"It's a very bad disease. But if the words convey to you that it's a
disease that bad people get, I should tell you that most men take
the chance of getting it; yet they are cruel enough to despise those
upon whom the ill-luck falls. My poor nephew had been utterly
ignorant--I found out that from his father, too late. An instinct
had awakened in him of which he knew absolutely nothing; his
companions had taught him what it meant, and he had followed their
lead. And then had come the horror and the shame--and some vile,
ignorant wretch to trade upon it, and cast the boy off when he was
penniless. So he had come home again, with his gnawing secret; I
pictured him wandering about, trying to make up his mind to confide
in me, wavering between that and the horrible deed he did." 

I stopped, because even to this day I cannot tell the story without
tears. I cannot keep a picture of the boy in my room, because of the
self-reproaches that haunt me. "You can understand," I said to
Sylvia, "I never could forget such a lesson. I swore a vow over the
poor lad's body, that I would never let a boy or girl that I could
reach go out in ignorance into the world. I read up on the subject,
and for a while I was a sort of fanatic--I made people talk, young
people and old people. I broke down the taboos wherever I went, and
while I shocked a good many, I knew that I helped a good many more."

All that was, of course, inconceivable to Sylvia. How curious was
the contrast of her one experience in the matter of venereal
disease. She told me how she had been instrumental in making a match
between her friend, Harriet Atkinson and a young scion of an ancient
and haughty family of Charleston, and how after the marriage her
friend's health had begun to give way, until now she was an utter
wreck, living alone in a dilapidated antebellum mansion, seeing no
one but negro servants, and praying for death to relieve her of her
misery. 

"Of course, I don't really know," said Sylvia. "Perhaps it was
this--this disease that you speak of. None of my people would tell
me--I doubt if they really know themselves. It was just before my
own wedding, so you can understand it had a painful effect upon me.
It happened that I read something in a magazine, and I thought
that--that possibly my fiancГ©e--that someone ought to ask him, you
understand--" 

She stopped, and the blood was crimson in her cheeks, with the
memory of her old excitement, and some fresh excitement added to it.
There are diseases of the mind as well as of the body, and one of
them is called prudery. 

"I can understand," I said. "It was certainly your right to be
reassured on such a point." 

"Well, I tried to talk to my Aunt Varina about it; then I wrote to
Uncle Basil, and asked him to write to Douglas. At first he
refused--he only consented to do it when I threatened to go to my
father." 

"What came of it in the end?" 

"Why, my uncle wrote, and Douglas answered very kindly that he
understood, and that it was all right--I had nothing to fear. I
never expected to mention the incident to anyone again." 

"Lots of people have mentioned such things to me," I responded, to
reassure her. Then after a pause: "Tell me, how was it, if you
didn't know the meaning of marriage, how could you connect the
disease with it?" 

She answered, gazing with the wide-open, innocent eyes: "I had no
idea how people gave it to each other. I thought maybe they got it
by kissing." 

I thought to myself again: The horror of this superstition of
prudery! Can one think of anything more destructive to life than the
placing of a taboo upon such matters? Here is the whole of the
future at stake--the health, the sanity, the very existence of the
race. And what fiend has been able to contrive it that we feel like
criminals when we mention the subject? 

23. Our intimacy progressed, and the time came when Sylvia told me
about her marriage. She had accepted Douglas van Tuiver because she
had lost Frank Shirley, and her heart was broken. She could never
imagine herself loving any other man; and not knowing exactly what
marriage meant, it had been easier for her to think of her family,
and to follow their guidance. They had told her that love would
come; Douglas had implored her to give him a chance to teach her to
love him. She had considered what she could do with his money--both
for her home-people and for those she spoke of vaguely as "the
poor." But now she was making the discovery that she could not do
very much for these "poor." 

"It isn't that my husband is mean," she said. "On the contrary, the
slightest hint will bring me any worldly thing I want. I have homes
in half a dozen parts of America--I have _carte blanche_ to open
accounts in two hemispheres. If any of my people need money I can
get it; but if I want it for myself, he asks me what I'm doing with
it--and so I run into the stone-wall of his ideas." 

At first the colliding with this wall had merely pained and
bewildered her. But now the combination of Veblen and myself had
helped her to realize what it meant. Douglas van Tuiver spent his
money upon a definite system: whatever went to the maintaining of
his social position, whatever added to the glory, prestige and power
of the van Tuiver name--that money was well-spent; while money spent
to any other end was money wasted--and this included all ideas and
"causes." And when the master of the house knew that his money was
being wasted, it troubled him. 

"It wasn't until after I married him that I realized how idle his
life is," she remarked. "At home all the men have something to do,
running their plantations, or getting elected to some office. But
Douglas never does anything that I can possibly think is useful." 

His fortune was invested in New York City real-estate, she went on
to explain. There was an office, with a small army of clerks and
agents to attend to it--a machine which had been built up and handed
on to him by his ancestors. It sufficed if he dropped in for an hour
or two once a week when he was in the city, and signed a batch of
documents now and then when he was away. His life was spent in the
company of people whom the social system had similarly deprived of
duties; and they had, by generations of experiment, built up for
themselves a new set of duties, a life which was wholly without
relationship to reality. Into this unreal existence Sylvia had
married, and it was like a current sweeping her in its course. So
long as she went with it, all was well; but let her try to catch
hold of something and stop, and it would tear her loose and almost
strangle her. 

