CHAPTER XX
The next few days were to Marian days of tumult. Her abandonment of herself to Geraldstein had wrought in her a far more serious and far different change to that which had resulted from her leaving her husband and going to live with Maddison. The latter loved her, Geraldstein did not, indeed made no pretense of doing so, and her feeling toward him was simply one of desire for physical excitement and abandon. With Maddison it was, though of course she did not consciously argue it out as such, an illegal marriage; with Geraldstein she stood merely on the footing of a woman with a price. She now felt utterly adrift, floating upon the ferocious stream of sensual pleasure, intoxicated with excitement, and, as is always the case with every form of intoxication, the hours of recovery, of struggling back to sobriety, were hours of pain, half-regrets, half-formed resolutions toward future restraint, and of deep depression and reaction.
She realized fully that she had sold herself to Geraldstein when she received a letter from him inclosing her dressmaker’s bill receipted, and an apology from him for having ventured without first asking her permission, to take this care off her hands. Her first impulse was to be indignantly angry; then with a half laugh, half shudder, she threw the bill aside. As she had sold herself she would be foolish to reject any portion of the price.
Very quickly all regret for what she had done, and for having committed herself irretrievably to the life of a common woman, faded away. The sensation of physical intoxication, of delight in the delirium of yielding to every sensual impulse, was fresh and keen, and had not yet lost anything of its savor. Momentary hesitations, indeed, came to her, but arising solely from the fear that perhaps she might have jeopardized her chances with West. She had not yet lost all ambition, though mere love of pleasure was rapidly assuming imperious sway over her deeds and thoughts.
Physical reaction and depression came to her now and again, as it must come after all pleasures which are themselves entirely physical. Lassitude, tiredness, irritability assailed her, and more and more frequently she felt compelled to seek in stimulants an escape from ennui and weariness. She talked freely and with frank confidence to Mrs. Harding, in whose companionship she no longer felt any restraint. Hitherto this woman, with her outspoken brutality, had half amused, half offended her; but now there was full community of aims and practice between them; their lives were alike, so were their pleasures and their longings.
She laughed with her over her dealings with Geraldstein and joked over the gross deception she was practicing on Maddison. She canvassed with her the schemes she had formed with regard to West, and the difficulty and possibilities of accomplishing her aims. All this and more that she observed for herself, Mrs. Harding reported fully to her employer Davis, who in turn communicated it to Mortimer, who in turn kept his counsel, believing it to be best to wait until a fitting opportunity arose for opening Maddison’s eyes to the real character of the woman for whom he was sacrificing so much of the present and perhaps all of the future.
Early one evening, about a week after the dinner at Goldoni’s, West called upon Marian. Although it was only a little past six o’clock he was in evening dress.
“I’m so glad to find you at home,” he said. “I’m all alone and have been working like a nigger never does. I wonder will you take pity on me and come and dine with me? We could go on to the theater or a music-hall afterward, whatever you like best. I do hope you’re not already booked up—and will take pity on a lonesome grass-widower.”
Marian had not hoped for any so early an opening as this, and felt that she must be guarded in taking advantage of it. West, she felt assured, was not a man who cared to buy his company cheaply.