________________________________________________
_ THE WINTER wore on, and society took advantage of the Waythorns'
acceptance of Varick. Harassed hostesses were grateful to them for
bridging over a social difficulty, and Mrs. Waythorn was held up as
a miracle of good taste. Some experimental spirits could not resist
the diversion of throwing Varick and his former wife together, and
there were those who thought he found a zest in the propinquity. But
Mrs. Waythorn's conduct remained irreproachable. She neither avoided
Varick nor sought him out. Even Waythorn could not but admit that
she had discovered the solution of the newest social problem.
He had married her without giving much thought to that problem. He
had fancied that a woman can shed her past like a man. But now he
saw that Alice was bound to hers both by the circumstances which
forced her into continued relation with it, and by the traces it had
left on her nature. With grim irony Waythorn compared himself to a
member of a syndicate. He held so many shares in his wife's
personality and his predecessors were his partners in the business.
If there had been any element of passion in the transaction he would
have felt less deteriorated by it. The fact that Alice took her
change of husbands like a change of weather reduced the situation to
mediocrity. He could have forgiven her for blunders, for excesses;
for resisting Hackett, for yielding to Varick; for anything but her
acquiescence and her tact. She reminded him of a juggler tossing
knives; but the knives were blunt and she knew they would never cut
her.
And then, gradually, habit formed a protecting surface for his
sensibilities. If he paid for each day's comfort with the small
change of his illusions, he grew daily to value the comfort more and
set less store upon the coin. He had drifted into a dulling
propinquity with Haskett and Varick and he took refuge in the cheap
revenge of satirizing the situation. He even began to reckon up the
advantages which accrued from it, to ask himself if it were not
better to own a third of a wife who knew how to make a man happy
than a whole one who had lacked opportunity to acquire the art. For
it _was_ an art, and made up, like all others, of concessions,
eliminations and embellishments; of lights judiciously thrown and
shadows skillfully softened. His wife knew exactly how to manage the
lights, and he knew exactly to what training she owed her skill. He
even tried to trace the source of his obligations, to discriminate
between the influences which had combined to produce his domestic
happiness: he perceived that Haskett's commonness had made Alice
worship good breeding, while Varick's liberal construction of the
marriage bond had taught her to value the conjugal virtues; so that
he was directly indebted to his predecessors for the devotion which
made his life easy if not inspiring.
From this phase he passed into that of complete acceptance. He
ceased to satirize himself because time dulled the irony of the
situation and the joke lost its humor with its sting. Even the sight
of Haskett's hat on the hall table had ceased to touch the springs
of epigram. The hat was often seen there now, for it had been
decided that it was better for Lily's father to visit her than for
the little girl to go to his boarding-house. Waythorn, having
acquiesced in this arrangement, had been surprised to find how
little difference it made. Haskett was never obtrusive, and the few
visitors who met him on the stairs were unaware of his identity.
Waythorn did not know how often he saw Alice, but with himself
Haskett was seldom in contact.
One afternoon, however, he learned on entering that Lily's father
was waiting to see him. In the library he found Haskett occupying a
chair in his usual provisional way. Waythorn always felt grateful to
him for not leaning back.
"I hope you'll excuse me, Mr. Waythorn," he said rising. "I wanted
to see Mrs. Waythorn about Lily, and your man asked me to wait here
till she came in."
"Of course," said Waythorn, remembering that a sudden leak had that
morning given over the drawing-room to the plumbers.
He opened his cigar-case and held it out to his visitor, and
Haskett's acceptance seemed to mark a fresh stage in their
intercourse. The spring evening was chilly, and Waythorn invited his
guest to draw up his chair to the fire. He meant to find an excuse
to leave Haskett in a moment; but he was tired and cold, and after
all the little man no longer jarred on him.
The two were inclosed in the intimacy of their blended cigar-smoke
when the door opened and Varick walked into the room. Waythorn rose
abruptly. It was the first time that Varick had come to the house,
and the surprise of seeing him, combined with the singular
inopportuneness of his arrival, gave a new edge to Waythorn's
blunted sensibilities. He stared at his visitor without speaking.
Varick seemed too preoccupied to notice his host's embarrassment.
"My dear fellow," he exclaimed in his most expansive tone, "I must
apologize for tumbling in on you in this way, but I was too late to
catch you down town, and so I thought--" He stopped short, catching
sight of Haskett, and his sanguine color deepened to a flush which
spread vividly under his scant blond hair. But in a moment he
recovered himself and nodded slightly. Haskett returned the bow in
silence, and Waythorn was still groping for speech when the footman
came in carrying a tea-table.
The intrusion offered a welcome vent to Waythorn's nerves. "What the
deuce are you bringing this here for?" he said sharply.
"I beg your pardon, sir, but the plumbers are still in the
drawing-room, and Mrs. Waythorn said she would have tea in the
library." The footman's perfectly respectful tone implied a
reflection on Waythorn's reasonableness.
"Oh, very well," said the latter resignedly, and the footman
proceeded to open the folding tea-table and set out its complicated
appointments. While this interminable process continued the three
men stood motionless, watching it with a fascinated stare, till
Waythorn, to break the silence, said to Varick: "Won't you have a
cigar?"
He held out the case he had just tendered to Haskett, and Varick
helped himself with a smile. Waythorn looked about for a match, and
finding none, proffered a light from his own cigar. Haskett, in the
background, held his ground mildly, examining his cigar-tip now and
then, and stepping forward at the right moment to knock its ashes
into the fire.
The footman at last withdrew, and Varick immediately began: "If I
could just say half a word to you about this business--"
"Certainly," stammered Waythorn; "in the dining-room--"
But as he placed his hand on the door it opened from without, and
his wife appeared on the threshold.
She came in fresh and smiling, in her street dress and hat, shedding
a fragrance from the boa which she loosened in advancing.
"Shall we have tea in here, dear?" she began; and then she caught
sight of Varick. Her smile deepened, veiling a slight tremor of
surprise. "Why, how do you do?" she said with a distinct note of
pleasure.
As she shook hands with Varick she saw Haskett standing behind him.
Her smile faded for a moment, but she recalled it quickly, with a
scarcely perceptible side-glance at Waythorn.
"How do you do, Mr. Haskett?" she said, and shook hands with him a
shade less cordially.
The three men stood awkwardly before her, till Varick, always the
most self-possessed, dashed into an explanatory phrase.
"We--I had to see Waythorn a moment on business," he stammered,
brick-red from chin to nape.
Haskett stepped forward with his air of mild obstinacy. "I am sorry
to intrude; but you appointed five o'clock--" he directed his
resigned glance to the time-piece on the mantel.
She swept aside their embarrassment with a charming gesture of
hospitality.
"I'm so sorry--I'm always late; but the afternoon was so lovely."
She stood drawing her gloves off, propitiatory and graceful,
diffusing about her a sense of ease and familiarity in which the
situation lost its grotesqueness. "But before talking business," she
added brightly, "I'm sure every one wants a cup of tea."
She dropped into her low chair by the tea-table, and the two
visitors, as if drawn by her smile, advanced to receive the cups she
held out.
She glanced about for Waythorn, and he took the third cup with a
laugh.
THE END.
THE OTHER TWO, by Edith Wharton. _
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