The Grain Of Dust

D >> David Graham Phillips >> The Grain Of Dust


She looked at him with serious, appealing eyes. "You are _sure_ you aren't
unhappy?"

It was amusing to him--though he concealed it--to see how tenaciously
her feminine egotism held to the idea that she was the important person.
And, when women of experience thus deluded themselves, it was not at all
strange that this girl should be unable to grasp the essential truth as
to the relations of men and women--that, while a woman who makes her sex
her profession must give to a man, to some man, a dominant place in her
life, a man need give a woman--at least, any one woman--little or no
place. But he would not wantonly wound her harmless vanity. "Don't worry
about me, please," said he in the kindest, friendliest way. "I am
telling you the truth."

And they descended to the dining room. Usually he was preoccupied and
she did most of the talking--not a difficult matter for her, as she was
one of those who by nature have much to say, who talk on and on, giving
lively, pleasant recitals of commonplace daily happenings. That evening
it was her turn to be abstracted, or, at least, silent. He talked
volubly, torrentially, like a man of teeming mind in the highest
spirits. And he was in high spirits. The Galloway enterprise had
developed into a huge success; also, it did not lessen his sense of the
pleasantness of life to have learned that his wife was feeling about as
well disposed toward him as he cared to have her feel, had come round to
that state of mind which he, as a practical man, wise in the art of
life, regarded as ideal for a wife.

A successful man, with a quiet and comfortable home, well enough looked
after by an agreeable wife, exceeding good to look at and interested
only in her home and her husband--what more could a man ask?

* * * * *

What more could a man ask? Only one thing more--a baby. The months soon
passed and that rounding out of the home side of his life was
consummated with no mishap. The baby was a girl, which contented him and
delighted Dorothy. He wished it to be named after her, she preferred his
sister's name--Ursula. It was Ursula who decided the question. "She
looks like you, Fred," she declared, after an earnest scanning of the
weird little face. "Why not call her Frederica?"

Norman thought this clumsy, but Dorothy instantly assented--and the baby
was duly christened Frederica.

Perhaps it was because he was having less pressing business in town, but
whatever the reason, he began to stay at home more--surprisingly more.
And, being at home, he naturally fell into the habit of fussing with the
baby, he having the temperament that compels a man to be always at
something, and the baby being convenient and in the nature of a
curiosity. Ursula, who was stopping in the house, did not try to conceal
her amazement at this extraordinary development of her brother's
character.

Said she: "I never before knew you to take the slightest interest in a
child."

Said he: "I never before saw a child worth taking the slightest interest
in."

"Oh, well," said Ursula, "it won't last. You'll soon grow tired of your
plaything."

"Perhaps you're right," said Norman. "I hope you're wrong." He
reflected, added: "In fact, I'm almost certain you're wrong. I'm too
selfish to let myself lose such a pleasure. If you had observed my life
closely, you'd have discovered that I have never given up a single thing
I found a source of pleasure. That is good sense. That is why the
superior sort of men and women retain something of the boy and the girl
all their lives. I still like a lot of the games I played as a boy. For
some years I've had no chance to indulge in them. I'll be glad when Rica
is old enough to give me the chance again."

She was much amused. "Who'd have suspected that _you_ were a born father!"

"Not I, for one," confessed he. "We never know what there is in us until
circumstances bring it out."

"A devoted father and a doting husband," pursued Ursula. "I must say I
rather sympathize with you as a doting husband. Of course, I, a woman,
can't see her as you do. I can't imagine a man--especially a man of your
sort--going stark mad about a mere woman. But, as women go, I'll admit
she is a good specimen. Not the marvel of intelligence and complex
character you imagine, but still a good specimen. And physically--" She
laughed--"_That's_ what caught you. That's what holds you--and will hold
you as long as it lasts."

"Was there ever a woman who didn't think that?--and didn't like to
think it, though I believe many of them make strong pretense at scorning
the physical." Fred was regarding his sister with a quizzical
expression. "You approve of her?" he said.

"More than I'd have thought possible. And after I've taken her about in
the world a while she'll be perfect."

"No doubt," said Norman. "But, alas, she'll never be perfect. For,
you're not going to take her about."

"So she says when I talk of it to her," replied Ursula. "But I know
you'll insist. You needn't be uneasy as to how she'll be received."

"I'm not," said Norman dryly.

"You've got back all you lost--and more. How we Americans do worship
success!"

"Don't suggest to Dorothy anything further about society," said Norman.
"I've no time or taste for it, and I don't wish to be annoyed by
intrusions into my home."

"But you'll not be satisfied always with just her," urged his sister.
"Besides, you've got a position to maintain."

