The Hungry Heart: A Novel

by David Graham Phillips

"I sometimes believe it is—for a woman," replied the mother, with the kind of bitter irony into which the most reverent devotee is sometimes goaded by the whimsical cruelties of his deity.

Courtney had long since learned to be unargumentative before her mother's somber and savage religion, so logical yet so inhuman. She had dimly felt that if she ever investigated religion, the misery of the world would compel her to choose between believing in her mother's devil god and believing nothing. So she left religion aside in her scheme of life, like so many of the men and women of her generation.

"I ought to have had more education or less," she repeated. "I ought to have had more, for it wouldn't have been fair to give me less than the rest of the girls have."

She fancied it was her formal education of the college that had made her think and feel as she did. In fact, that had little, perhaps nothing, to do with it; for colleges, except the as yet few scientific schools—stupefy or stunt more minds than they stimulate. She was simply a child of her own generation, and the forces that were stirring her to restlessness were part of its universal atmosphere—the atmosphere all who live in it must breathe, the "spirit of the time" that makes the very yokel with his eyes upon the clod see things in it his yokel father never saw.

She knew her mother would gladly help her, but she realized she might as hopefully appeal to Winchie. All her mother could say would be: "Yes, it is sad. But the only thing to do is to return and pretend to be the old-fashioned wife, and perhaps custom will make the harness cease to gall." Well, perhaps her mother was right; perhaps there was no solution, no self-respecting hopeful solution. Certainly she could not support herself, except in some menial and meager way that would more surely kill all that was aspiring in her than would submission to the lot which universal custom made abject only in theory. She could not support herself—and there was Winchie, too. Winchie had his rights—rights to the advantages his father's position and fortune gave. Dick had made it clear that he did not and would not have the kind of love, the kind of relationship, she believed in. She must go on his terms or not at all.

She ended the long silence, during which her mother sat motionless in an attitude of patient waiting for the inevitable. "I will go," she said. "And I will try to be to him the kind of wife he wants."

Mrs. Benedict looked at her daughter; there were tears of pride in her eyes. "That is right," she said, and they talked of it no more.

But on the way back in the motor boat, and for the rest of that day, and for a good part of many a day and many a night thereafter, Courtney Vaughan's mind was stormily busy. It teemed with the thoughts that in this age of the break-up of the old-fashioned institution of the family force themselves early or late upon every woman endowed with the intelligence to have, or to dream of, self-respect.

Thenceforth Dick Vaughan, if he had thought about it at all, would have congratulated himself on his wise and thorough adjustment of his threatened domestic affairs. But he gave no more thought to it than does the next human being. We do not annoy ourselves with what is going on in the heads of those around us. We look only at results. And usually this plan works well; for, no matter what the average human being may have in mind, the habit of a routine of action ultimately determines his or her real self. Once in a while, however, circumstances interfere, encourage the latent revolt against action's routine apparently so placidly pursued. But this is rare.

The weeks, the months went by; and Courtney seemed, and thought herself, a typical "settled" wife and mother. That is, as "settled" as an intelligent, energetic, and young woman, restless in mind and body, could be. She did not attempt to come to a definite verbal understanding with him. What would be the use? There was nothing to change except herself. There was nothing to explain. She understood him. He did not understand her, did not wish to, could not on account of his prejudices, however carefully she might explain. "No," thought she, "the only thing is for me to accept my position as woman and adapt myself to it, since I haven't the right, or the courage, or the whatever it is I lack, to do as I'd like." The only outward difference in their relations was that she rarely talked with him, and when he was about, fell into his habit of abstraction.