As time went on, she gave me strange glimpses into this world. Her
husband did not seem really to enjoy its life. As Sylvia put it, "He
takes it for granted that he has to do all the proper things that
the proper people do. He hates to be conspicuous, he says. I point
out to him that the proper things are nearly always conspicuous, but
he replies that to fail to do them would be even more conspicuous." 

It took me a long time to get really acquainted with Sylvia, because
of the extent to which this world was clamouring for her. I used to
drop in when she 'phoned me she had half an hour. I would find her
dressing for something, and she would send her maid away, and we
would talk until she would be late for some function; and that might
be a serious matter, because somebody would feel slighted. She was
always "on pins and needles" over such questions of precedent; it
seemed as if everybody in her world must be watching everybody else.
There was a whole elaborate science of how to treat the people you
met, so that they would not feel slighted--or so that they would
feel slighted, according to circumstances. 

To the enjoyment of such a life it was essential that the person
should believe in it. Douglas van Tuiver did believe in it; it was
his religion, the only one he had. (Churchman as he was, his church
was a part of the social routine.) He was proud of Sylvia, and
apparently satisfied when he could take her at his side; and Sylvia
went, because she was his wife, and that was what wives were for.
She had tried her best to be happy; she had told herself that she
_was_ happy yet all the time realizing that a woman who is really
happy does not have to tell herself. 

Earlier in life she had quaffed and enjoyed the wine of applause. I
recollect vividly her telling me of the lure her beauty had been to
her--the most terrible temptation that could come to a woman. "I
walk into a brilliant room, and I feel the thrill of admiration that
goes through the crowd. I have a sudden sense of my own physical
perfection--a glow all over me! I draw a deep breath--I feel a surge
of exaltation. I say, 'I am victorious--I can command! I have this
supreme crown of womanly grace--I am all-powerful with it--the world
is mine!'" 

As she spoke the rapture was in her voice, and I looked at her--and
yes, she was beautiful! The supreme crown was hers! 

"I see other beautiful women," she went on--and swift anger came
into her voice. "I see what they are doing with this power!
Gratifying their vanity--turning men into slaves of their whim!
Squandering money upon empty pleasures--and with the dreadful plague
of poverty spreading in the world! I used to go to my father, 'Oh,
papa, why must there be so many poor people? Why should we have
servants--why should they have to wait on me, and I do nothing for
them?' He would try to explain to me that it was the way of Nature.
Mamma would tell me it was the will of the Lord--'The poor ye have
always with you'--'Servants, obey your masters'--and so on. But in
spite of the Bible texts, I felt guilty. And now I come to Douglas
with the same plea--and it only makes him angry! He has been to
college and has a lot of scientific phrases--he tells me it's 'the
struggle for existence,' 'the elimination of the unfit'--and so on.
I say to him, 'First we make people unfit, and then we have to
eliminate them.' He cannot see why I do not accept what learned
people tell me--why I persist in questioning and suffering." 

She paused, and then added, "It's as if he were afraid I might find
out something he doesn't want me to! He's made me give him a promise
that I won't see Mrs. Frothingham again!" And she laughed. "I
haven't told him about you!"

I answered, needless to say, that I hoped she would keep the secret!

24. All this time I was busy with my child-labour work. We had an
important bill before the legislature that session, and I was doing
what I could to work up sentiment for it. I talked at every
gathering where I could get a hearing; I wrote letters to
newspapers; I sent literature to lists of names. I racked my mind
for new schemes, and naturally, at such times, I could not help
thinking of Sylvia. How much she could do, if only she would! 

I spared no one, least of all myself, and so it was not easy to
spare her. The fact that I had met her was the gossip of the office,
and everybody was waiting for something to happen. "How about Mrs.
van Tuiver?" my "chief" would ask, at intervals. "If she would
_only_ go on our press committee" my stenographer would sigh. 

The time came when our bill was in committee, a place of peril for
bills. I went to Albany to see what could be done. I met half a
hundred legislators, of whom perhaps half-a-dozen had some human
interest in my subject; the rest, well, it was discouraging. Where
was the force that would stir them, make them forget their own
particular little grafts, and serve the public welfare in defiance
to hostile interests? 

Where was it? I came back to New York to look for it, and after a
blue luncheon with the members of our committee, I came away with my
mind made up--I would sacrifice my Sylvia to this desperate
emergency. 

I knew just what I had to do. So far she had heard speeches about
social wrongs, or read books about them; she had never been face to
face with the reality of them. Now I persuaded her to take a morning
off, and see some of the sights of the underworld of toil. We
foreswore the royal car, and likewise the royal furs and velvets;
she garbed herself in plain appearing dark blue and went down town
in the Subway like common mortals, visiting paper-box factories and
flower factories, tenement homes where whole families sat pasting
toys and gimcracks for fourteen or sixteen hours a day, and still
could not buy enough food to make full-sized men and women of them. 

