The Grain of Dust Part 52

"But," he went on, "if one is in modest circ.u.mstances or poor, one has to take care."

"Or dependent," she said, with one of those unexpected flashes of subtle intelligence that so complicated the study of her character. He had been talking to amuse himself rather than with any idea of her understanding.

Her sudden bright color and her two words--"or dependent"--roused him to see that she thought he was deliberately giving her a savage lecture from the cover of general remarks. "With the vanity of the typical woman," he said to himself, "she always imagines _she_ is the subject of everyone's thought and talk."

"Or dependent," said he to her, easily. "I wasn't thinking of you, but yours _is_ a case in point. Come, now--nothing to look blue about! Here's something to eat. No, it's for the next table."

"You won't let me explain," she protested, between the prudence of reproach and the candor of anger.

"There's nothing to explain," replied he. "Don't bother about the mistakes of yesterday. Remember them--yes. If one has a good memory, to forget is impossible--not to say unwise. But there ought to be no more heat or sting in the memory of past mistakes than in the memory of last year's mosquito bites."

The first course of the supper arrived. Her nervousness vanished, and he got far away from the neighborhood of the subjects that, even in remotest hint, could not but agitate her. And as the food and the wine a.s.serted their pacific and beatific sway, she and he steadily moved into better and better humor with each other. Her beauty grew until it had him thinking that never, not in the most spiritual feminine conceptions of the cla.s.sic painters, had he seen a loveliness more ethereal. Her skin was so exquisite, the coloring of her hair and eyes and of her lips was so delicately fine that it gave her the fragility of things bordering upon the supernal--of rare exotics, of sunset and moonbeam effects. No, he had been under no spell of illusion as to her beauty. It was a reality--the more fascinating because it waxed and waned not with regularity of period but capriciously.

He began to look round furtively, to see what effect this wife of his was producing on others. These last few months, through prudence as much as through pride, he had been cultivating the habit of ignoring his surroundings; he would not invite cold salutations or obvious avoidance of speaking. He now discovered many of his former a.s.sociates--and his vanity dilated as he noted how intensely they were interested in his wife.

Some men of ability have that purest form of egotism which makes one profoundly content with himself, genuinely indifferent to the approval or the disapproval of others. Norman's vanity had a certain amount of alloy. He genuinely disdained his fellow-men--their timidity, their hypocrisy, their servility, their limited range of ideas. He was indifferent to the verge of insensibility as to their adverse criticism.

But at the same time it was necessary to his happiness that he get from them evidences of their admiration and envy. With that amusing hypocrisy which tinges all human nature, he concealed from himself the satisfaction, the joy even, he got out of the showy side of his position. And no feature of his infatuation for Dorothy surprised him so much as the way it rode rough shod and reckless over his sn.o.bbishness.

With the fading of infatuation had come many reflections upon the practical aspects of what he had done. It pleased him with himself to find that, in this first test, he had not the least regret, but on the contrary a genuine pride in the courageous independence he had shown--another and strong support to his conviction of his superiority to his fellow-men. He might be somewhat sn.o.bbish--who was not?--who else in his New York was less than supersaturated with sn.o.bbishness? But sn.o.bbishness, the determining quality in the natures of all the women and most of the men he knew, had shown itself one of the incidental qualities in his own nature. After all, reflected he, it took a man, a good deal of a man, to do what he had done, and not to regret it, even in the hour of disillusionment. And it must be said for this egotistic self-approval of his that like all his judgments there was sound merit of truth in it. The vanity of the nincomp.o.o.p is ridiculous. The vanity of the man of ability is amusing and no doubt due to a defective point of view upon the proportions of the universe; but it is not without excuse, and those who laugh might do well to discriminate even as they guffaw.

Looking discreetly about, Norman was suddenly confronted by the face of Josephine Burroughs, only two tables away.

Until their eyes squarely met he did not know she was there, or even in America. Before he could make a beginning of glancing away, she gave him her sweetest smile and her friendliest bow. And Dorothy, looking to see to whom he was speaking, was astonished to receive the same radiance of cordiality. Norman was pleased at the way his wife dealt with the situation. She returned both bow and smile in her own quiet, slightly reserved way of gentle dignity.

"Who was that, speaking?" asked she.

"Miss Burroughs. You must remember her."

He noted it as characteristic that she said, quite sincerely: "Oh, so it is. I didn't remember her. That is the girl you were engaged to."

"Yes--'the nice girl uptown,'" said he.

"I didn't like her," said Dorothy, with evident small interest in the subject. "She was vain."

"You mean you didn't like her way of being vain," suggested Norman.

"Everyone is vain; so, if we disliked for vanity we should dislike everyone."

"Yes, it was her way. And just now she spoke to us both, as if she were doing us a favor."

"Gracious, it's called," said he. "What of it? It does us no harm and gives her about the only happiness she's got."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "At Josephine's right sat a handsome young foreigner."]

Norman, without seeming to do so, noted the rest of the Burroughs party.

