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_ Some day the marriageable age for women will be
advanced from twenty to thirty, and the old maid line
will be changed from thirty to forty. When that time
comes there will be surprisingly few divorces. The
husband of whom we dream at twenty is not at all the type
of man who attracts us at thirty. The man I married at
twenty was a brilliant, morbid, handsome, abnormal
creature with magnificent eyes and very white teeth and
no particular appetite at mealtime. The man whom I could
care for at thirty would be the normal, safe and
substantial sort who would come in at six o'clock, kiss
me once, sniff the air twice and say: "Mm! What's that
smells so good, old girl? I'm as hungry as a bear. Trot
it out. Where are the kids?"
These are dangerous things to think upon. So
dangerous and disturbing to the peace of mind that I have
decided not to see Ernst von Gerhard for a week or two.
I find that seeing him is apt to make me forget Peter Orme;
to forget that my duty begins with a capital D; to forget
that I am dangerously near the thirty year old mark; to
forget Norah, and Max, and the Spalpeens, and the world,
and everything but the happiness of being near him, watching
his eyes say one thing while his lips say another.
At such times I am apt to work myself up into rather
a savage frame of mind, and to shut myself in my room
evenings, paying no heed to Frau Nirlanger's timid
knocking, or Bennie's good-night message. I uncover my
typewriter and set to work at the thing which may or may
not be a book, and am extremely wretched and gloomy and
pessimistic, after this fashion:
"He probably wouldn't care anything about you if you
were free. It is just a case of the fruit that is out of
reach being the most desirable. Men don't marry frumpy,
snuffy old things of thirty, or thereabouts. Men aren't
marrying now-a-days, anyway. Certainly not for love.
They marry for position, or power, or money, when they do
marry. Think of all the glorious creatures he meets
every day--women whose hair, and finger-nails and teeth
and skin are a religion; women whose clothes are a fine
art; women who are free to care only for themselves;
to rest, to enjoy, to hear delightful music, and
read charming books, and eat delicious food. He doesn't
really care about you, with your rumpled blouses, and
your shabby gloves and shoes, and your somewhat doubtful
linen collars. The last time you saw him you were just
coming home from the office after a dickens of a day, and
there was a smudge on the end of your nose, and he told
you of it, laughing. But you didn't laugh. You rubbed
it off, furiously, and you wanted to cry. Cry! You,
Dawn O'Hara! Begorra! 'Tis losin' your sense av humor
you're after doin'! Get to work."
After which I would fall upon the book in a furious,
futile fashion, writing many incoherent, irrelevant
paragraphs which I knew would be cast aside as worthless
on the sane and reasoning to-morrow.
Oh, it had been easy enough to talk of love in a
lofty, superior impersonal way that New Year's day. Just
the luxury of speaking of it at all, after those weeks of
repression, sufficed. But it is not so easy to be
impersonal and lofty when the touch of a coat sleeve
against your arm sends little prickling, tingling shivers
racing madly through thousands of too taut nerves. It is
not so easy to force the mind and tongue into safe, sane
channels when they are forever threatening to rush together
in an overwhelming torrent that will carry misery and
destruction in its wake. Invariably we talk with feverish
earnestness about the book; about my work at the office;
about Ernst's profession, with its wonderful growth; about
Norah, and Max and the Spalpeens, and the home; about the
latest news; about the weather; about Peter Orme--and then
silence.
At our last meeting things took a new and startling
turn. So startling, so full of temptation and
happiness-that-must-not-be, that I resolved to forbid
myself the pain and joy of being, near him until I could
be quite sure that my grip on Dawn O'Hara was firm,
unshakable and lasting.
Von Gerhard sports a motor-car, a rakish little
craft, built long and low, with racing lines, and a green
complexion, and a nose that cuts through the air like the
prow of a swift boat through water. Von Gerhard had
promised me a spin in it on the first mild day. Sunday
turned out to be unexpectedly lamblike, as only a March
day can be, with real sunshine that warmed the end of
one's nose instead of laughing as it tweaked it, as the
lying February sunshine had done.
"But warmly you must dress yourself," Von Gerhard
warned me, "with no gauzy blouses or sleeveless gowns.
The air cuts like a knife, but it feels good against the
face. And a little road-house I know, where one is
served great steaming plates of hot oyster stew. How
will that be for a lark, yes?"
And so I had swathed myself in wrappings until I
could scarcely clamber into the panting little car, and
we had darted off along the smooth lake drives, while the
wind whipped the scarlet into our cheeks, even while it
brought the tears to our eyes. There was no chance for
conversation, even if Von Gerhard had been in talkative
mood, which he was not. He seemed more taciturn than
usual, seated there at the wheel, looking straight ahead
at the ribbon of road, his eyes narrowed down to mere
keen blue slits. I realized, without alarm, that he was
driving furiously and lawlessly, and I did not care. Von
Gerhard was that sort of man. One could sit quite calmly
beside him while he pulled at the reins of a pair of
runaway horses, knowing that he would conquer them in the
end.
