"That is the way with Englishwomen: we accommodate ourselves to our husbands instead of requiring them to mould themselves to us."
"It is a very pleasant way," replied Senator March gallantly, and then, being full of his subject, he went on talking about it until, suddenly recalling himself, he said: "You have not been for your drive and it is already growing dark. I can't go with you to-day; I have a lot more of this business on hand in my study."
"I don't think I shall drive this afternoon," replied Mrs. March. "I think I shall walk for half-an-hour. You wish to be undisturbed until dinner?"
"Yes," said Senator March, going into his own quarters.
Ten minutes later Mrs. March, in a plain walking dress, with a thin black veil over her face, went out of her own door, and when she was well around the corner called a cab and gave the address of a plain hotel in the lower part of the city. As she leaned back in the ramshackle cab she drew her veil still more closely over her face and tried to collect her thoughts for the interview which she sought, but her mind wandered to all manner of subjects. How strange it was that she, the wife of one of the richest men in the Senate, with an allowance which was a fortune in itself, should be at that moment harassed for money! She never remembered the time in her life that such had not been the case. When she married Senator March it was with the expectation that never again as long as she lived would she ever want for money, but within the year the old emptiness of purse returned. Money slipped through her fingers she knew not how. She loved pearls and diamonds and beautiful things with an insatiable love. Senator March had loaded her with jewels, but she wanted more. It seemed to her that wealth was not wealth if one had to consider how it was spent. That principle had caused her to spend not only a splendid income, but had piled up debts to which her old burdens were a mere nothing. The same principle of shame and even fear that she had felt toward her father prevented her from opening her heart to her husband, the soul of indulgence. There was a kind of rigid morality about Roger March, and the idea that she had made debts which she concealed from him she knew would appear as a crime in his eyes. He would, of course, pay them--of that she felt quite certain--but in spite of her husband's love and gentleness, he had always inspired her with a certain fear, just as her father did, and General Talbott would know the whole story which she so shrank from telling. She found a curious lack of power in herself to stop spending money. Then came Nicholas Colegrove's opportunity.
He had seen Alicia March several times during the first winter of her marriage, when she immediately became one of the great hostesses of Washington. Colegrove was by nature social, and liked, as well as any one, a good dinner, a good glass of wine and a pretty woman on each side of him. His position as the moving spirit of an association of great railways, which some people called a conspiracy, placed him somewhat at a disadvantage with public men in Washington. Senator March, however, liked Colegrove well enough, and was by no means afraid of him, and if Alicia March wanted to have him at her brilliant dinners her husband made no objection. Senator March was chairman of the committee which was dealing with Colegrove and his associates, but so far nothing had been discovered of a nature damaging to Colegrove or his friends. As he good-humouredly told Senator March, the railways asked only to be let alone; and Senator March, with equal good humour, replied that was the very thing that the committee did not mean to do.
As the committee would not agree to let Colegrove alone, but persisted in asking prying questions, the next best thing for him was to find out exactly what the committee knew, and how it proposed to act. Alicia March was the instrument ready to his hand. Colegrove, who had a vast quantity of that semi-divine gift known as common-sense, was under no illusion respecting Alicia March's influence over her husband. Senator March was deeply devoted to his wife, but neither she nor any other human being who ever lived could swerve Roger March from his duty, or cause him to betray the smallest trust. He was not, however, on guard against his wife, and Colegrove knew it.
When he passed the March house late at night and saw the lights burning in Senator March's study, and knew that he was at work there with his clerk and a stenographer, Colegrove longed to know what they were writing. How easy it would be for Mrs. March to make a few copies of the letters and memoranda, which would be immensely useful to the A.F.&O.! Reflecting on this, Colegrove cultivated Mrs. March's society. Being a man of acute observation, he found out some things about Alicia March which not even her husband knew. He discovered that she had a strange sense of dislocation in her new place. She had been forced, as she thought, in her previous life to have many concealments, and she still had them, but they gave her a vague sense of discomfort which she had never known before. Still the habit was upon her, and she had the conviction that concealment, however wrong, was absolutely necessary.
Colegrove alone of all the men she had ever known seemed to penetrate at once into everything which she wished to keep secret. He had got out of her the fact that she was pressed for money within a year of her marriage. This he proposed to remedy in a manner at once easy, simple and honourable: to get hold of stocks which would cost next to nothing to buy, and would sell for a fortune, and this he would do for Alicia March in his own name. He made the condition, however, that she should not mention it to her husband, and to this Alicia March agreed readily enough, knowing the transaction could not take place unless it were kept a secret from Senator March. Then money flowed into her hands, not enough to make her independent of Colegrove, but enough to ease the perpetual strain. At this point Colegrove had asked her to get copies of certain letters which he knew were in Senator March's desk in his study. At this Alicia recoiled and then refused, but when payment was demanded for a couple of black pearls which she had bought, and her dividends from her stocks were not forthcoming, Colegrove told her plainly that he must have copies of those letters before any more money was paid. Alicia had realised some time before that she was playing a dangerous game, but who fears the danger of a game as long as one is winning? It was ridiculously easy to get what Colegrove wanted, and love for the black pearls was stronger in Alicia March than honour or fear. Colegrove got his copies and Alicia's stock suddenly, according to Colegrove, declared a tremendous dividend.
Colegrove congratulated himself on what he had accomplished with Mrs. March and incidentally was scorched. All men are dreamers of dreams, and at last the dream took shape with Colegrove that he should force a wedge between Roger March and his wife. As for Colegrove's own wife, the fretful lady in a far-away western city, that was easily managed--he could drive her into a divorce any day he liked. He was the last man on earth who would betray himself, and what seemed an unguarded outbreak of passion for Alicia March was really a carefully calculated procedure. Alicia received it with a calmness and capacity to deal with the situation which showed him that she was no apprentice in such matters. She held him off, but she did not break with him. Each was too useful to the other to come to an open rupture, and so matters had gone on for more than three years.