Susan Lenox Her Fall and Rise Part 75

Susan made a slight but sharp movement.

"You don't believe me?"

"Yes. Go on."

"He has it in him, I'm confident, to write plays--strong plays.

Does he ever write except ephemeral s.p.a.ce stuff for the paper?"

"No."

"And he never will so long as he has you to go home to. He lives beyond his means because he will have you in comfortable surroundings and dressed to stimulate his pa.s.sion. If he would marry you, it might be a little better--though still he would never amount to anything as long as his love lasted--the kind of love you inspire. But he will never marry you. I learned that from what I know of his ideas and from what I've observed as to your relations--not from anything he ever said about you."

If Susan had been of the suspicious temperament, or if she had been a few years older, the manner of this second protest might have set her to thinking how unlike Drumley, the inexpert in matters of love and pa.s.sion, it was to a.n.a.lyze thus and to form such judgments. And thence she might have gone on to consider that Drumley's speeches sounded strangely like paraphrases of Spenser's eloquent outbursts when he "got going." But she had not a suspicion. Besides, her whole being was concentrated upon the idea Drumley was trying to put into words. She asked:

"Why are you telling me?"

"Because I love him," replied Drumley with feeling. "We're about the same age, but he's been like my son ever since we struck up a friends.h.i.+p in the first term of Freshman year."

"Is that your only reason?"

"On my honor." And so firmly did he believe it, he bore her scrutiny as she peered into his face through the dimness.

She drew back. "Yes," she said in a low voice, half to herself.

"Yes, I believe it is." There was silence for a long time, then she asked quietly:

"What do you think I ought to do?"

"Leave him--if you love him," replied Drumley.

"What else can you do?. . . Stay on and complete his ruin?"

"And if I go--what?"

"Oh, you can do any one of many things. You can----"

"I mean--what about him?"

"He will be like a crazy man for a while. He'll make that a fresh excuse for keeping on as he's going now. Then he'll brace up, and I'll be watching over him, and I'll put him to work in the right direction. He can't be saved, he can't even be kept afloat as long as you are with him, or within reach. With you gone out of his life--his strength will return, his self-respect can be roused. I've seen the same thing in other cases again and again. I could tell you any number of stories of----"

"He does not care for me?"

"In _one_ way, a great deal. But you're like drink, like a drug to him. It is strange that a woman such as you, devoted, single-hearted, utterly loving, should be an influence for bad.

But it's true of wives also. The best wives are often the worst.

The philosophers are right. A man needs tranquillity at home."

"I understand," said she. "I understand--perfectly." And her voice was unemotional, as always when she was so deeply moved that she dared not release anything lest all should be released.

She was like a seated statue. The moon had moved so that it shone upon her face. He was astonished by its placid calm. He had expected her to rave and weep, to protest and plead--before denouncing him and bidding him mind his own business. Instead, she was making it clear that after all she did not care about Roderick; probably she was wondering what would become of her, now that her love was ruined. Well, wasn't it natural? Wasn't it altogether to her credit--wasn't it additional proof that she was a fine pure woman? How could she have continued deeply to care for a man scandalously untrue, and drunk much of the time?

Certainly, it was in no way her fault that Rod made her the object and the victim of the only kind of so-called love of which he was capable. No doubt one reason he was untrue to her was that she was too pure for his debauched fancy. Thus reasoned Drumley with that mingling of truth and error characteristic of those who speculate about matters of which they have small and unfixed experience.

"About yourself," he proceeded. "I have a choice of professions for you--one with a company on the road--on the southern circuit--with good prospects of advancement. I know, from what I have seen of you, and from talks we have had, that you would do well on the stage. But the life might offend your sensibilities. I should hesitate to recommend it to a delicate, fine-fibered woman like you. The other position is a clerks.h.i.+p in a business office in Philadelphia--with an increase as soon as you learn stenography and typewriting. It is respectable. It is sheltered. It doesn't offer anything brilliant. But except the stage and literature, nothing brilliant offers for a woman.

