CHAPTER XVIII
KISMET!
Peter Champneys was packing up for a summer's work on the coast when he received Vandervelde's letter, advising him that Mrs. Champneys had instituted proceedings to have her marriage annulled. The attorney added that by this action on Anne's part the entire Champneys estate reverted to him, Peter Champneys, with the exception of fifty thousand dollars especially allotted to Anne by Chadwick Champneys's will. Vandervelde took it for granted there would be no opposition from Peter. He hoped his client would find it possible to visit America shortly, there being certain details he should see to in person.
Opposition? Peter's sensation was one of overwhelming relief. This was lifting from his spirit the weight of an intolerable burden: he felt profoundly grateful to that red-haired woman who had had the courage to take her fate in her own hands, forego great wealth, and sever a bond that threatened to become an iron yoke. He couldn't but respect her for that; he determined that she shouldn't be too great a loser. He thought she should have half the estate, at the very least.
He had never had the commercial mind. He had never asked that the allowance settled upon him by his uncle should be increased. As his own earnings far outstripped his modest needs, that allowance had been used to allay those desperate cases of want always confronting the kindly in a great city. The Champneys estate back there in America had bulked rather negligently in his mind, obscured and darkened by the formidable figure of the wife who went with it. She had loomed so hugely in the foreground that other considerations had been eclipsed. And now this ogress, moved thereto God knew why, had of a sudden opened her hand and set him free!
That strenuous and struggling childhood of his, whose inner life and aspirations had been so secret and so isolated, had taken the edge off his gregariousness. He did not continuously feel the herd-necessity to rub shoulders with others. The creative mind is essentially isolated. Peter loved his fellows with a quiet, tolerant affection, but he remained as it were to himself, standing a little apart. His heart was like a deep, still, hidden pool, in which a few stars only have room to shine.
A successful man, he had been romantically adored by many idle women and angled for by many an interested one. At times he had lightly lent himself to those amiable French arrangements of good comradeship which end naturally and without bitterness, leaving both parties with a satisfied sense of having received very good measure. He had never been able to deceive himself that he loved. He had loved Denise, but there had been in his affection for her more of compassion than passion, as Denise herself had known. She remained in his memory like a perfume. That had been his one serious liaison. But the woman he could really love with his fullest powers, and to whom he could give his best, had not yet appeared.
Mrs. Hemingway had been troubled by his celibacy. She had persisted in her desire to have him marry young, his wife being some one of her girl friends. She wished to see Peter set up an establishment, which would presently center around a nursery full of adorable babies who would bring with them that tender and innocent happiness young children alone are able to confer. To dispel these pleasant day-dreams of hers, Peter had found it necessary to tell her of his American marriage.
Mrs. Hemingway was astonished, a little chagrined, but not hopeless. He should bring his young wife to Paris. To make her understand that marriage as it really was, to explain his own attitude toward it, Peter made a swift and frightfully accurate little sketch of Nancy Simms as she had appeared to him that memorable morning.
His friend was appalled. It took Peter some time to explain his uncle to Mrs. Hemingway. At the best, she thought, he had been insane. Not even the fact that Peter was co-heir to the Champneys fortune consoled her for what she considered a block to his happiness, a blight upon his life. The more she thought about that marriage, the more she disliked it; and as the time approached for Peter literally to sacrifice himself upon the altar, Mrs. Hemingway grew more and more perturbed, though she wasn't so troubled about it as Emma Campbell was. Emma's terror of "dat gal" had grown with the years. Neither of them ventured to question Peter, but Emma Campbell began to have frequent spells of "wrastlin' wid de sperit," and her long, lugubrious "speretuals" were dismal enough to set one's teeth on edge. She would howl piercingly: