XXXI. ANITA'S SECRET
That afternoon--or, was it the next?--I happened to go home early. I havenever been able to keep alive anger against any one. My anger against Anitahad long ago died away, had been succeeded by regret and remorse that Ihad let my nerves, or whatever the accursed cause was, whirl me into suchan outburst. Not that I regretted having rejected what I still felt wasinsulting to me and degrading to her; simply that my manner should havebeen different. There was no necessity or excuse for violence in showingher that I would not, could not, accept from gratitude what only lovehas the right to give. And I had long been casting about for some wayto apologize--not easy to do, when her distant manner toward me madeit difficult for me to find even the necessary commonplaces to "keepup appearances" before the servants on the few occasions on which weaccidentally met.
But, as I was saying, I came up from the office and stretched myselfon--the lounge in my private room adjoining the library. I had read myselfinto a doze, when a servant brought me a card. I glanced at it as it layupon his extended tray. "Gerald Monson," I read aloud. "What does thedamned rascal want?" I asked.
The servant smiled. He knew as well as I how Monson, after I dismissed himwith a present of six months' pay, had given the newspapers the story--or,rather, his version of the story--of my efforts to educate myself in the"arts and graces of a gentleman."
"Mr. Monson says he wishes to see you particular, sir," said he.
"Well--I'll see him," said I. I despised him too much to dislike him, and Ithought he might possibly be in want. But that notion vanished the instantI set eyes upon him. He was obviously at the very top of the wave. "Hello,Monson," was my greeting, in it no reminder of his treachery.
"Howdy, Blacklock," said he. "I've come on a little errand for Mrs.Langdon." Then, with that nasty grin of his: "You know, I'm looking afterthings for her since the bust-up."
"No, I didn't--know," said I curtly, suppressing my instant curiosity."What does Mrs. Langdon want?"
"To see you--for just a few minutes--whenever it is convenient."
"If Mrs. Langdon has business with me, I'll see her at my office," said I.She was one of the fashionables that had got herself into my black books byher treatment of Anita since the break with the Ellerslys.
"She wishes to come to you here--this afternoon, if you are to be at home.She asked me to say that her business is important--and very private."
I hesitated, but I could think of no good excuse for refusing. "I'll behere an hour," said I. "Good day."
He gave me no time to change my mind.
Something--perhaps it was his curious expression as he took himselfoff--made me begin to regret. The more I thought of the matter, the less Ithought of my having made any civil concession to a woman who had acted sobadly toward Anita and myself. He had not been gone a quarter of an hourbefore I went to Anita in her sitting-room. Always, the instant I enteredthe outer door of her part of our house, that powerful, intoxicatingfascination that she had for me began to take possession of my senses. Itwas in every garment she wore. It seemed to linger in any place where shehad been, for a long time after she left it. She was at a small desk by thewindow, was writing letters.
"May I interrupt?" said I. "Monson was here a few minutes ago--from Mrs.Langdon. She wants to see me. I told him I would see her here. Then itoccurred to me that perhaps I had been too good-natured. What do youthink?"
I could not see her face, but only the back of her head, and the loosecoils of magnetic hair and the white nape of her graceful neck. As I beganto speak, she stopped writing, her pen suspended over the sheet of paper.After I ended there was a long silence.
"I'll not see her," said I. "I don't quite understand why I yielded." And Iturned to go.
"Wait--please," came from her abruptly.
Another long silence. Then I: "If she comes here, I think the only personwho can properly receive her is you."
"No--you must see her," said Anita at last. And she turned round in herchair until she was facing me. Her expression--I can not describe it. I canonly say that it gave me a sense of impending calamity.
"I'd rather not--much rather not," said I.
"I particularly wish you to see her," she replied, and she turned back toher writing. I saw her pen poised as if she were about to begin; but shedid not begin--and I felt that she would not. With my mind shadowed withvague dread, I left that mysterious stillness, and went back to thelibrary.
It was not long before Mrs. Langdon was announced. There are some womento whom a haggard look is becoming; she is one of them. She was muchthinner than when I last saw her; instead of her former restless, petulant,suspicious expression, she now looked tragically sad. "May I trouble you toclose the door?" said she, when the servant had withdrawn.
