It is not good manners to deal in personal questions; yet how else could such strangers come to know one another? The Dyckmans were afraid to quiz her about herself, and she dared not cross-examine them. They had no common acquaintances or experiences to talk over. The presence of the servants was depressing, and when the long meal was over and the four Dyckmans were alone in the drawing-room, they were less at ease than before. They had not even knives and forks to play with.
Mrs. Dyckman said at length, “Are you going to the theater, do you think?”
Jim did not care—or dare—to take his bride abroad just yet. He shook his head. Mrs. Dyckman tried again:
“Does your wife play—or sing, perhaps?”
“No, thank you,” said Kedzie, and sank again.
Mrs. Dyckman was about to ask if she cared for cards, but she was afraid that she might say yes. She grew so desperate at last that she made a cowardly escape:
“I think we old people owe it to you youngsters to leave you alone.” She caught up her husband with a glance like a clutching hand, and he made haste to follow her into the library.
Jim and Kedzie looked at each other sheepishly. Kedzie was taking her initiation into the appalling boredom that can close down in a black fog on the homes and souls of the very wealthy. She was astounded and terrified to realize that there is no essential delight attending the possession of vast means. Later she was to find herself often one of large and glittering companies where nothing imaginable was lacking to make one happy except the power to be happy. She would go to dinners where an acute melancholia seemed to poison the food, where people of the widest travel and unfettered opportunities could find nothing to say to one another.
If she had loved Jim more truly, or he her, they could have been blissful in spite of their lack of hardships; but the excitement of flirtation had gone out of their lives. There seemed to be nothing more to be afraid of except unhappiness. There seemed to be nothing to be excited about at all. Time would soon provide them with wild anxieties, but he withheld his hand for the moment.
Jim saw that Kedzie was growing restless. He dragged himself from his chair and clasped her in his arms, but the element of pity in his deed took all the fire out of it. He led her about the house and showed her the pictures in the art gallery, but she knew nothing about painters or paintings, and once around the gallery finished that room for her forever. There were treasures in the library to fascinate a bibliophile for years, but Kedzie knew nothing and cared less about books as books; and a glance into the somber chamber where the old people played cards listlessly drove her from that door.