WITH Margaret things had reached a crisis long before that culminating moment of remorseful emotion in Allestree’s studio; at last the realities of life—as they appear separated from its pleasures and its follies—were forced upon her. Too young at the time of her marriage to comprehend its full significance, as a mere act of barter and exchange, she had never seriously anticipated her position as White’s wife; it had been shrouded in a nebulous haze of gratified vanity, of pleasures and indulgences, for she was glad to shirk the thought of it. Her awakening, therefore, had been accompanied with a shock of horror and disgust.
White had been kind to her at first; even the most common and violent of brute creatures is often kind to its chosen mate, and he was proud of her beauty, determined to get the value of his money out of her social distinction; but her capricious temper, her bitter tongue and her indifference soon had their natural effect. His kindness wore itself out and when angry he could be tolerably brutal, for his temper, at best, was coarse and exacting. She had come at last to look upon the beautiful house, the lavish display, the sumptuous living as so much gilded misery, and, possessing no talisman to give her contentment, her stormy nature spent itself in rebellion and in a growing regret for her own folly. She saw, at last, in Fox all the qualities which she most admired; her mind answered his with a subtilty, a kindred sympathy which seemed to assure her of his love, to justify her assumption that his feeling had never changed. In her eager pursuit of happiness she had thought to purchase it first with beauty, then with money and now with love—the beggar’s price! It was the absorbing impulse of her being; religion she had none, except the religion of self-indulgence. Standing on the brink of disaster she still demanded happiness; it was her creed, her gospel, her divine right. The temptation of it, too, pursued her; how easy to obtain a divorce from Wicklow, a word almost and it was done! It was true that there would be a great scandal but, after all, the scandal could only add a zest to her social success; she was young, beautiful, distinguished, and if she broke the shackles that bound her could she not begin all over again? Intoxicating dream,—how full of temptation it was, of alluring sweetness! After all, does not the devil appear to us in the shape of an angel of light?
What were ethics compared with her inalienable right to be happy? The thought of it made her draw a keen breath of relief. Free!—She alone knew the value of that word.
The children crossed her mind only occasionally; Estelle was more and more like her father every day, and as for the baby? Margaret had only vague conceptions of his possibilities; she had seen but little of him since his birth, except in his nurse’s arms, but she had recognized that odious likeness to the Whites. Of course old Mrs. White would take them; she adored them, and Margaret felt that she knew more about them than she did. After a while when they grew up—but Margaret could not afford to dwell upon it. They were associated with her misery, her captivity, as she chose to call it, and she could not love them; she shrank, indeed, from the thought of them, and the responsibility that their existence had thrust upon her, as so many links in her chains.
She returned from her interview with Allestree in a curious frame of mind. Her unreasonable discourtesy to the Vermilions and Mrs. Wingfield—people who really only hovered on the edge of her horizon—her insistent attacks upon Allestree’s sore heart, had all been prompted by her own feverish misery. Once alone in her room she went to the mirror, and holding up one of the candelabra, gazed long and fixedly at her own reflection, asking over again the question she had asked herself on the night of Mrs. O’Neal’s dinner. Had she lost her beauty? Was the potency of her spell destroyed in some mysterious way? Hideous thought—was she growing old?
She saw, indeed, all that she had seen in Allestree’s mirror, and more; the misery that looked out of her own eyes frightened her, and there were more delicate lines than there had been on that previous occasion, or else the light was stronger. This was the reason then of the senseless stare of Miss Vermilion’s china blue eyes—Margaret wondered vaguely why girls of that sort always had china blue eyes?
She set down the candelabrum, and sinking into a chair by the open fire began to brood over her troubles, forgetful that she must be dressed soon for her own reception; it was the night when her weekly guests assembled at those already famous evenings. Her thoughts reverted to Fox; the remembrance of his love for her was like the sudden fragrance of violets in a desolate place.
He had loved her; it never seemed possible for a moment that a word, a sign, could not reanimate his passion, as a breath of air will strike fire from the smouldering embers. Now, too, she could appreciate and understand his love; she was no longer a raw slip of a girl or a stiff little Puritan like Rose Temple! But she knew the barrier which existed between them; never by a word or a sign had Fox trespassed against White’s hospitality, he would never urge her to desert her husband, but if she were free—
She rose and began to walk about the room, touching first one object and then another with restless fingers; the thought of freedom was like wine, it went to her brain; the vision of the divorce court, the lawyers, the judges, the newspapers, floated into space. She stretched her clasped hands high above her head and drew a long breath, her soul almost shouted for joy. Freedom!
It was, next to happiness, the desired of the gods! And after all did not one involve the other, was not one absolutely essential to the other?