Cairns had found it hard not to be spiteful toward one whom he considered had abused his friend's fineness…. They dined at the Club. The talk turned to a much fairer thing. Bedient saw (with deep and full delight) that Cairns had sighted his island of that Delectable Archipelago, and was making for it full-sailed. An enchanting idea came to Bedient (the fruit of an hour's happy talk), as to the best way for Cairns to make a landing in still waters….

Bedient was detailing the plan with some spirit, when Cairns' hand fell swiftly upon his arm…. At a near table just behind, Mrs. Wordling was sitting with a gentleman. Neither had noticed her come in. Mrs. Wordling turned to greet them. She was looking her best, which was sensational.

NINETEENTH CHAPTER

IN THE HOUSE OF GREY ONE

Bedient went one morning to the old Handel studio in East Fourteenth Street. The Grey One had asked him to come. Bedient liked the Grey One. He could laugh with Mrs. Wordling; Vina Nettleton awed him, though he was full of praise for her; he admired Kate Wilkes and had a keen relish for her mind. The latter had passed the crisis, had put on the full armor of the world; she was sharp and vindictive and implacable to the world; a woman who had won rather than lost her squareness, who showed her strength and hid her tenderness. He had rejoiced in several brushes with Kate Wilkes. There was a tang to them. A little sac of fiery acid had formed in her brain. It came from fighting the world to the last ditch, year after year. Her children played in the quick-passing columns of the periodicals—ambidextrous, untamable, shockingly rough in their games, these children, but shams slunk away from their shrill laughter. In tearing down, she prepared for the Builder.

Bedient was not at all at his best with Kate Wilkes; indeed, none of the things that had aroused Vina and Beth and David, like sudden arraignments from their higher selves, came to his lips with this indomitable veteran opposite; still he would go far for ten minutes talk with her. She needed nothing that he could give; her copy had all gone to the compositor, her last forms were locked; and yet, he caught her story from queer angles on the stones, and it was a transcript from New York in this, the latest year of our Lord….

Bedient's "poise and general decency" disturbed the arrant man-hater she had become; she called him "fanatically idealistic," and was inclined to regard him at first as one of those smooth and finished Orientalists who have learned to use their intellects to a dangerous degree. But each time she talked with him, it seemed less possible to put a philosophical ticket upon him. "He's not Buddhist, Vedantist, neo-Platonist," she declared, deeply puzzled. Somehow she did not attract from him, as did Vina Nettleton, the rare pabulum which would have proved him just a Christian. Finally, from fragments brought by Vina, the Grey One, and David Cairns, she hit upon a name for him that would do, even if intended a trifle ironically at first: The Modern. She was easier after that; became very fond of him, and only doubted in her own thoughts, lest she hurt his work with the others, the good of which she was quick to see…. "He does not break training," she said at last. "He cut out a high place and holds it easily. Suppose he is The Modern?" she asked finally. "If he is, we who thought ourselves modern, should laugh and clap our hands!" This was open heresy to the Kate Wilkes of the world. "I thought I was past that," she sighed. "Here I am getting ready to be stung again."

Certain of her barbed sentences caught in Bedient's mind: "Women whom men avoid for being 'strong-minded' are apt to be strongest in their affections. You can prove this by the sons of clinging vines."… "Beware of the man who discusses often, and broods much, upon his spiritual growth, when he fails to make his wife happy."… "A man's courage may be just his cowardice running forward under the fear of scorn from his fellows."… "The most passionate mother is likely to be the least satisfied with just passion from her husband. Wedded to a man capable of real love, this woman, of all earth's creatures, is the most natural monogamist."… "A real woman had three caskets to give to a man she loved. One day she read in his eyes that he could take but the nearest and lowest; and that moment arose in her heart the wailing cry: 'The King is dead!'"… "The half-grown man never understands that woman is happiest, and at her best in all her services to him, when he depends upon her for a few of the finer things."…

Also Kate Wilkes had a way of doing a memorable bit of criticism in a sentence or two: Regarding MacDowell, the American composer, "He left the harvest to the others, but what exquisite gleanings he found!"… As to Nietschze; "He didn't see all; his isn't the last word; but he crossed the Forbidden Continent, and has spoken deliriously, half-mad from the journey."… And her beloved Whitman, "America's wisest patriot."…

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