She was Dante, and I was Virgil, our inferno was an endless
procession of tortured faces--faces of women, haggard and mournful,
faces of little children, starved and stunted, dulled and dumb.
Several times we stopped to talk with these people--one little
Jewess girl I knew whose three tiny sisters had been roasted alive
in a sweatshop fire. This child had jumped from a fourth-story
window, and been miraculously caught by a fireman. She said that
some man had started the fire, and been caught, but the police had
let him get away. So I had to explain to Sylvia that curious
bye-product (sic) of the profit system known as the "Arson Trust."
Authorities estimated that incendiarism was responsible for the
destruction of a quarter of a billion dollars worth of property in
America every year. So, of course, the business of starting fires
was a paying one, and the "fire-bug," like the "cadet" and the
dive-keeper, was a part of the "system." So it was quite a possible
thing that the man who had burned up this little girl's three
sisters might have been allowed to escape. 

I happened to say this in the little girl's hearing, and I saw her
pitiful strained eyes fixed upon Sylvia. Perhaps this lovely,
soft-voiced lady was a fairy god-mother, come to free her sisters
from an evil spell and to punish the wicked criminal! I saw Sylvia
turn her head away, and search for her handkerchief; as we groped
our way down the dark stairs, she caught my hand, whispering: "Oh,
my God! my God!" 

It had even more effect than I had intended; not only did she say
that she would do something--anything that would be of use--but she
told me as we rode back home that her mind was made up to stop the
squandering of her husband's money. He had been planning a costume
ball for a couple of months later, an event which would keep the van
Tuiver name in condition, and would mean that he and other people
would spend many hundreds of thousands of dollars. As we rode home
in the roaring Subway, Sylvia sat beside me, erect and tense, saying
that if the ball were given, it would be without the presence of the
hostess. 

I struck while the iron was hot, and got her permission to put her
name upon our committee list. She said, moreover, that she would get
some free time, and be more than a mere name to us. What were the
duties of a member of our committee? 

"First," I said, "to know the facts about child-labour, as you have
seen them to-day, and second, to help other people to know." 

"And how is that to be done?" 

"Well, for instance, there is that hearing before the legislative
committee. You remember I suggested that you appear." 

"Yes," she said in a low voice. I could almost hear the words that
were in her mind: "What would _he_ say?" 

25. Sylvia's name went upon our letter-heads and other literature,
and almost at once things began to happen. In a day or two there
came a reporter, saying he had noticed her name. Was it true that
she had become interested in our work? Would I please give him some
particulars, as the public would naturally want to know. 

I admitted that Mrs. van Tuiver had joined the committee; she
approved of our work and desired to further it. That was all. He
asked: Would she give an interview? And I answered that I was sure
she would not. Then would I tell something about how she had come to
be interested in the work? It was a chance to assist our propaganda,
added the reporter, diplomatically. 

I retired to another room, and got Sylvia upon the 'phone, "The time
has come for you to take the plunge," I said. 

"Oh, but I don't want to be in the papers!" she cried "Surely, you
wouldn't advise it!" 

"I don't see how you can avoid having something appear. Your name is
given out, and if the man can't get anything else, he'll take our
literature, and write up your doings out of his imagination." 

"And they'll print my picture with it!" she exclaimed. I could not
help laughing. "It's quite possible." 

"Oh, what will my husband do? He'll say 'I told you so!'" 

It is a hard thing to have one's husband say that, as I knew by
bitter experience. But I did not think that reason enough for giving
up. 

"Let me have time to think it over," said Sylvia. "Get him to wait
till to-morrow, and meantime I can see you." 

So it was arranged. I think I told Sylvia the truth when I said that
I had never before heard of a committee member who was unwilling to
have his purposes discussed in the newspapers. To influence
newspapers was one of the main purposes of committees, and I did not
see how she could expect either editors or readers to take any other
view. 

"Let me tell the man about your trip down town," I suggested, "then
I can go on to discuss the bill and how it bears on the evils you
saw. Such a statement can't possibly do you harm." 

She consented, but with the understanding that she was not to be
quoted directly. "And don't let them make me picturesque!" she
exclaimed. "That's what my husband seems most to dread." 

I wondered if he didn't think she was picturesque, when she sat in a
splendid, shining coach, and took part in a public parade through
Central Park. But I did not say this. I went off, and swore my
reporter to abstain from the "human touch," and he promised and kept
his word. There appeared next morning a dignified "write-up" of Mrs.
Douglas van Tuiver's interest in child-labour reform. Quoting me, it
described some of the places she had visited, and some of the sights
which had shocked her; it went on to tell about our committee and
its work, the status of our bill in the legislature, the need of
activity on the part of our friends if the measure was to be forced
through at this session. It was a splendid "boost" for our work, and
everyone in the office was in raptures over it. The social
revolution was at hand! thought my young stenographer. 

But the trouble with this business of publicity is that, however
carefully you control your interviewer, you cannot control the
others who use his material. The "afternoon men" came round for more
details, and they made it clear that it was personal details they
wanted. And when I side-stepped their questions, they went off and
made up answers to suit themselves, and printed Sylvia's pictures,
together with photographs of child-workers taken from our pamphlets.

I called Sylvia up while she was dressing for dinner, to explain
that I was not responsible for any of this picturesqueness. "Oh,
perhaps I am to blame myself!" she exclaimed. "I think I interviewed
a reporter." 

"How do you mean?" 

"A woman sent up her card--she told the footman she was a friend of
mine. And I thought--I couldn't be sure if I'd met her--so I went
and saw her. She said she'd met me at Mrs. Harold Cliveden's, and
she began to talk to me about child-labour, and this and that plan
she had, and what did I think of them, and suddenly it flashed over
me: 'Maybe this is a reporter playing a trick on me!'" 

