“They’ve played a better game,” said Jim. “Horatia, dear, don’t you want to call it off between us? You can go to the end of the world without me. But with me you’d just be burdened. You’d be doomed to the society of queer people. And me. And you’d tire of the queer people first and then of me.”
“I don’t see why it must mean queer people,” objected Horatia. “Why must it? Not that I don’t like queer people, but I like the others too. And you most of all. And I won’t give you up.”
“But swear not to marry me to reform me——”
“I swear.”
That argument was over and yet they had reached no outcome and they both knew it. Horatia said fiercely to herself that there was no use in being trivial and that it certainly didn’t matter. But she felt that she had stumbled upon a strange quality in her lover—a resistance—a kind of weakness too. And with the assurance of all lovers she told herself that it must not happen again.
It had not been a good time for the conversation either. They were bound for a dinner at Rose Hubbell’s, and Horatia felt that she had been stupid and that all evening he would be feeling her criticism of the people she was with. In the shadow of the cab she leaned against him.
“I’m an easily influenced fool, Jim. I’m just plain stupid. And the only thing that matters is you. Repeat that, please.”
Which he did, very satisfactorily.
The big rooms at Rose Hubbell’s were decorated with jonquils. It was fortunate that Mrs. Hubbell, not being poor, never had to stint her setting. Her company, tonight, included two regular army officers, both very distinguished looking, the illustrator, Starling, who had recently come into such repute, Austin Benedict, a dilettante of everything, the cynical Mrs. Boyce, and two of the dancers from the Russian troupe at the theatre, who were really young women savoring much more of New York than Russia. They were a gay company. Horatia forgot her criticisms. Mrs. Hubbell’s deft servant called them to a perfectly appointed supper. The atmosphere was artificial; the company was artificial; the gaiety was artificial, and Horatia knew it but she could not help admiring the perfection of the artifice. The wonder came over her again at the baffling quality in Jim which could say that the hunt for pleasure was becoming a dangerous chase for the world and at the same time suffer himself to be part of such a company. She did not realize that his inconsistency was a common enough one among men—and that his need for company, for society of any kind had been very great. A mind more skilled in psychology would have grasped the fact of the pride that kept him from the society of the people he had formerly known and the other pride which had kept him in this company after his calamitous public connection with it. And they sat around the table with its sparkling little service and the talk grew gayer and gayer. Settings, thought Horatia, are queer. Perhaps this in its way is as desirable as great open rooms and nurseries. If one had to choose. But she did not choose between settings. It was a glorious thought—her choice—her choice was between men.
Austin Benedict paid Horatia laughing exaggerated attentions. She must do nothing for herself.