Literature is out of the question, I think--certainly for the present. The stage isn't really a place for a woman of lady-like instincts. So I should recommend the office position."

She remained silent.

"While my main purpose in talking to you," he continued, "was to try to save him, I can honestly say that it was hardly less my intention to save you. But for that, I'd not have had the courage to speak. He is on the way down. He's dragging you with him. What future have you with him? You would go on down and down, as low as he should sink and lower. You've completely merged yourself in him--which might do very well if you were his wife and a good influence in his life or a mere negation like most wives. But in the circ.u.mstances it means ruin to you. Don't you see that?"

"What did you say?"

"I was talking about you--your future your----"

"Oh, I shall do well enough." She rose. "I must be going."

Her short, indifferent dismissal of what was his real object in speaking--though he did not permit himself to know it--cut him to the quick. He felt a sickening and to him inexplicable sense of defeat and disgrace. Because he must talk to distract his mind from himself, he began afresh by saying:

"You'll think it over?"

"I am thinking it over. . . . I wonder that----"

With the fingers of one hand she smoothed her glove on the fingers of the other--"I wonder that I didn't think of it long ago. I ought to have thought of it. I ought to have seen."

"I can't tell you how I hate to have been the----"

"Please don't say any more," she requested in a tone that made it impossible for a man so timid as he to disobey.

Neither spoke until they were in Fifty-ninth Street; then he, unable to stand the strain of a silent walk of fifteen blocks, suggested that they take the car down. She a.s.sented. In the car the stronger light enabled him to see that she was pale in a way quite different from her usual clear, healthy pallor, that there was an unfamiliar look about her mouth and her eyes--a look of strain, of repression, of resolve. These signs and the contrast of her mute motionlessness with her usual vivacity of speech and expression and gesture made him uneasy.

"I'd advise," said he, "that you reflect on it all carefully and consult with me before you do anything--if you think you ought to do anything."

She made no reply. At the door of the house he had to reach for her hand, and her answer to his good night was a vague absent echo of the word. "I've only done what I saw was my duty," said he, appealingly.

"Yes, I suppose so. I must go in."

"And you'll talk with me before you----"

The door had closed behind her; she had not known he was speaking.

When Spenser came, about two hours later, and turned on the light in their bedroom, she was in the bed, apparently asleep.

He stood staring with theatric self-consciousness at himself in the gla.s.s for several minutes, then sat down before the bureau and pulled out the third drawer--where he kept collars, ties, handkerchiefs, gloves and a pistol concealed under the handkerchiefs. With the awful solemnity of the youth who takes himself--and the theater--seriously he lifted the pistol, eyed it critically, turning it this way and that as if interested in the reflections of light from the bright cylinder and barrel at different angles. He laid it noiselessly back, covered it over with the handkerchiefs, sat with his fingers resting on the edge of the drawer. Presently he moved uneasily, as a man--on the stage or in its amusing imitation called civilized life among the self-conscious cla.s.ses--moves when he feels that someone is behind him in a "crucial moment."

He slowly turned round. She had s.h.i.+fted her position so that her face was now toward him. But her eyes were closed and her face was tranquil. Still, he hoped she had seen the little episode of the pistol, which he thought fine and impressive. With his arm on the back of the chair and supporting that resolute-looking chin of his, he stared at her face from under his thick eyebrows, so thick that although they were almost as fair as his hair they seemed dark. After a while her eyelids fluttered and lifted to disclose eyes that startled him, so intense, so sleepless were they.

"Kiss me," she said, in her usual sweet, tender way--a little shyness, much of pa.s.sion's sparkle and allure. "Kiss me."

"I've often thought," said he, "what would I do if I should go smash, reach the end of my string? Would I kill you before taking myself off? Or would that be cowardly?"

She had not a doubt that he meant this melodramatic twaddle. It did not seem twaddle or melodramatic to her--or, for that matter, to him. She clasped him more closely. "What's the matter, dear?" she asked, her head on his breast.

"Oh, I've had a row at the _Herald_, and have quit. But I'll get another place tomorrow."