I hurried out before breakfast next morning and got all the papers,
to see what this enterprising lady had done. There was nothing, so I
reflected that probably she had been a "Sunday" lady. 

But then, when I reached my office, the 'phone rang, and I heard the
voice of Sylvia: "Mary, something perfectly dreadful has happened!" 

"What?" I cried. 

"I can't tell you over the 'phone, but a certain person is furiously
angry. Can I see you if I come down right away?" 

26. Such terrors as these were unguessed by me in the days of my
obscurity. Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown, uneasy also,
lies the wife of that head, and the best friend of the wife. I
dismissed my stenographer, and spent ten or fifteen restless minutes
until Sylvia appeared. 

Her story was quickly told. A couple of hours ago the acting-manager
of Mr. van Tuiver's office had telephoned to ask if he might call
upon a matter of importance. He had come. Naturally, he had the most
extreme reluctance to say anything which might seem to criticise the
activities of Mr. van Tuiver's wife, but there was something in the
account in the newspapers which should be brought to her husband's
attention. The articles gave the names and locations of a number of
firms in whose factories it was alleged that Mrs. van Tuiver had
found unsatisfactory conditions, and it happened that two of these
firms were located in premises which belonged to the van Tuiver
estates! 

A story coming very close to melodrama, I perceived. I sat dismayed
at what I had done. "Of course, dear girl," I said, at last, "you
understand that I had no idea who owned these buildings." 

"Oh, don't say that!" exclaimed Sylvia. "I am the one who should
have known!" 

Then for a long time I sat still and let her suffer. "Tenement
sweat-shops! Little children in factories!" I heard her whisper. 

At last I put my hand on hers. "I tried to put it off for a while,"
I said. "But I knew it would have to come." 

"Think of me!" she exclaimed, "going about scolding other people for
the way they make their money! When I thought of my own, I had
visions of palatial hotels and office-buildings--everything splendid
and clean!" 

"Well, my dear, you've learned now, and you will be able to do
something--" 

She turned upon me suddenly, and for the first time I saw in her
face the passions of tragedy. "Do you believe I will be able to do
anything? No! Don't have any such idea!" 

I was struck dumb. She got up and began to pace the room. "Oh, don't
make any mistake, I've paid for my great marriage in the last hour
or two. To think that he cares about nothing save the possibility of
being found out and made ridiculous! All his friends have been
'muckraked,' as he calls it, and he has sat aloft and smiled over
their plight; he was the landed gentleman, the true aristrocrat,
whom the worries of traders and money-changers didn't concern. Now
perhaps he's caught, and his name is to be dragged in the mire, and
it's my flightiness, my lack of commonsense that has done it!" 

"I shouldn't let that trouble me," I said. "You could not know--" 

"Oh, it's not that! It's that I hadn't a single courageous word to
say to him--not a hint that he ought to refuse to wring blood-money
from sweat-shops! I came away without having done it, because I
couldn't face his anger, because it would have meant a quarrel!" 

"My dear," I said gently, "it is possible to survive a quarrel." 

"No, you don't understand! We should never make it up again, I
know--I saw it in his words, in his face. He will never change to
please me, no, not even a simple thing like the business-methods of
the van Tuiver estates." 

I could not help smiling. "My dear Sylvia! A simple thing!" 

She came and sat beside me. "That's what I want to talk about. It is
time I was growing up. It it time that I knew about these things.
Tell me about them." 

"What, my dear?" 

"About the methods of the van Tuiver estates, that can't be changed
to please me. I made out one thing, we had recently paid a fine for
some infraction of the law in one of those buildings, and my husband
said it was because we had refused to pay more money to a
tenement-house inspector. I asked him: 'Why should we pay any money
at all to a tenement-house inspector? Isn't it bribery?' He
answered: 'It's a custom--the same as you give a tip to a hotel
waiter.' Is that true?"

I could not help smiling. "Your husband ought to know, my dear," I
said. 

I saw her compress her lips. "What is the tip for?" 

"I suppose it is to keep out of trouble with him." 

"But why can't we keep out of trouble by obeying the law?" 

"My dear, sometimes the law is inconvenient, and sometimes it is
complicated and obscure. It might be that you are violating it
without knowing the fact. It might be uncertain whether you are
violating it or not, so that to settle the question would mean a lot
of expense and publicity. It might even be that the law is
impossible to obey--that it was not intended to be obeyed." 

"What do you mean by that?" 

"I mean, maybe it was passed to put you at the mercy of the
politicians." 

"But," she protested, "that would be blackmail." 

"The phrase," I replied, "is 'strike-legislation.'" 

"But at least, that wouldn't be our fault!" 

"No, not unless you had begun it. It generally happens that the
landlord discovers it's a good thing to have politicians who will
work with him. Maybe he wants his assessments lowered; maybe he
wants to know where new car lines are to go, so that he can buy
intelligently; maybe he wants the city to improve his neighbourhood;
maybe he wants influence at court when he has some heavy damage
suit." 

"So we bribe everyone!" 

"Not necessarily. You may simply wait until campaign-time, and then
make your contribution to the machine. That is the basis of the
'System.'." 

"The 'System '?" 

"A semi-criminal police-force, and everything that pays tribute to
it; the saloon and the dive, the gambling hell the white-slave
market, and the Arson trust." 

