Beatrice dashed in, to Mary’s relief, to bestow––over 142 a week late––a Christmas present of perfume and a black-silk waist.
“Mr. O’Valley has explained how rushed I have been with my classes,” she began, prettily, “but I have thought of you in all your sorrow. I lost my dear mother when I was too young to remember her, still it means a bond between us.... Oh, you are not wearing black? Dear me, that’s too bad.... Well, you may have to go to somebody’s funeral where you feel you want to wear it––a black waist is always useful.”
She managed to carry Steve off to look at a set of pink glass sherbet cups she was to give her father for his birthday, and Mary was conscious of a certain pity for the Gorgeous Girl––prompted not so much by her present state of affairs as her inevitable future.
The last of January Steve was called away on a business trip through the Middle West. Beatrice had no desire to go with him; she said she simply could not conceive of having a good time in Indiana and Illinois, and what was the sense in bearing with him in his misery? But she was quite willing Steve should stay away as long as he was needed by business entanglements. In fact, Beatrice now betrayed a certain driving quality in trying to make him feel that as their honeymoon was ended and everyone had entertained for them it was high time Steve must retire from social life to a degree, and outdo her own father in the making of a vast fortune. She seldom begged him to ride with her or come home to luncheon to fritter away the best part of the afternoon in a pursuit of silver-pheasant ornaments for the dinner table. That phase of her selfishness was at an end. It was when Steve demanded the luxury of merely 143 staying at home with no chattering peacocks of women and asinine, half-tipsy men playing with each other until early morning that Beatrice refused her consent.
She did not wish any personal domestic life, Steve decided after several experiences along these lines. She could not see the pleasure in a Sunday afternoon hike; walking to see a sunset was absurd! All very well to be whisked by at twenty miles an hour and give a careless nod at the setting golden sphere, but to trudge through wintry roads and up an icy hill and stand, frozen and fagged, weighted down by sweaters, to–––Dear me, Steve really needed to see a doctor! Perhaps he had better start to play golf with papa!
Meals tête-à-tête caused her spirits to droop, and she soon fell into the habit of waiting until Steve was away or having her luncheon in her room. She was seldom up for breakfast, and when he protested against this hotel-like custom she would say: “I don’t expect you to appreciate my viewpoint and my wishes, but at least be well-bred enough to tolerate them!”
He was on the point of reminding her that his viewpoint and wishes were treated only with argument and ridicule––but as usual he refrained. Silence on the part of one who knows he is in the right yet chooses apparently to yield the point in question is a significant milestone on the road of separation. An argument with Beatrice meant one of two outcomes: A violent scene of temper and overwrought nerves with tears as the conquering slacker’s weapon or a long, sulky period of tenseness which made him take refuge in his office and his club.
He wondered sometimes how it was he had never 144 before realized the true worth of his wife, how he had been so madly infatuated and adoring of her slightest whim during the years of earning his fortune and the brief period of their formal engagement. Almost reluctantly the anæsthesia of unreality and distorted values was disappearing, leaving Steve with but one conclusion: That it had been his own conceited fault, and therefore he deserved scant pity from either himself or the world at large.
Mark Constantine, whose activities lessened each month, due to ill health, began prowling about Steve’s office at unexpected hours, cornering him for prosy talks and conferences, under which Steve writhed in helpless surrender. Since he realized the true meaning of his marriage he began placing the blame on the culprit––Beatrice’s father. As he did so he wondered if it was possible that Constantine did not realize the havoc he had wrought. His wealth and Steve’s speedily accumulated fortune via hides and government razors suddenly seemed stupid, inane; and he no longer felt a sense of pride at what he had accomplished. He never wanted to hear details of Constantine’s more gradual and bitter rise in the world; there was certain to be slimy spots of which Steve in his new frame of mind could no longer approve. He was weary of hearing about money, just as his good sense caused him to be weary of socialistic prattling and absurd pleas for Bolshevism. It seemed to him that the dollar standard was the paramount means both magnate and socialist used to value inanimate and animate objects. He longed for a new unit of measure.
He was keen on business trips. At least he could have the freedom of his hotel and could roam about 145 without being pointed out as the Gorgeous Girl’s husband, the lucky young dog and so on. Neither would he be dragged from this house to that to sit on impossible futurist chairs while young things of thirty-nine clad in belladonna plasters and jet sequins gathered about to tell him what perfectly wonderful times their class in cosmic consciousness was having.