Norman's smile was cynically patient. "I want my home and I want my
career," said he. "And I don't want any society nonsense. I had the good
luck to marry a woman who knows and cares nothing about it. I don't
purpose to give up the greatest advantage of my marriage."

Ursula was astounded. She knew the meaning of his various tones and
manners, and his way of rejecting her plans for Dorothy--and,
incidentally, for her own amusement--convinced her that he was through
and through in earnest. "It will be dreadfully lonesome for her, Fred,"
she pleaded.

"We'll wait till that trouble faces us," replied he, not a bit
impressed. "And don't forget--not a word of temptation to her from you."
This with an expression that warned her how well he knew her indirect
ways of accomplishing what she could not gain directly.

"Oh, I shan't interfere," said she in a tone that made it a binding
promise. "But you can't expect me to sympathize with your plans for an
old-fashioned domestic life."

"Certainly not," said Norman. "You don't understand. Women of your sort
never do. That's why you're not fit to be the wives of men worth while.
A serious man and a society woman can't possibly hit it off together.
For a serious man the outside world is a place to work, and home is a
place to rest. For a society woman, the world is a place to idle and
home is a work shop, an entertainment factory. It's impossible to
reconcile those two opposite ideas."

She saw his point at once, and it appealed to her intelligence. And she
had his own faculty for never permitting prejudice to influence
judgment. She said in a dubious tone, "Do you think Dorothy will
sympathize with your scheme?"

"I'm sure I don't know," replied he.

"If she doesn't--" Ursula halted there.

Her brother shrugged his shoulders. "If she proves to be the wrong sort
of woman for me, she'll go her way and I mine."

"Why, I thought you loved her!"

"What have I said that leads you to change your mind?" said he.

"A man does not take the high hand with the woman he adores."

"So?" said Norman tranquilly.

"Well," said his puzzled sister by way of conclusion, "if you persist in
being the autocrat----"

"Autocrat?--I?" laughed he. "Am I trying to compel her to do anything
she doesn't wish to do? Didn't I say she would be free to go if she were
dissatisfied with me and my plan--if she didn't adopt it gladly as her
own plan, also?"

"But you know very well she's dependent upon you, Fred."

"Is that my fault? Does a man force a woman to become dependent? And
just because she is dependent, should he therefore yield to her and let
her make of his life a waste and a folly?"

"You're far too clever for me to argue with. Anyhow, as I was saying, if
you persist in what I call tyranny----"

"When a woman cries tyranny, it means she's furious because she is not
getting _her_ autocratic way."

"Maybe so," admitted Ursula cheerfully. "At any rate, if you
persist--unless she loves you utterly, your life will be miserable."

"She may make her own life miserable, but not mine," replied he. "If I
were the ordinary man--counting himself lucky to have induced any woman
to marry him--afraid if he lost his woman he'd not be able to get
another--able to give his woman only an indifferent poor support, and so
on--if I were one of those men, what you say might be true. But what
deep and permanent mischief can a frail woman do a strong man?"

"There's instance after instance in history----"

"Of strong men wrecking _themselves_ through various kinds of madness,
including sex madness. But, my dear Ursula, not an instance--not
one--where the woman was responsible. If history were truth, instead of
lies--you women might have less conceit."

"You--talking this way!" mocked Ursula.

"Meaning, I suppose, my late infatuation?" inquired he, unruffled.

"I never saw or read of a worse case."

"Am I ruined?"

"No. But why not? Because you got her. If you hadn't--" Ursula blew out
a large cloud of cigarette smoke with a "Pouf!"

"If I hadn't got her," said Norman, "I'd have got well, just the same,
in due time. A sick _weak_ man goes down; a sick _strong_ man gets well.
When a man who's reputed to be strong doesn't get well, it's because he
merely seemed strong but wasn't. The poets and novelists and the
historians and the rest of the nature fakers fail to tell _all_ the facts,
dear sister. All the facts would spoil a pretty story."

Ursula thought a few minutes, suddenly burst out with, "Do you think
Dorothy loves you now?"

Norman rose to go out doors. "I don't think about such unprofitable
things," said he. "As long as we suit each other and get along
pleasantly--why bother about a name for it?"

In the French window he paused, stood looking out with an expression so
peculiar that Ursula, curious, came to see the cause. A few yards away,
under a big symmetrical maple in full leaf sat Dorothy with the baby on
her lap. She was dressed very simply in white. There was a little
sunlight upon her hair, a sheen of gold over her skin. She was looking
down at the baby. Her expression----

Said Ursula: "Several of the great painters have tried to catch that
expression. But they've failed."

Norman made no reply. He had not heard. All in an instant there had been
revealed to him a whole new world--a view of man and woman--of woman--of
sex--its meaning so different from what he had believed and lived.

"What're you thinking about, Fred?" inquired his sister.

He shook his head, with a mysterious smile, and strolled away.




