He went on catching impressions. He felt very keen. It occurred to him suddenly that Cutter’s wife was responsible for the room. This fellow who could fly like a kite in the markets couldn’t fly here or move or change anything. Odd situation. If this was her taste in house furnishing, who chose her frock for her? She was dressed like a fashionable woman, and she looked like a madonna; not virginal, but awfully still like the image of something immortally removed. She gave him a queer feeling. Still it was distinctly a sensation; he handed it to her for that.
All this time Cutter was talking like a man covering some kind of breach, laughing at the end of every sentence. He heard himself making replies, also laughing. Nothing from Mrs. Cutter. He looked across at her seated in the other mahogany chair, and dropped his eyes. Her gaze was still fixed on him, no shadow of a smile on her face. He understood why instantly. This was not mirth, this was laughter he and Cutter were executing as people do when they make conversation. He was amazed at this woman’s independence. She had nothing to say and said it in silence. She heard nothing amusing, therefore she was not smiling. She was not even embarrassed.
It all depends upon your experience and angle of vision what you see in another person. This is why your husband may discover that some other woman understands him better than you do. She knows him better than you do because she knows more about men than you do. And if there is anything that weakens the moral knees of a man quicker even than strong drink, it is to feel the soothing flattery of being better understood by another woman.
Precisely in this way Shippen understood Helen, and knew perfectly that Cutter was not the man who could do it. She was invincible, he saw that; stupid, he saw that. And he was enough of a connoisseur in this matter to realize that intelligence would sully this lovely thing. Merriment would be a facial transgression. She was that rare and most mysterious of all creatures, a simply good woman without the self-consciousness they usually feel in their virtues.
He kept on with these reflections during dinner, which was served presently. He had no idea what kind of dinner it was. He was assembling plans for a speculation. He had been successful in many lines besides those involving money.
“You come to New York occasionally, don’t you, Mrs. Cutter?” he asked, endeavoring to engage her in conversation.
“Not that often. I have been there only once,” she told him with a faint smile. She had referred to her wedding journey without naming it. At that time she and George had spent a week in New York.
“You liked it, of course?” Shippen went on.
“It is like a book with too many pages, too many illustrations, too many quotations, isn’t it?” she evaded.
Shippen threw back his handsome black head and laughed.