I saw a wild look in her eyes. "Tell me, do you _know_ that all
these things are true? Or are you only guessing about them?" 

"My dear Sylvia," I answered, "you said it was time you grew up. For
the present I will tell you this: Several months before I met you, I
made a speech in which I named some of the organised forces of evil
in the city. One was Tammany Hall, and another was the Traction
Trust, and another was the Trinity Church Corporation, and yet
another was the van Tuiver estates." 

27. The following Sunday there appeared a "magazine story" of an
interview with the infinitely beautiful young wife of the infinitely
rich Mr. Douglas van Tuiver, in which the views of the wife on the
subject of child-labour were liberally interlarded with descriptions
of her reception-room and her morning-gown. But mere picturesqueness
by that time had been pretty well discounted in our minds. So long
as the article did not say anything about the ownership of
child-labour tenements! 

I did not see Sylvia for several weeks after that. I took it for
granted that she would want some time to get herself together and
make up her mind about the future. I did not feel anxious; the seed
had sprouted, and I felt sure it would continue to grow. 

Then one day she called me up, asking if I could come to see her. I
suggested that afternoon, and she said she was having tea with some
people at the Palace Hotel, and could I come there just after
tea-time? I remember the place and the hour, because of the curious
adventure into which I got myself. One hears the saying, when
unexpected encounters take place, "How small the world is!" But I
thought the world was growing really too small when I went into a
hotel tea-room to wait for Sylvia, and found myself face to face
with Claire Lepage! 

The place appointed had been the "orange-room"; I stood in the
door-way, sweeping the place with my eyes, and I saw Mrs. van Tuiver
at the same moment that she saw me. She was sitting at a table with
several other people and she nodded, and I took a seat to wait. From
my position I could watch her, in animated conversation; and she
could send me a smile now and then. So I was decidedly startled when
I heard a voice, "Why, how do you do?" and looked up and saw Claire
holding out her hand to me. 

"Well, for heaven's sake!" I exclaimed. 

"You don't come to see me any more," she said. 

"Why, no--no, I've been busy of late." So much I managed to
ejaculate, in spite of my confusion. 

"You seem surprised to see me," she remarked--observant as usual,
and sensitive to other people's attitude to her. 

"Why, naturally," I said. And then, recollecting that it was not in
the least natural--since she spent a good deal of her time in such
places--I added, "I was looking for someone else." 

"May I do in the meantime?" she inquired, taking a seat beside me.
"What are you so busy about?" 

"My child-labour work," I answered. Then, in an instant, I was sorry
for the words, thinking she must have read about Sylvia's
activities. I did not want her to know that I had met Sylvia, for it
would mean a flood of questions, which I did not want to answer--nor
yet to refuse to answer. 

But my fear was needless. "I've been out of town," she said. 

"Whereabouts?" I asked, making conversation. 

"A little trip to Bermuda." 

My mind was busy with the problem of getting rid of her. It would be
intolerable to have Sylvia come up to us; it was intolerable to know
that they were in sight of each other. 

Even as the thought came to me, however, I saw Claire start. "Look!"
she exclaimed. 

"What is it?" 

"That woman there--in the green velvet! The fourth table." 

"I see her." 

"Do you know who she is?" 

"Who?" (I remembered Lady Dee's maxim about lying!) 

"Sylvia Castleman!" whispered Claire. (She always referred to her
thus--seeming to say, "I'm as much van Tuiver as she is!") 

"Are you sure?" I asked--in order to say something. 

"I've seen her a score of times. I seem to be always running into
her. That's Freddie Atkins she's talking to." 

"Indeed!" said I. 

"I know most of the men I see her with. But I have to walk by as if
I'd never seen them. A queer world we live in, isn't it?" 

I could assent cordially to that proposition. "Listen," I broke in,
quickly. "Have you got anything to do? If not, come down to the
Royalty and have tea with me." 

"Why not have it here?" 

"I've been waiting for someone from there, and I have to leave a
message. Then I'll be free." 

She rose, to my vast relief, and we walked out. I could feel
Sylvia's eyes following me; but I dared not try to send her a
message--I would have to make up some explanation afterwards. "Who
was your well-dressed friend?" I could imagine her asking; but my
mind was more concerned with the vision of what would happen if, in
full sight of her companion, Mr. Freddie Atkins, she were to rise
and walk over to Claire and myself! 

28. Seated in the palm-room of the other hotel, I sipped a cup of
tea which I felt I had earned, while Claire had a little glass of
the fancy-coloured liquids which the ladies in these places affect.
The room was an aviary, with tropical plants and splashing
fountains--and birds of many gorgeous hues; I gazed from one to
another of the splendid creatures, wondering how many of them were
paying for their plumage in the same way as my present companion. It
would have taken a more practiced eye than mine to say which, for if
I had been asked, I would have taken Claire for a diplomat's wife.
She had not less than a thousand dollars' worth of raiment upon her,
and its style made clear to all the world the fact that it had not
been saved over from a previous season of prosperity. She was a fine
creature, who could carry any amount of sail; with her bold, black
eyes she looked thoroughly competent, and it was hard to believe in
the fundamental softness of her character. 

I sat, looking about me, annoyed at having missed Sylvia, and only
half listening to Claire. But suddenly she brought me to attention.
"Well," she said, "I've met him." 

"Met whom?" 

"Douglas." 

I stared at her. "Douglas van Tuiver?" 