XXII


The baby grew and thrived, as the habit is with healthy children well
taken care of. Mrs. Norman soon got back her strength, her figure, and
perhaps more than her former beauty--as the habit is with healthy women
well taken care of. Norman's career continued to prosper, likewise
according to the habit of all healthy things well taken care of. In a
world where nothing happens by chance, mischance, to be serious, must
have some grave fault as its hidden cause. We mortals, who love to live
at haphazard and to blame God or destiny or "bad luck" for our
calamities, hate to take this modern and scientific view of the world
and life. But, whether we like it or not, it is the truth--and, as we
can't get round it, why not accept it cheerfully and, so appear a little
less ignorant and ridiculous?

During their first year at the Hempstead place the results in luxury and
comfort had at no time accounted for the money it cost and the servants
it employed--that is to say, paid. But Norman was neither unreasonable
nor impatient. Also, in his years of experience with his sister's
housekeeping, and of observation of the other women, he had grown
exceedingly moderate in his estimate of the ability of women and in his
expectations from them. He had reached the conclusion that the women who
were sheltered and pampered by the men of the successful classes were
proficient only in those things that call for no skill or effort beyond
the wagging of the tongue. He saw that Dorothy was making honest
endeavor to learn her business, and he knew that learning takes
time--much time.

He believed that in the end she would do better than any other wife of
his acquaintance, at the business of wife and mother.

Before the baby was two years old, his belief was rewarded. Things began
to run better--began to run well, even. Dorothy--a serious person,
unhampered of a keen sense of humor, had taught herself the duties of
her new position in much the same slow plodding way in which she had
formerly made of herself a fair stenographer and a tolerable typewriter.
Mrs. Lowell had helped--and Ursula, too--and Norman not a little. But
Dorothy, her husband discovered, was one of those who thoroughly
assimilate what they take in--who make it over into part of themselves.
So, her manner of keeping house, of arranging the gardens, of bringing
up the baby, of dressing herself, was peculiarly her own. It was not by
any means the best imaginable way. It was even what many energetic,
systematic and highly competent persons would speak contemptuously of.
But it satisfied Norman--and that was all Dorothy had in mind.

If those who have had any considerable opportunity to observe married
life will forget what they have read in novels and will fix their minds
on what they have observed at first hand, they will recognize the Norman
marriage, with the husband and wife living together yet apart as not
peculiar but of a rather common type. Neither Fred nor Dorothy had any
especial reason on any given day to try to alter their relations; so the
law of inertia asserted itself and matters continued as they had begun.
It was, perhaps, a chance remark of Tetlow's that was the remote but
efficient cause of a change, as the single small stone slipping high up
on the mountain side results in a vast landslide into the valley miles
below. Tetlow said one day, in connection with some estate they were
settling:

"I've always pitied the only child. It must be miserably lonesome."

No sooner were the words out of his mouth than he colored violently;
for, he remembered that the Normans had but one child and he knew the
probable reason for it. Norman seemed not to have heard or seen. Tetlow
hoped he hadn't, but, knowing the man, feared otherwise. And he was
right.

In the press of other matters Norman forgot Tetlow's remark--remembered
it again a few days later when he was taking the baby out for an airing
in the motor--forgot it again--finally, when he took a several days'
rest at home, remembered it and kept it in mind. He began to think of
Dorothy once more in a definite, personal way, began to observe her as
his wife, instead of as mere part of his establishment. An intellectual
person she certainly was not. She had a quaint individual way of
speaking and of acting. She had the marvelous changeable beauty that had
once caused him to take the bit in his teeth and run wild. But he would
no more think of talking with her about the affairs that really
interested him than--well, than the other men of large career in his
acquaintance would think of talking those matters to their wives.

But--He was astonished to discover that he liked this slim, quiet,
unobtrusive little wife of his better than he liked anyone else in the
world, that he eagerly turned away from the clever and amusing
companionship he might have at his clubs to come down to the country and
be with her and the baby--not the baby alone, but her also. Why? He
could not find a satisfactory reason. He saw that she created at that
Hempstead place an atmosphere of rest, of tranquility. But this merely
thrust the mystery one step back. _How_ did she create this
atmosphere--and for a man of his varied and discriminating tastes? To
that question he could work out no answer. She had for him now a charm
as different from the infatuation of former days as calm sea is from
tempest-racked sea--utterly different, yet fully as potent. As he
observed her and wondered at these discoveries of his, the ghost of a
delight he had thought forever dead stirred in his heart, in his fancy.
Yes, it was a pleasure, a thrilling pleasure to watch her. There was
music in those quiet, graceful movements of hers, in that quiet, sweet
voice. Not the wild, blood-heating music of the former days, but a kind
far more melodious--tender, restful to nerves sorely tried by the
tensions of ambition. He made some sort of an attempt to define his
feeling for her, but could not. It seemed to fit into none of the usual
classifications.