Just when my face began to feel as stiff and glazed
as a mummy's, we swung off the roadway and up to the
entrance of the road-house that was to revive us with things
hot and soupy.
"Another minute," I said, through stiff lips, as I
extricated myself from my swathings, "and I should have
been what Mr. Mantalini described as a demnition body.
For pity's sake, tell 'em the soup can't be too hot nor
too steaming for your lady friend. I've had enough fresh
air to last me the remainder of my life. May I timidly
venture to suggest that a cheese sandwich follow the
oyster stew? I am famished, and this place looks as
though it might make a speciality of cheese sandwiches."
"By all means a cheese sandwich. Und was noch? That
fresh air it has given you an appetite, nicht wahr?" But
there was no sign of a smile on his face, nor was the
kindly twinkle of amusement to be seen in his eyes--that
twinkle that I had learned to look for.
"Smile for the lady," I mockingly begged when we had
been served. "You've been owlish all the afternoon.
Here, try a cheese sandwich. Now, why do you suppose
that this mustard tastes so much better than the kind one
gets at home?"
Von Gerhard had been smoking a cigarette, the first
that I had ever seen in his fingers. Now he tossed it
into the fireplace that yawned black and empty at one side
of the room. He swept aside the plates and glasses that
stood before him, leaned his arms on the table and
deliberately stared at me.
"I sail for Europe in June, to be gone a year--
probably more," he said.
"Sail!" I echoed, idiotically; and began blindly to
dab clots of mustard on that ridiculous sandwich.
"I go to study and work with Gluck. It is the
opportunity of a lifetime. Gluck is to the world of
medicine what Edison is to the world of electricity. He
is a wizard, a man inspired. You should see him--a
little, bent, grizzled, shabby old man who looks at you,
and sees you not. It is a wonderful opportunity, a--"
The mustard and the sandwich and the table and Von
Gerhard's face were very indistinct and uncertain to my
eyes, but I managed to say: "So glad--congratulate you--
very happy--no doubt fortunate--"
Two strong hands grasped my wrists. "Drop that absurd
mustard spoon and sandwich. Na, I did not mean to
frighten you, Dawn. How your hands tremble. So, look at
me. You would like Vienna, Kindchen. You would like the
gayety, and the brightness of it, and the music, and the
pretty women, and the incomparable gowns. Your sense of
humor would discern the hollowness beneath all the pomp
and ceremony and rigid lines of caste, and military glory;
and your writer's instinct would revel in the splendor, and
color and romance and intrigue."
I shrugged my shoulders in assumed indifference.
"Can't you convey all this to me without grasping my
wrists like a villain in a melodrama? Besides, it isn't
very generous or thoughtful of you to tell me all this,
knowing that it is not for me. Vienna for you, and
Milwaukee and cheese sandwiches for me. Please pass the
mustard."
But the hold on my wrists grew firmer. Von Gerhard's
eyes were steady as they gazed into mine. "Dawn, Vienna,
and the whole world is waiting for you, if you will but
take it. Vienna--and happiness--with me--"
I wrenched my wrists free with a dreadful effort and
rose, sick, bewildered, stunned. My world--my refuge of
truth, and honor, and safety and sanity that had lain in
Ernst von Gerhard's great, steady hands, was slipping
away from me. I think the horror that I felt within must
have leaped to my eyes, for in an instant Von Gerhard was
beside me, steadying me with his clear blue eyes. He did
not touch the tips of my fingers as he stood there very
near me. From the look of pain on his face I knew that I
had misunderstood, somehow.
"Kleine, I see that you know me not," he said, in
German, and the saying it was as tender as is a mother
when she reproves a child that she loves. "This fight
against the world, those years of unhappiness and misery,
they have made you suspicious and lacking in trust, is it
not so? You do not yet know the perfect love that casts
out all doubt. Dawn, I ask you in the name of all that
is reasoning, and for the sake of your happiness and
mine, to divorce this man Peter Orme--this man who for
almost ten years has not been your husband--who never can
be your husband. I ask you to do something which will
bring suffering to no one, and which will mean happiness
to many. Let me make you happy--you were born to be
happy--you who can laugh like a girl in spite of your
woman's sorrows--"
But I sank into a chair and hid my face in my hands
so that I might be spared the beauty and the tenderness
of his eyes. I tried to think of all the sane and
commonplace things in life. Somewhere in my inner
consciousness a cool little voice was saying, over and
over again:
"Now, Dawn, careful! You've come to the crossroads at
last. Right or left? Choose! Now, Dawn, careful!" and
the rest of it all over again.
When I lifted my face from my hands at last it was to
meet the tenderness of Von Gerhard's gaze with scarcely
a tremor.
"You ought to know," I said, very slowly and evenly,
"that a divorce, under these circumstances, is almost
impossible, even if I wished to do what you suggest.
