The Business of Life

"Will you please be a little more reticent over the telephone!"

"Then take me out to dinner somewhere, where we can talk!"

"I'm sorry, but it won't do."

"I thought you'd say that. Very well, then, listen: they are singing Ariane to-night; it's an 8:15 curtain. I'll be in the Barkley's box very early; nobody else will arrive before nine. Will you come to me at eight?"

"Yes, I'll do that for a moment."

"Thank you, dear. I just want to be happy for a few minutes. You don't mind, do you?"

"It will be very jolly," he said vaguely.

The galleries were already filling, but there were very few people in the orchestra and nobody at all to be seen in the boxes when Desboro paused before a door marked with the Barkleys' name. After a second's hesitation, he turned the knob, stepped in, and found Mrs. Clydesdale already seated in the tiny foyer, under the hanging shadow of her ermine coat – a charming and youthful figure, eyes and cheeks bright with trepidation and excitement.

"What the dickens do you suppose prompted Mrs. Hammerton to arrive at such an hour?" she said, extending her hand to Desboro. "That very wicked old cat got out of somebody's car just as I did, and I could feel her beady eyes boring into my back all the way up the staircase."

"Do you mean Aunt Hannah?"

"Yes, I do! What does she mean by coming here at such an unearthly hour? Don't go out into the box, Jim. She can see you from the orchestra. I'll wager that her opera glasses have been sweeping the house every second since she saw me!"

"If she sees me she won't talk," he said, coolly. "I'm one of her exempts – "

"Wait, Jim! What are you going to do?"

"Let her see us both. I tell you she never talks about me, or anybody with whom I happen to be. It's the best way to avoid gossip, Elena – "

"I don't want to risk it, Jim! Please don't! I'm in abject terror of that woman – "

But Desboro had already stepped out to the box, and his keen, amused eyes very soon discovered the levelled glasses of Mrs. Hammerton.

"Come here, Elena!"

"Had I better?"

"Certainly. I want her to see you. That's it! That's enough. She won't say a word about you now."

Mrs. Clydesdale shrank back into the dim, rosy half-light of the box; Desboro looked down at Mrs. Hammerton and smiled; then rejoined his flushed companion.

"Don't worry; Aunt Hannah's fangs are extracted for this evening. Elena, you are looking pretty enough to endanger the record of an aged saint! There goes that meaningless overture! What is it you have to say to me?"

"Why are you so brusque with me, Jim?"

"I'm not. But I don't want the Barkleys and their guests to find us here together."

"Betty knows I care for you – "

"Oh, Lord!" he said impatiently. "You always did care for anything that is just out of reach when you stand on tip-toe. You always were that way, Elena. When we were free to see each other you would have none of me."

She was looking down while he spoke, smoothing one silken knee with her white-gloved hand. After a moment, she lifted her head. To his surprise, her eyes were brilliant with unshed tears.

"You don't love me any more, do you, Jim?"

"I – I have – it is about as it always will be with me. Circumstances have altered things."

"Is that all?"

He thought for a moment, and his eyes grew sombre.

"Jim! Are you going to marry somebody?" she said suddenly.

He looked up with a startled laugh, not entirely agreeable.

"Marry? No."

"Is there any girl you want to marry?"

"No. God forbid!"

"Why do you say that? Is it because of what you know about marriages – like mine?"

"Probably. And then some."

"There are happy ones."

"Yes, I've read about them."

"But there really are, Jim."

"Mention one."

She mentioned several among people both knew. He smiled. Then she said, wearily:

"There are plenty of decent people and decent marriages in the world. The people we play with are no good. It's only restlessness, idleness, and discontent that kills everything among people of our sort. I know I'm that way, too. But I don't believe I would be if I had married you."

"You are mistaken."

"Why? Don't you believe any marriage can be happy?"

"Elena, have you ever heard of a honeymoon that lasts? Do you know how long any two people can endure each other without merciful assistance from a third? Don't you know that, sooner or later, any two people ever born are certain to talk each other out – pump each other dry – love each other to satiation – and ultimately recoil, each into the mysterious seclusion of its own individuality, from whence it emerged temporarily in order that the human race might not perish from the earth!"

"What miserable lesson have you learned to teach you such a creed?" she asked. "I tell you the world is full of happy marriages – full of honoured husbands and beloved wives, and children worshipped and adored – "

"Children, yes, they come the nearest to making the conventional contract endurable. I wish to God you had some!"

"Jim!"

He said, almost savagely: "If you can, and don't, you'll make a hell for yourself with any man, sooner or later – mark my words! And it isn't worth while to enact the hypocrisy of marriage with nothing more than legal license in view! Why bother with priest or clergyman? That contract won't last. And it's less trouble not to make one at all than to go West and break one."