Cutter shot a bright glance at his wife and joined in this applause. He had no idea she could think anything as good as that to say. And she could not have done so if he had asked the question.
“What I mean is that one must live there a long time before he could know whether he liked it or not,” she explained.
“Well, I think you would,” he answered, meaning some flattery which she did not get.
Having said so much, she had nothing else to say. The two men went on with this discussion of New York life. Cutter was determined to let Shippen know that he was no stranger to it—old stuff, such as brokers and buyers get, under the impression that they are bounding up the social ladder of the great metropolis. Shippen heard him give quite frankly his café experiences, not omitting soubrettes. No harm in what he was telling, of course, but as a rule men didn’t do it at home.
Once or twice he glanced at Mrs. Cutter, ready to come to heel, change the subject if he saw the faintest shade of annoyance on her face. There was no shade there at all, only a calm, clear look. And this look was fixed on him as if he were a page she read out of the book of this city. Apparently she was indifferent to what Cutter was saying. He decided that she was not jealous of her husband.
He wondered if Cutter had the least conception of the kind of woman his wife was. He thought not. Some day she would stand immovable in the way of his ambitions, he decided. In that case what would Cutter do? This was—well, it might prove very interesting. He went on speculating personally along this line.
The reason why so many men try to climb Mount Everest is because they cannot do it. Let even one reach the summit, and that exalted peak has fallen into the hands of the tame geographers and scientists. It becomes a business then, not an adventure, to chart those terrific altitudes. For the same reason the most attractive woman to men is the unattainable woman. Shippen found Mrs. Cutter attractive. He did not analyze the reason why. It was not her beauty. He had had success with far more beautiful women. He doubted his success here. Heavens! To find a woman who could not be won! What an adventure. That steady, unrevealing gaze in her blue eyes—what did it conceal? What did she know? He doubted if she knew anything. That was it; she was something real, not built up out of little knowledges, little virtues, spiced with little vices, and finished like her furniture with the varnish of feminine charms. What a noble change from the skittish kittens and the secret viragoes and the mercenary starlings he had known.
It is astonishing what terrible things a man can be thinking, while he looks at you frankly and laughs honestly and takes your food like a brother. Certainly Cutter would have been astonished if he had known what was passing through the mind of his guest as they talked and laughed together at this table. But it is a question if Helen would have been moved. She did not know this man, but she felt him like a darkness, in no way personal to her, but there, with George frisking around like an ambitious spark in this blackness. She was thinking of George chiefly, interpreting him according to Shippen. It was a fearful experience, and no one suspected her pain, because a woman can dig her own grave and step down into it behind the look and the smile and the duty she gives you, and it may be years before you discover that she is gone.
All this is put in for the emotional reader who knows it is the truth, and has probably felt the sod above herself, even while she is sadly dressing beautifully for an evening’s pleasure with a husband who has slain her or a lover whose perfidy has brought on these private obsequies. But all such truth is unhealthy, like the failure of courage in invalids. And in this particular I warn you that the fate of Helen differs from your own. She died a few times, as the most valorous women do; but she had a sublime instinct for surviving these incidental passings.
Shortly after dinner Cutter took Shippen back to his hotel. They had some affairs to discuss further before he should leave on the early morning train. Cutter explained to Helen, because this was unusual. It was his invariable habit to spend his evenings at home. He was a good husband, according to the strictest law of the scribes and Pharisees, so to speak. What I mean is that he was literally faithful to his wife, though you may have suspected to the contrary. This is not the author’s fault, but due to the evil culturing of your own mind. A man may be faithful to his wife, and at the same time frisk through the night life of a place like New York. He may be doing nothing worse than taking a whiff and an eyeful of the naughty world, getting something to talk about to the other fellows when he comes home. It is silly, but not wicked, as you are inclined to believe. I do not know why it is that so many respectable women are disposed to suspect the worst where men are concerned; but it is a fact which even their pastors will not deny.