There are certain state laws--"
An exclamation of impatience broke from him. "Laws!
In some states, yes. In others, no. It is a mere
technicality--a trifle! There is about it a bit of that
which you call red tape. It amounts to nothing--to
that!" He snapped his fingers. "A few months' residence
in another state, perhaps. These American laws, they are
made to break."
"Yes; you are quite right," I said, and I knew in my
heart that the cool, insistent little voice within had
not spoken in vain. "But there are other laws--laws of
honor and decency, and right living and conscience--that
cannot be broken with such ease. I cannot marry you. I
have a husband."
"You can call that unfortunate wretch your
husband! He does not know that he has a wife. He will
not know that he has lost a wife. Come, Dawn--small
one--be not so foolish. You do not know how happy I will
make you. You have never seen me except when I was
tortured with doubts and fears. You do not know what our
life will be together. There shall be everything to make
you forget--everything that thought and love and money
can give you. The man there in the barred room--"
At that I took his dear hands in mine and held them
close as I miserably tried to make him hear what that
small, still voice had told me.
"There! That is it! If he were free, if he were
able to stand before men that his actions might be judged
fairly and justly, I should not hesitate for one single,
precious moment. If he could fight for his rights, or
relinquish them, as he saw fit, then this thing would not
be so monstrous. But, Ernst, can't you see? He is
there, alone, in that dreadful place, quite helpless,
quite incapable, quite at our mercy. I should as soon
think of hurting a little child, or snatching the pennies
from a blind man's cup. The thing is inhuman! It is
monstrous! No state laws, no red tape can dissolve such
a union."
"You still care for him!"
"Ernst!"
His face was very white with the pallor of repressed
emotion, and his eyes were like the blue flame that one
sees flashing above a bed of white-hot coals.
"You do care for him still. But yes! You can stand
there, quite cool--but quite--and tell me that you would
not hurt him, not for your happiness, not for mine. But
me you can hurt again and again, without one twinge of
regret."
There was silence for a moment in the little bare
dining-room--a miserable silence on my part, a bitter one
for Ernst. Then Von Gerhard seated himself again at the
table opposite and smiled one of the rare smiles that
illumined his face with such sweetness.
"Come, Dawn, almost we are quarreling--we who were to
have been so matter-of-fact and sensible. Let us make an
end of this question. You will think of what I have
said, will you not? Perhaps I was too abrupt, too
brutal. Ach, Dawn, you know not how I--Very well, I will
not."
With both hands I was clinging to my courage and
praying for strength to endure this until I should be
alone in my room again.
"As for that poor creature who is bereft of reason,
he shall lack no care, no attention. The burden you have
borne so long I shall take now upon my shoulders."
He seemed so confident, so sure. I could bear it no
longer. "Ernst, if you have any pity, any love for me,
stop! I tell you I can never do this. Why do you make
it so terribly hard for me! So pitilessly hard! You
always have been so strong, so sure, such a staff of
courage."
"I say again, and again, and again, you do not care."
It was then that I took my last vestige of strength
and courage together and going over to him, put my two
hands on his great shoulders, looking up into his drawn
face as I spoke.
"Ernst, look at me! You never can know how much I
care. I care so much that I could not bear to have the
shadow of wrong fall upon our happiness. There can be no
lasting happiness upon a foundation of shameful deceit.
I should hate myself, and you would grow to hate me. It
always is so. Dear one, I care so much that I have the
strength to do as I would do if I had to face my mother,
and Norah tonight. I don't ask you to understand. Men
are not made to understand these things; not
even a man such as you, who are so beautifully
understanding. I only ask that you believe in me--and
think of me sometimes--I shall feel it, and be helped.
Will you take me home now, Dr. von Gerhard?"
The ride home was made in silence. The wind was
colder, sharper. I was chilled, miserable, sick. Von
Gerhard's face was quite expressionless as he guided the
little car over the smooth road. When we had stopped
before my door, still without a word, I thought that he
was going to leave me with that barrier of silence
unbroken. But as I stepped stiffly to the curbing his
hands closed about mine with the old steady grip. I
looked up quickly, to find a smile in the corners of the
tired eyes.
"You--you will let me see you--sometimes?"
But wisdom came to my aid. "Not now. It is better
that we go our separate ways for a few weeks, until our
work has served to adjust the balance that has been
disturbed. At the end of that time I shall write you,
and from that time until you sail in June we shall be
just good comrades again. And once in Vienna--who
knows?--you may meet the plump blond Fraulein, of
excellent family--"
"And no particular imagination--"
And then we both laughed, a bit hysterically, because
laughter is, after all, akin to tears. And the little
green car shot off with a whir as I turned to enter my
new world of loneliness. _
Read next: CHAPTER XIV - BENNIE AND THE CHARMING OLD MAID
Read previous: CHAPTER XII - BENNIE THE CONSOLER
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