She nodded; and I suppressed a cry. 

"I told you he'd come back," she added, with a laugh. 

"You mean he came to see you?" 

I could not hide my concern. But there was no need to, for it
flattered Claire's vanity. "No--not yet, but he will. I met him at
Jack Taylor's--at a supper-party." 

"Did he know you were to be there?" 

"No. But he didn't leave when he saw me." 

There was a pause. I could not trust myself to say anything. But
Claire had no intention of leaving me curious. "I don't think he's
happy with her," she remarked. 

"What makes you say that?" 

"Oh, several things. I know him, you know. He wouldn't say he was." 

"Perhaps he didn't want to discuss it with you." 

"Oh, no--not that. He isn't reserved with me." 

"I should think it was dangerous to discuss one's wife under such
circumstances," I laughed. 

Claire laughed also. "You should have heard what Jack had to say
about his wife! She's down at Palm Beach." 

"She'd better come home," I ventured. 

"He was telling what a dance she leads him; she raises Cain if a
woman looks at him--and she damns every woman he meets before the
woman has a chance to look. Jack said marriage was hell--just hell.
Reggie Channing thought it was like a pair of old slippers that you
got used to." Jack laughed and answered, "You're at the stage where
you think you can solve the marriage problem by deceiving your
wife!" 

I made no comment. Claire sat for a while, busy with her thoughts;
then she repeated, "He wouldn't say he was happy! And he misses me,
too. When he was going, I held his hand, and said: 'Well, Douglas,
how goes it?'"

"And then?" I asked; but she would not say any more. 

I waited a while, and then began, "Claire, let him alone. Give them
a chance to be happy." 

"Why should I?" she demanded, in a voice of hostility. 

"She never harmed you," I said. I knew I was being foolish, but I
would do what I could. 

"She took him away from me, didn't she?" And Claire's eyes were
suddenly alight with the hatred of her outcast class. "Why did she
get him? Why is she Mrs. van Tuiver, and I nobody? Because her
father was rich, because she had power and position, while I had to
scratch for myself in the world. Is that true, or isn't it?" 

I could not deny that it might be part of the truth. "But they're
married now," I said, "and he loves her." 

"He loves me, too. And I love him still, in spite of the way he's
treated me. He's the only man I ever really loved. Do you think I'm
going off and hide in a hole, while she spends his money and plays
the princess up and down the Avenue? Not much!" 

I fell silent. Should I set out upon another effort at "moulding
water"? Should I give Claire one more scolding--tell her, perhaps,
how her very features were becoming hard and ugly, as a result of
the feelings she was harbouring? Should I recall the pretences of
generosity and dignity she had made when we first met? I might have
attempted this--but something held me back. After all, the one
person who could decide this issue was Douglas van Tuiver. 

I rose. "Well, I have to be going. But I'll drop round now and then,
and see what success you have." 

She became suddenly important. "Maybe I won't tell!" 

To which I answered, indifferently, "All right, it's your secret."
But I went off without much worry over that part of it. Claire must
have some one to whom to recount her troubles--or her triumphs, as
the case might be. 

29. I had my talk with Sylvia a day or two later, and made my
excuse--a friend from the West who had been going out of town in a
few hours later. 

The seed had been growing, I found. Ever since we had last met, her
life had consisted of arguments over the costume-ball on which her
husband had set his heart, and at which she had refused to play the
hostess. 

"Of course, he's right about one thing," she remarked. "We can't
stay in New York unless we give some big affair. Everyone expects
it, and there is no explanation except one he could not offer." 

"I've made a big breach in your life, Sylvia," I said. 

"It wasn't all you. This unhappiness has been in me--it's been like
a boil, and you've been the poultice." (She had four younger
brothers and sisters, so these domestic similes came naturally.) 

"Boils," I remarked, "are disfiguring, when they come to a head." 

There was a pause. "How is your child-labour bill?" she asked,
abruptly. 

"Why, it's all right." 

"Didn't I see a letter in the paper saying it had been referred to a
sub-committee, some trick to suppress it for this session?" 

I could not answer. I had been hoping she had not seen that letter. 

"If I were to come forward now," she said, "I could possibly block
that move, couldn't I?" 

Still I said nothing. 

"If I were to take a bold stand--I mean if I were to speak at a
public meeting, and denounce the move." 

"I suppose you could," I had to admit. 

For a long time she sat with her head bowed. "The children will have
to wait," she said, at last, half to herself. 

"My dear," I answered (What else was there to answer?) "the children
have waited a long time." 

"I hate to turn back--to have you say I'm a coward--" 

"I won't say that, Sylvia." 

"You will be too kind, no doubt, but that will be the truth." 

I tried to reassure her. But the acids I had used--intended for
tougher skins than hers--had burned into the very bone, and now it
was not possible to stop their action. "I must make you understand,"
she said, "how serious a thing it seems to me for a wife to stand
out against her husband. I've been brought up to feel that it was
the most terrible thing a woman could do." 

She stopped, and when she went on again her face was set like one
enduring pain. "So this is the decision to which I have come. If I
do anything of a public nature now, I drive my husband from me; on
the other hand, if I take a little time, I may be able to save the
situation. I need to educate myself, and I'm hoping I may be able to
educate him at the same time. If I can get him to read something--if
it's only a few paragraphs everyday--I may gradually change his
point of view, so that he will tolerate what I believe. At any rate,
I ought to try; I am sure that is the wise and kind and fair thing
to do." 

