. His home and social surroundings demanded wisdom that he did not possess.
He had been an apothecary, a horse trader, and a sea captain. His enterprise in business had been of the adventurous order. He had rubbed against the hoi polloi of Colonial times. He was at home in a country dance among French Canadians on his journeys to trade Yankee notions for ponies, but when he entered the ultra-aristocratic circles of Philadelphia as the military commandant, he soon succumbed to the wiles of the beautiful women and the luxury of gay living; his head soon swam with the fantastic notions of a new and gilded life.
He was an unsophisticated Adam, partaking of the sweets of life with no preparation of the appetite. His ardent nature was not tempered with the prudence of experience. He glutted himself like the gamin who enters a pie contest. The wine was red and he desired to indulge himself in its flavor. No consequences appealed to him in his mad intoxication; he had no wisdom; his gentility was crude. Although he was bold, he was reduced by circumstances to a parasite; he even surrendered his political principles to those of his wife and her friends.