Then, he wondered--"What is _she_ thinking of _me_?"

To find out he resorted to various elaborate round about methods that
did credit to the ingenuity of his mind. But he made at every cunning
cast a barren water-haul. Either she was not thinking of him at all or
what she thought swam too deep for any casts he knew how to make in
those hidden and unfamiliar waters. Or, perhaps she did not herself know
what she thought, being too busy with the baby and the household to have
time for such abstract and not pressing, perhaps not important, matters.
He moved slowly in his inquiries into her state of mind because there
was all the time in the world and no occasion for haste. He moved
cautiously because he wished to do nothing that might disturb the
present serenity of their home life. Did she dislike him? Was she
indifferent? Had she developed a habit of having him about that was in a
way equivalent to liking?

These languid but delightful investigations--not unlike the pastimes one
spins out when one has a long, long lovely summer day with hours on
hours for luxurious happy idling--these investigations were abruptly
suspended by a suddenly compelled trip to Europe. He arranged for
Dorothy to send him a cable every day--"about yourself and the
baby"--and he sent an occasional cabled bulletin about himself in reply.
But neither wrote to the other; their relationship was not of the
letter-exchanging kind--and had no need of pretense at what it was not.

In the third month of his absence, his sister Ursula came over for
dresses, millinery and truly aristocratic society. She had little time
for him, or he for her, but they happened to lunch alone about a week
after his arrival.

"You're looking cross and unhappy," said she. "What's the matter?
Business?"

"No--everything's going well."

"Same thing that's troubling Dorothy, then?"

"Is Dorothy ill?" inquired he, suddenly as alert as he had been absent.
"She hasn't let me know anything about it."

"Ill? Of course not," reassured Ursula. "She's never ill. But--I've not
anywhere or ever seen two people as crazy about each other as you and
she."

"Really?" Norman had relapsed into interest in what he was eating.

"You live all alone down there in the country. You treat anyone who
comes to see you as intruder. And as soon as darling husband goes away,
darling wife wanders about like a damned soul. Honestly, it gave me the
blues to look at her eyes. And I used to think she cared more about the
baby than about you."

"She's probably worried about something else," said Norman. "More salad?
No? There's no dessert--at least I've ordered none. But if you'd like
some strawberries----"

"I thought of that," replied Ursula, not to be deflected. "I mean of her
being upset about something beside you. I'm slow to suspect anyone of
really caring about any _one_ else. But, although she didn't confess, I
soon saw that it was your absence. And she wasn't putting on for my
benefit, either. My maid hears the same thing from all the servants."

"This is pleasant," said Norman in his mocking good-humored way.

"And you're in the same state," she charged with laughing but
sympathetic eyes. "Why, Fred, you're as madly in love with her as ever."

"I wonder," said he reflectively.

"Why didn't you bring her with you?"

He stared at his sister like a man who has just discovered that he, with
incredible stupidity, had overlooked the obvious. "I didn't think I'd
be away long," evaded he.

He saw Ursula off for the Continent, half promised to join her in a few
weeks at Aix. A day or so after her departure he had a violent fit of
blues, was haunted by a vision of the baby and the comfortable, peaceful
house on Long Island. He had expected to stay about two months longer.
"I'm sick of England and of hotels," he said, and closed up his business
and sailed the following week.

* * * * *

She and the baby were at the pier to meet him. He looked for signs of
the mourning Ursula had described, but he looked in vain. Never had he
seen her lovelier, or so sparkling. And how she did talk!--rattling on
and on, with those interesting commonplaces of domestic event--the baby,
the household, the garden, the baby--the horses, the dogs, the
baby--the servants, her new dresses, the baby--and so on, and so on--and
the baby.

But when they got into the motor at Hempstead station for the drive
home, silence fell upon her--he had been almost silent from the start of
the little journey. As the motor swung into the grounds, looking their
most beautiful for his homecoming, an enormous wave of pure delight
began to surge up in him, to swell, to rush, to break, dashing its spray
of tears into his eyes. He turned his head away to hide the too obvious
display of feeling. They went into the house, he carrying the baby. He
gave it to the nurse--and he and she were alone.

"It certainly is good to be home again," he said.

The words were the tamest commonplace. We always speak in the old
stereotyped commonplaces when we speak directly from the heart. His tone
made her glance quickly at him.

"Why, I believe you _are_ glad," said she.

He took her hand. They looked at each other. Suddenly she flung herself
wildly into his arms and clung to him in an agony of joy and fear. "Oh,
I missed you so!" she sobbed. "I missed you so!"

"It was frightful," said he. "It shall never happen again."