"What will you do about the ball?" I asked. 

"I am going to take him away, out of this rush and distraction, this
dressing and undressing, hurrying about meeting people and
chattering about nothing." 

"He is willing?" 

"Yes; in fact, he suggested it himself. He thinks my mind is turned,
with all the things I've been reading, and with Mrs. Frothingham,
and Mrs. Allison, and the rest. He hopes that if I go away, I may
quiet down and come to my senses. We have a good excuse. I have to
think of my health just now---" 

She stopped, and looked away from my eyes. I saw the colour
spreading in a slow wave over her cheeks; it was like those tints of
early dawn that are so ravishing to the souls of poets. "In four or
five months from now---" And she stopped again. 

I put my big hand gently over her small one. "I have three children
of my own," I said. 

"So," she went on, "it won't seem so unreasonable. Some people know,
and the rest will guess, and there won't be any talk--I mean, such
as there would be if it was rumoured that Mrs. Douglas van Tuiver
had got interested in Socialism, and refused to spend her husband's
money." 

"I understand," I replied. "It's quite the most sensible thing, and
I'm glad you've found a way out. I shall miss you, of course, but we
can write each other long letters. Where are you going?" 

"I'm not absolutely sure. Douglas suggests a cruise in the West
Indies, but I think I should rather be settled in one place. He has
a lovely house in the mountains of North Carolina, and wants me to
go there; but it's a show-place, with rich homes all round, and I
know I'd soon be in a social whirl. I thought of the camp in the
Adirondacks. It would be glorious to see the real woods in winter;
but I lose my nerve when I think of the cold--I was brought up in a
warm place." 

"A 'camp' sounds rather primitive for one in your condition," I
suggested. 

"That's because you haven't been there. In reality it's a big house,
with twenty-five rooms, and steam-heat and electric lights, and half
a dozen men to take care of it when it's empty--as it has been for
several years." 

I smiled--for I could read her thought. "Are you going to be unhappy
because you can't occupy all your husband's homes?" 

"There's one other I prefer," she continued, unwilling to be made to
smile. "They call it a 'fishing lodge,' and it's down in the Florida
Keys. They're putting a railroad through there, but meantime you can
only get to it by a launch. From the pictures, it's the most
heavenly spot imaginable. Fancy running about those wonderful green
waters in a motor-boat!" 

"It sounds quite alluring," I replied. "But isn't it remote for
you?" 

"We're not so very far from Key West; and my husband means to have a
physician with us in any case. The advantage of being in a small
place is that we couldn't entertain if we wanted to. I can have my
Aunt Varina come to stay with me, a dear, sweet soul who loves me
devotedly; and then if I find I have to have some new ideas, perhaps
you can come---" 

"I don't think your husband would favour that," I said. 

She put her hand out to me in a quick gesture. "I don't mean to give
up our friendship! I want you to understand, I intend to go on
studying and growing. I am doing what he asked me--it's right that I
should think of his wishes, and of the health of my child. But the
child will be growing up, and sooner or later my husband must grant
me the right to think, to have a life of my own. You must stand by
me and help me, whatever happens." 

I gave her my hand on that, and so we parted--for some time, as it
proved. I went up to Albany once more, in a last futile effort to
save our precious bill; and while I was there I got a note from her,
saying that she was leaving for the Florida Keys. 






BOOK II 

SYLVIA AS MOTHER 





For three months after this I had nothing but letters from Sylvia.
She proved to be an excellent letter-writer, full of verve and
colour. I would not say that she poured out her soul to me, but she
gave me glimpses of her states of mind, and the progress of her
domestic drama. 

First, she described the place to which she had come; a ravishing
spot, where any woman ought to be happy. It was a little island,
fringed with a border of cocoanut-palms, which rustled and
whispered day and night in the breeze. It was covered with tropical
foliage, and there was a long, rambling bungalow, with screened
"galleries," and a beach of hard white sand in front. The water was
blue, dazzling with sunshine, and dotted with distant green islands;
all of it, air, water, and islands, were warm. "I don't realize till
I get here," she said, "I am never really happy in the North. I wrap
myself against the assaults of a cruel enemy. But here I am at home;
I cast off my furs, I stretch out my arms, I bloom. I believe I
shall quite cease to think for a while--I shall forget all storms
and troubles, and bask on the sand like a lizard. 

"And the water! Mary, you cannot imagine such water; why should it
be blue on top, and green when you look down into it? I have a
little skiff of my own in which I drift, and I have been happy for
hours, studying the bottom; you see every colour of the rainbow, and
all as clear as in an aquarium. I have been fishing, too, and have
caught a tarpon. That is supposed to be a great adventure, and it
really is quite thrilling to feel the monstrous creature struggling
with you--though, of course, my arms soon gave out, and I had to
turn him over to my husband. This is one of the famous
fishing-grounds of the world, and I am glad of that, because it will
keep the men happy while I enjoy the sunshine. 

