A Woman Ventures: A Novel

by David Graham Phillips

Marlowe’s look and speech were frank, yet instinctively Emily paused curiously upon his eager certificate of good character to Miss Fenton in face of circumstances which a man of his experience would regard as conclusive. Also she was puzzled by the elaborateness of his explanation. She wished to see Miss Fenton.

They met that evening at Larue’s and dined downstairs. Emily instantly noted that Marlowe’s description of Kilboggan was accurate. “How can any one be fooled by these frauds?” she thought. “He carries his character in his face, as they all do. I suppose the reason they get on is because the first impression wears away.” Then she passed to her real interest in the party—Miss Fenton. Her first thought was—“How beautiful!” Her second thought—“How shallow and stupid!”

Victoria Fenton was tall and thin—obtrusively thin. Her arms and legs were long, and they and her narrow hips and the great distance from her chin to the swell of her bosom combined to give her an appearance of snake-like grace—uncanny, sensuous, morbidly fascinating. Her features were perfectly regular, her skin like an Amsterdam baby’s, her eyes deep brown, and her hair heavy ropes of gold. Her eyes seemed to be brilliant; but when Emily looked again, she saw that they were dull, and that it was the colouring of her cheeks which made them seem bright. In the mindless expression of her eyes, in her coarse, wide mouth and long white teeth, Emily found the real woman. And she understood why Miss Fenton could say little, and eat and drink greedily, and still could shine.

But, before Miss Fenton began to exhibit her appetite, Emily had made another discovery. As she and Marlowe entered Larue’s, Victoria gave him a look of greeting which a less sagacious woman than she would not have misunderstood. It was unmistakably the look of potential proprietorship.

Emily glanced swiftly but stealthily at Marlowe by way of the mirror behind the table. He was wearing the expression of patient and bored indifference which had become habitual with him since he had been associating with Englishmen. Their eyes met in the mirror—“He is trying to see how I took that woman’s look at him,” she thought, contemptuously. “But he must have known in advance that she would betray herself and him. He must have brought me here deliberately to see it or brought her here to see me—or both.” A little further reflection, and suspicion became certainty, and her eyelids hid a look of scorn.

She made herself agreeable to Kilboggan, who proved to be amusing. As soon as the food and drink came, Victoria neglected Marlowe. He, after struggling to draw her out and succeeding in getting only dull or silly commonplaces, became silent and ill-at-ease. He felt that so far as rousing Emily’s jealousy was concerned, he had failed dismally, “Victoria is at her worst to-night,” he thought. “She couldn’t make anybody jealous.” But he had not the acuteness to see that Emily had penetrated his plan—if he had been thus acute, he would not have tried such a scheme, desperate though he was.

All he had accomplished was to bring the two women before his eyes and mind in the sharpest possible contrast, and so increase his own infatuation for Emily. The climax of his discomfiture came when Victoria, sated by what she had eaten and inflamed by what she had drunk, began to scowl jealously at Emily and Kilboggan. But Marlowe did not observe this; his whole mind was absorbed in Emily. He was not disturbed by her politeness to Kilboggan; he hardly noted it. He was revolving her fascinations, her capriciousness, her unreachableness. “I have laughed at married men,” he said to himself. “They are revenged. Of all husbands I am the most ridiculous.” And he began to see the merits of the system of locking women away in harems.

He and she drove to her apartment in silence. He sent away the cab and joined her at the outside door which the concierge had opened. “Good night.” She spoke distantly, standing in the doorway as if she expected him to leave. “I’m afraid I can’t see you to-morrow. Theresa and her General arrived at the Ritz to-night from Egypt, and I’ve engaged to lunch and drive and dine with them.”

“I will go up with you,” he said, as if she had not spoken. There was sullen resolve in his tone, and so busy was he with his internal commotion that he did not note the danger fire in her eyes. But she decided that it would not be wise to oppose him there. When they were in her tiny salon, she seated herself, after a significant glance at the clock. He lit a cigarette and leaned against the mantel-shelf. He could look down at her—if she had been standing also, their eyes would have been upon a level.

“How repellent he looks,” she thought, as she watched him expectantly. “And just when he needs to appear at his best.”