I closed the door.
"I've come," she began, without seating herself, "to make you as unhappy, Ifear, as I am. I've hesitated long before coming. But I am desperate. Theone hope I have left is that you and I between us may be able to--to--thatyou and I may be able to help each other."
I waited.
"I suppose there are people," she went on, "who have never known what itwas to--really to care for some one else. They would despise me forclinging to a man after he has shown me that--that his love has ceased."
"Pardon me, Mrs. Langdon," I interrupted. "You apparently think yourhusband and I are intimate friends. Before you go any further, I mustdisabuse you of that idea."
She looked at me in open astonishment. "You do not know why my husband hasleft me?"
"Until a few minutes ago, I did not know that he had left you," I said."And I do not wish to know why."
Her expression of astonishment changed to mockery. "Oh!" she sneered. "Yourwife has fooled you into thinking it a one-sided affair. Well, I tell you,she is as much to blame as he--more. For he did love me when he married me;did love me until she got him under her spell again."
I thought I understood. "You have been misled, Mrs. Langdon," said Igently, pitying her as the victim of her insane jealousy. "You have--"
"Ask your wife," she interrupted angrily. "Hereafter, you can't pretendignorance. For I'll at least be revenged. She failed utterly to trap himinto marriage when she was a poor girl, and--"
"Before you go any further," said I coldly, "let me set you right. My wifewas at one time engaged to your husband's brother, but--"
"Tom?" she interrupted. And her laugh made me bite my lip. "So she told youthat! I don't see how she dared. Why, everybody knows that she and Mowbraywere engaged, and that he broke it off to marry me."
All in an instant everything that had been confused in my affairs athome and down town became clear. I understood why I had been pursuedrelentlessly in Wall Street; why I had been unable to make the leastimpression on the barriers between Anita and myself. You will imagine thatsome terrible emotion at once dominated me. But this is not a romance;only the veracious chronicle of certain human beings. My first emotionwas--relief that it was not Tom Langdon. "I ought to have known shecouldn't care for _him_," said I to myself. I, contending with TomLangdon for a woman's love had always made me shrink. But Mowbray--thatwas vastly different. My respect for myself and for Anita rose.
"No," said I to Mrs. Langdon, "my wife did not tell me, never spoke of it.What I said to you was purely a guess of my own. I had no interest in thematter--and haven't. I have absolute confidence in my wife. I feel ashamedthat you have provoked me into saying so." I opened the door.
"I am not going yet," said she angrily. "Yesterday morning Mowbray and shewere riding together in the Riverside Drive. Ask her groom."
"What of it?" said I. Then, as she did not rise, I rang the bell. When theservant came, I said: "Please tell Mrs. Blacklock that Mrs. Langdon is inthe library--and that I am here, and gave you the message."
As soon as the servant was gone, she said: "No doubt she'll lie to you.These women that steal other women's property are usually clever at foolingtheir own silly husbands."
"I do not inten
d to ask her," I replied. "To ask her would be an insult."
She made no comment beyond a scornful toss of the head. We both hadour gaze fixed upon the door through which Anita would enter. When shefinally did appear, I, after one glance at her, turned--it must have beentriumphantly--upon her accuser. I had not doubted, but where is the faiththat is not the stronger for confirmation? And confirmation there was inthe very atmosphere round that stately, still figure. She looked calmly,first at Mrs. Langdon, then at me.
"I sent for you," said I, "because I thought that you, rather than I,should request Mrs. Langdon to leave your house."
At that Mrs. Langdon was on her feet, and blazing. "Fool!" she flared atme. "Oh, the fools women make of men!" Then to Anita: "You--you--But no, Imust not permit you to drag me down to your level. Tell your husband--tellhim that you were riding with my husband in the Riverside Drive yesterday."
I stepped between her and Anita. "My wife will not answer you," said I. "Ihope, Madam, you will spare us the necessity of a painful scene. But leaveyou must--at once."
She looked wildly round, clasped her hands, suddenly burst into tears.If she had but known, she could have had her own way after that, withoutany attempt from me to oppose her. For she was evidently unutterablywretched--and no one knew better than I the sufferings of unreturned love.But she had given me up; slowly, sobbing, she left the room, I opening thedoor for her and closing it behind her.