At Josephine's right sat a handsome young foreigner, and it took small experience of the world to discover that he was paying court to her, and that she was pleased and flattered. Norman asked the waiter who he was, and learned that he came from the waiter's own province of France, was the Duc de Valdome. At first glance Norman had thought him distinguished. Afterward he discriminated. There are several kinds or degrees of distinction. There is distinction of race, of cla.s.s, of family, of dress, of person. As Frenchman, as aristocrat, as a scion of the ancient family of Valdome, as a specimen of tailoring and valeting, Miss Burroughs's young man was distinguished. But in his own proper person he was rather insignificant. The others at the table were Americans. Following Miss Burroughs's cue, they sought an opportunity to speak friendlily to Norman--and he gave it them. His acknowledgment of those effusive salutations was polite but restrained.

"They are friends of yours?" said Dorothy.

"They were," said he. "And they may be again--when they are friends of _ours_."

"I'm not very good at making friends," she warned him. "I don't like many people." This time her unconscious and profound egotism pleased him. Evidently it did not occur to her that she should be eager to be friends with those people on any terms, that the only question was whether they would receive her.

She asked: "Why was Miss--Miss Burroughs so friendly?"

"Why shouldn't she be?"

"But I thought you threw her over."

He winced at this crude way of putting it. "On the contrary, she threw me over."

Dorothy laughed incredulously. "I know better. Mr. Tetlow told me."

"She threw me over," repeated he coldly. "Tetlow was repeating malicious and ignorant gossip."

Dorothy laughed again--it was her second gla.s.s of champagne. "You say that because it's the honorable thing to say. But I know."

"I say it because it's true," said he.

He spoke quietly, but if she had drunk many more than two gla.s.ses of an unaccustomed and heady liquor she would have felt his intonation. She paled and shrank and her slim white fingers fluttered nervously at the collar of her dress. "I was only joking," she murmured.

He laughed good-naturedly. "Don't look as if I had given you a whipping," said he. "Surely you're not afraid of me."

She glanced shyly at him, a smile dancing in her eyes and upon her lips.

"Yes," she said. And after a pause she added: "I didn't used to be. But that was because I didn't know you--or much of anything." The smile irradiated her whole face. "You used to be afraid of me. But you aren't, any more."

"No," said he, looking straight at her. "No, I'm not."

"I always told you you were mistaken in what you thought of me. I really don't amount to much. A man as serious and as important as you are couldn't--couldn't care about me."

"It's true you don't amount to much, as yet," said he. "And if you never do amount to much, you'd be no less than most women and most men. But I've an idea--at times--that you _could_ amount to something."

He saw that he had wounded her vanity, that her protestations of humility were precisely what he had suspected. He laughed at her: "I see you thought I'd contradict you. But I can't afford to be so amiable now.

And the first thing you've got to get rid of is the part of your vanity that prevents you from growing. Vanity of belief in one's possibilities is fine. No one gets anywhere without it. But vanity of belief in one's present perfection--no one but a G.o.d could afford that luxury."

Observing her closely he was amused--and pleased--to note that she was struggling to compose herself to endure his candors as a necessary part of the duties and obligations she had taken on herself when she gave up and returned to him.

"What _you_ thought of _me_ used to be the important thing in our relations," he went on, in his way of raillery that took all or nearly all the sting out of what he said, but none of its strength. "Now, the important thing is what I think of you. You are much younger than I, especially in experience. You are going to school to life with me as teacher. You'll dislike the teacher for the severity of the school. That isn't just, but it's natural--perhaps inevitable. And please--my dear--when you are bitterest over what _you_ have to put up with from _me_--don't forget what _I_ have to put up with from _you_."

She was fighting bravely against angry tears. As for him, he had suddenly become indifferent to what the people around them might be thinking. With all his old arrogance come back in full flood, he was feeling that he would live his own life in his own way and that those who didn't approve--yes, including Dorothy--might do as they saw fit.

She said:

"I don't blame you for regretting that you didn't marry Miss Burroughs."

"But I don't regret it," replied he. "On the contrary, I'm glad."

She glanced hopefully at him. But the hopeful expression faded as he went on:

"Whether or not I made a mistake in marrying you, I certainly had an escape from disaster when she decided she preferred a foreigner and a t.i.tle. There's a good sensible reason why so many girls of her cla.s.s--more and more all the time--marry abroad. They are not fit to be the wives of hard-working American husbands. In fact I've about reached the conclusion that of the girls growing up nowdays very few in any cla.s.s are fit to be American wives. They're not big enough. They're too coa.r.s.e and crude in their tastes. They're only fit for the shallow, showy sort of thing--and the European aristocracy is their hope--and their place."

Her small face had a fascinating expression of a child trying to understand things far beyond its depth. He was interested in his own thoughts, however, and went on--for, if he had been in the habit of stopping when his hearers failed to understand, or when they misunderstood, either he would have been silent most of the time in company or his conversation would have been as petty and narrow and devoid of originality or imagination as is the mentality of most human beings--as is the talk and reading that impress them as interesting--and profound!