“I can get backers for you”—it was rash, but I know how to manage Betty—“better than he ever was, the best kind of backers.”
She jerked her hand away and glared at me.
“What do you mean by that? Do you think he’s going to give me up? Why, you must be crazy.” She jumped to her feet looking down at me with a face of savage anger. “Do you think I haven’t made good? Have they,” with a violent gesture to the door, “told you so? They’re fools, idiots, imbeciles. Masters give me up—ah—” She turned away and then back. “Why he’s never had any one with such promise as I have. He’s banking on me. I’m going to bring him to the top. He borrowed the money to send me to Vignorol. Throw me down now, just when I’m getting there, just when I’m proving he was right? Oh, I can’t talk to you. You’ve no sense. You’re as big a fool as all the rest.”
And she rushed out of the room, banging the door till the whole apartment shook.
I lay thinking about it till Emma came to get me my supper. She was right in one thing—I was a fool. In my blundering attempt at encouragement I had gone straight to the heart of her fear, dragged it out into the light, held up in front of her the thing she was trying not to see—that Masters would give her up. Fool—it was a mild name for me. And poor Lizzie—tragic Bonaventura!
It’s night again and I am dressed in my best with a fur cloak on to keep off the chill. I’ve got to write, not a sudden visitation of the Muse, but to ease my mind. If you haven’t got a sympathetic pair of ears to pour your troubles into, pouring them out on paper is the next best thing.
It’s two days since I have seen Lizzie. Yesterday I was in my room all day nursing my cold and expecting her, but she didn’t come. Neither did she to-day, and all I could surmise was that she was angry with me for being a fool. As I feel I was one and yet don’t like to hear it from other people, I made no effort to get into communication with her.
This evening I was well enough to go out in a cab with all my furs and a foot warmer, to dine with Roger’s widowed sister, Mrs. Ashworth. I was a good deal fluttered over the dinner, guessed why it had been arranged. It was a small affair, the Fergusons, Roger and I. Preceded by a call from Mrs. Ashworth, it had a meaningful aspect, a delicate suggestion of welcoming me into the family. I blush as I write it. I don’t know why I should, or why love and marriage are matters surrounded by self-consciousness and shame. Who was it explained the embarrassment of lovers, their tendency to hide themselves in corners, as an instinctive sense of guilt at the prospect of bringing children into a miserable world? I think it was Schopenhauer. Sounds like him—cross-grained old misanthrope.
Mrs. Ashworth is Roger’s only near relation and he regards her as the choicest flower of womanhood. I don’t wonder. In her way she is a finished product, no raw edges, no loose ends. Everything is in harmony—her thin faintly-lined face, her silky white hair, her pale hands with slightly prominent veins, her voice with its gentle modulations. Nothing cheap or second rate could exist near her. She wouldn’t stamp them out—I can’t imagine her stamping—they would simply wither in the rarified atmosphere. Her friends are like herself, her house is like herself. When I go there I feel strident and coarse. As I enter the portal I instinctively tune my key lower, feel my high lights fading, undergo a refining and subduing process as if a chromo were being transmuted into a Bartolozzi engraving.
As my cab crawled down-town—I need hardly say Mrs. Ashworth lives in a house on lower Fifth Avenue, built by her father—I uneasily wondered if the Bohemian atmosphere in which I dwelt had left any marks upon me. I tried to obliterate them and made mental notes of things I mustn’t mention. Memories of Miss Bliss’ golden corset string rose uneasily, and Lizzie Harris, and oh, Mr. Masters! I ended by achieving a sense of grievance against Mrs. Ashworth. No one had any right to be so refined. It was all very well if you inherited a social circle and large means, but— The cab drew up with a jolt and I alighted. All unseemly exuberance died as the light from the door fell on me. I spoke so softly the driver had difficulty in hearing my order and when I walked up the steps I minced daintily.