"I almost broke down myself," said I to Anita. "Poor woman! How can you beso calm? You women in your relations with each other are--a mystery."
"I have only contempt for a woman who tries to hold a man when he wishesto go," said Anita, with quiet but energetic bitterness. "Besides"--shehesitated an instant before going on--"Gladys deserves her fate. Shedoesn't really care for him. She's only jealous of him. She never did lovehim."
"How do you know?" said I sharply, trying to persuade myself it was not anugly suspicion in me that lifted its head and shot out that question.
"Because he never loved her," she replied. "The feeling a woman has fora man or a man for a woman, without any response, isn't love, isn'tworthy the name of love. It's a sort of baffled covetousness. Love meansgenerosity, not greediness." Then--"Why do you not ask me whether what shesaid is true?"
The change in her tone with that last sentence, the strange, ominous notein it, startled me,
"Because," replied I, "as I said to her, to ask my wife such a questionwould be to insult her. If you were riding with him, it was an accident."As if my rude repulse of her overtures and my keeping away from her eversince would not have justified her in almost anything.
She flushed the dark red of shame, but her gaze held steady and unflinchingupon mine. "It was not altogether by accident," she said. And I think sheexpected me to kill her.
When a man admits and respects a woman's rights where he is himselfconcerned, he either is no longer interested in her or has begun to loveher so well that he can control the savage and selfish instincts ofpassion. If Mowbray Langdon had been there, I might have killed them both;but he was not there, and she, facing me without fear, was not the woman tobe suspected of the stealthy and traitorous.
"It was he that you meant when you warned me you cared for another man?"said I, so quietly that I wondered at myself; wondered what had become ofthe "Black Matt" who had used his fists almost as much as his brains infighting his way up.
"Yes," she said, her head down now.
A long pause.
"You wish to be free?" I asked, and my tone must have been gentle.
"I wish to free you," she replied slowly and deliberately.
There was a long silence. Then I said: "I must think it all out. I oncetold you how I felt about these matters. I've greatly changed my mind sinceour talk that night in the Willoughby; but my prejudices are still with me.Perhaps you will not be surprised at that--you whose prejudices have costme so dear."
I thought she was going to speak. Instead she turned away, so that I couldno longer see her face.
"Our marriage was a miserable mistake," I went on, struggling to be justand judicial, and to seem calm. "I admit it now. Fortunately, we are bothstill young--you very young. Mistakes in youth are never fatal. But, Anita,do not blunder out of one mistake into another. You are no longer a child,as you were when I married you. You will be careful not to let judgmentsformed of him long ago decide you for him as they decided you against me."
"I wish to be free," she said, each word coming with an effort, "as muchon your account as on my own." Then, and it seemed to me merely a trulyfeminine attempt to shirk responsibility, she added, "I am glad my goingwill be a relief to you."
"Yes, it will be a relief," I confessed. "Our situation has becomeintolerable." I had reached my limit of self-control. I put out my hand."Good-by," I said.
If she had wept, it might have modified my conviction that everything wasat an end between us. But she did not weep. "Can you ever forgive me?" sheasked.
"Let's not talk of forgiveness," said I, and I fear my voice and mannerwere gruff, as I strove not to break down. "Let's try to forget." And Itouched her hand and hastened away.
When two human beings set out to misunderstand each other, how fast and farthey go! How shut-in we are from each other, with only halting means ofcommunication that break down under the slightest strain!
As I was leaving the house next morning, I gave Sanders this note for her:
"I have gone to live at the Downtown Hotel. When you have decided whatcourse to take, let me know. If my 'rights' ever had any substance, theyhave starved away to such weak things that they collapse even as I try toset them up. I hope your freedom will give you happiness, and me peace."
"You are ill, sir?" asked my old servant, my old friend, as he took thenote.
"Stay with her, Sanders, as long as she wishes," said I, ignoring hisquestion. "Then come to me."
His look made me shake hands with him. As I did it, we both remembered thelast time we had shaken hands--when he had the roses for my home-comingwith my bride. It seemed to me I could smell those roses.