Light-Fingered Gentry

by David Graham Phillips

"I had thought of that, too," confessed he. "But I— Do you really want it, Cis?"

"No sentiment in business," replied she in her most offhand manner. "If each of us can do better alone, it'd be silly not to separate. Anyhow, where's the harm in trying?"

"I was going to suggest that we take offices a little further uptown," he went on. "We might do that, and keep on as we are for a while."

"No. You move; let me keep these offices. I'm like a cat; I get attached to places."

And so it was settled. "Narcisse Siersdorf, Builder," appeared where "A. & N. Siersdorf, Builders," had been. "Alois Siersdorf, Architect," appeared upon the offices, spacious and most imposing, in a small but extravagantly luxurious bank building in Fifth Avenue, within a few blocks of home—"home" being Josiah Fosdick's house.

Amy insisted on their living "at home" because her father couldn't be left quite alone; and Alois sat rent and food free; he had made a vigorous fight for complete independence in financial matters, but nothing had come of it—he felt that it was ridiculous solemnly to give Amy each month a sum which would hardly pay for her dresses. "You are too funny about money," she said. "Why attach so much importance to it? We put it all in together, and no doubt some months you pay more than our share, other months less—but what of that? You can't expect me to bother my head with horrid accounts. And I simply won't have you talking such matters with the housekeeper—and who else is there?"

Alois grumbled, but gradually yielded. He consoled himself with the reflection that presently his business would pay hugely, and then the equilibrium would be restored. And after a while—an extremely short while—he thought no more about the matter. This, in face of the fact that the business did not expand as he had dreamed. He was offered plenty to do at first, for he had reputation and the rich were eager for his services. But he simply could not find time to attend to business; he had to leave everything, even the making of plans, to assistants. There were all sorts of entertainments to which he must go with Amy—rides, coaching expeditions, luncheons, afternoon bridge parties, week-end visits. And often he was up until very late at balls; she loved to dance, and he found balls amusing, too. Indeed, he was well pleased with all the gayety. Everybody paid court to him; the husband of an heiress, and a distinguished, a successful, a famous man, one whose opinions in professional matters were quoted with respect. And as everybody talked and acted as if he were doing well, were rising steadily higher and higher, he could not but talk and act and feel so, himself—most of the time. He knew, as a matter of theory, that success of any kind, except in being rich, and that exception only for the enormously rich, is harder to keep than to win, must be won all over again each day. But in those surroundings he could not feel this; he seemed secure, permanent.

It was not long before all their world, except only her and him, knew he had practically given up the profession of architect for that of husband. The outward forms of deference to the famous young architect deceived him, enabled him to deceive himself; but his friends, in his very presence, and just out of earshot, often in undertones at his father-in-law's table, were sneering or, what is usually the same thing, moralizing. "Poor Siersdorf! How he has fagged out. Well, was there as much to him as some people said? And they tell me he is living off his wife."

When matters reach this pass, and when the man is really a man, the explosion is not far off. It came with the first bitter quarrel he and Amy had. She wished him to go away with her for two months; he wished to go, and it infuriated him against himself that he had so far lost his pride that he could even consider leaving his business when it needed him imperatively. He curtly refused to go; by degrees their discussion became a wrangle, a quarrel, a pitched battle. She was the first completely to lose control of temper. She cast about for some missile that would hit hard.

"What does this business of yours amount to, anyhow?" she jeered. "Sometimes, I can't help wondering what would have become of you if you hadn't married me."