"I have discovered a fascinating diversion," she wrote, in a second
letter. "I make them take me in the launch to one of the loneliest
of the keys; they go off to fish, and I have the whole day to
myself, and am as happy as a child on a picnic! I roam the beach, I
take off my shoes and stockings--there are no newspaper reporters
snapping pictures. I dare not go far in, for there are huge black
creatures with dangerous stinging tails; they rush away in a cloud
of sand when I approach, but the thought of stepping upon one by
accident is terrifying. However, I let the little wavelets wash
round my toes, and I try to grab little fish, and I pick up lovely
shells; and then I go on, and I see a huge turtle waddling to the
water, and I dash up, and would stop him if I dared, and then I find
his eggs--such an adventure! 

"I am the prey of strange appetites and cravings. I have a delicious
luncheon with me, but suddenly the one thing in the world I want to
eat is turtle-eggs. I have no matches with me, and I do not know how
to build a fire like the Indians, so I have to hide the eggs back in
the sand until to-morrow. I hope the turtle does not move them--and
that I have not lost my craving in the meantime! 

"Then I go exploring inland. These islands were once the haunts of
pirates, so I may imagine all sorts of romantic things. What I find
are lemon-trees. I do not know if they are wild, or if the key was
once cultivated; the lemons are huge in size, and nearly all skin,
but the flavour is delicious. Turtle-eggs with wild lemon-juice! And
then I go on and come to a mangrove-swamp--dark and forbidding, a
grisly place; you imagine the trees are in torment, with limbs and
roots tangled like writhing serpents. I tiptoe in a little way, and
then get frightened, and run back to the beach. 

"I see on the sand a mysterious little yellow creature, running like
the wind; I make a dash, and get between him and his hole; and so he
stands, crouching on guard, staring at me, and I at him. He is some
sort of crab, but he stands on two legs like a caricature of a man;
he has two big weapons upraised for battle, and staring black eyes
stuck out on long tubes. He is an uncanny thing to look at; but then
suddenly the idea comes, How do I seem to him? I realize that he is
alive; a tiny mite of hunger for life, of fear and resolution. I
think, How lonely he must be! And I want to tell him that I love
him, and would not hurt him for the world; but I have no way to make
him understand me, and all I can do is to go away and leave him. I
go, thinking what a strange place the world is, with so many living
things, each shut away apart by himself, unable to understand the
others or make the others understand him. This is what is called
philosophy, is it not? Tell me some books where these things are
explained.... 

"I am reading all you sent me. When I grew tired of exploring the
key, I lay down in the shade of a palm-tree, and read--guess what?
'Number Five John Street'! So all this loveliness vanished, and I
was back in the world's nightmare. An extraordinary book! I decided
that it would be good for my husband, so I read him a few
paragraphs; but I found that it only irritated him. He wants me to
rest, he says--he can't see why I've come away to the Florida Keys
to read about the slums of London. 

"My hope of gradually influencing his mind has led to a rather
appalling discovery--that he has the same intention as regards me!
He too has brought a selection of books, and reads to me a few pages
every day, and explains what they mean. He calls _this_ resting! I
am no match for him, of course--I never realized more keenly the
worthlessness of my education. But I see in a general way where his
arguments tend--that life is something that has grown, and is not in
the power of men to change; but even if he could convince me of
this, I should not find it a source of joy. I have a feeling always
that if you were here, you would know something to answer. 

"The truth is that I am so pained by the conflict between us that I
cannot argue at all. I find myself wondering what our marriage would
have been like if we had discovered that we had the same ideas and
interests. There are days and nights at a time when I tell myself
that I ought to believe what my husband believes, that I ought never
have allowed myself to think of anything else. But that really won't
do as a life-programme; I tried it years ago with my dear mother and
father. Did I ever tell you that my mother is firmly convinced in
her heart that I am to suffer eternally in a real hell of fire
because I do not believe certain things about the Bible? She still
has visions of it--though not so bad since she turned me over to a
husband! 

"Now it is my husband who is worried about my ideas. He is reading a
book by Burke, a well-known old writer. The book deals with English
history, which I don't know much about, but I see that it resents
modern changes, and the whole spirit of change. And Mary, why can't
I feel that way? I really ought to love those old and stately
things, I ought to be reverent to the past; I was brought up that
way. Sometimes I tremble when I realize how very flippant and
cynical I am. I seem to see the wrong side of everything, so that I
couldn't believe in it if I wanted to!" 

2. Her letters were full of the wonders of Nature about her. There
was a snow-white egret who made his home upon her island; she
watched his fishing operations, and meant to find his nest, so as to
watch his young. The men made a trip into the Everglades, and
brought back wonder-tales of flocks of flamingoes making scarlet
clouds in the sky, huge colonies of birds' nests crowded like a
city. They had brought home a young one, which screamed all day to
be stuffed with fish. 

A cousin of Sylvia's, Harley Chilton, had come to visit her. He had
taken van Tuiver on hunting-trips during the latter's courtship
days, and now was a good fishing-companion. He was not allowed to
discover the state of affairs between Sylvia and her husband, but he
saw his cousin reading serious books, and his contribution to the
problem was to tell her that she would get wrinkles in her face, and
that even her feet would grow big, like those of the ladies in New
England. 

Also, there was the young physician who kept watch over Sylvia's
health; a dapper little man with pink and white complexion, and a
brown moustache from which he could not keep his fingers. He had a
bungalow to himself, but sometimes he went along on the
launch-trips, and Sylvia thought she observed wrinkles of amusement
round his eyes whenever she differed from her husband on the subject
of Burke. She suspected this young man of not telling all his ideas
to his multi-millionaire patients, and she was entertained by the
prospect of probing him.