The Business of Life

"Did he telephone?"

"Yes – or rather, Mr. Cairns did – "

"Mr. Cairns! Why did Mr. Cairns telephone? Why didn't my husband telephone? Cynthia – look at me!"

Cynthia met her eye undaunted.

"Why," repeated Jacqueline, "didn't my husband telephone to me? Is he too ill? Is that it? Are you concealing it? Are you, Cynthia?"

Cynthia smiled: "He's a casual young man, darling. I believe he's taking a cold plunge or something. He'll probably be here in a few minutes. So I'll say good-night." She picked up her fur neckpiece, glanced at the mirror, fluffed a curl or two, and turned to Jacqueline. "Don't spoil him, ducky," she whispered, putting her hands on the young wife's shoulders and looking her deep in the eyes.

Jacqueline flushed painfully.

"How do you mean, Cynthia?"

The latter said: "There are a million ways of spoiling a man beside giving up to him."

"I don't give up to him," said Jacqueline in a colourless voice.

Cynthia looked at her gravely:

"It's hard to know what to do, dear. When a girl gives up to a man she spoils him sometimes; when she doesn't she sometimes spoils him. It's hard to know what to do – very hard."

Jacqueline's gaze grew troubled and remote.

"How to love a man wisely – that's a very hard thing for a girl to learn," murmured Cynthia. "But – the main thing – the important thing, is to love him, I think. And I suppose we have to take our chances of spoiling him."

"The main thing," said Jacqueline slowly, "is that he should know you do love him; isn't it?"

"Yes. But the problem is, how best to show it. And that requires wisdom, dear. And where is a girl to acquire that kind of wisdom? What experience has she? What does she know? Ah, we don't know. There lies the trouble. By instinct, disposition, natural reticence, and training, we are disposed to offer too little, perhaps; But often, in fear that our reticence may not be understood, we offer too much."

"I – am afraid of that."

"Of offering too much?"

"Yes."

They stood, thoughtful a moment, not looking at each other.

Cynthia said in a low voice: "Be careful of him, ducky. His is not the stronger character. Perhaps he needs more than you give."

"What!"

"I – I think that perhaps he is not the kind of man to be spoiled by giving. And – it is possible to starve some men by the well-meant kindness of reserve."

"All women – modest women – are reserved."

"Is a mother's reserve praiseworthy when her child comes to her for intimate companionship – for tenderness perhaps – and puts its little arms around her neck?"

Jacqueline stared, then blushed furiously.

"Why do you suppose that I am likely to be lacking in sympathy, Cynthia?"

"You are not. I know you too well, ducky. But you might easily be exquisitely undemonstrative."

"All women – are – undemonstrative."

"Not always."

"An honest, chaste – "

"No."

Jacqueline, deeply flushed, began in a low voice:

"To discourage the lesser emotions – "

"No! To separate them, class them as lesser, makes them so. They are merely atoms in the molecule – a tiny fragment of perfection. To be too conscious of them makes them too important; to accept them with the rest as part of the ensemble is the only way."

"Cynthia!"

"Yes, dear."

"Who has been educating you to talk this way?"

"Necessity. There is no real room for ignorance in my profession. So I don't go to parties any more; I try to educate myself. There are cultivated people in the company. They have been very kind to me. And my carelessness in English – my lack of polish – these were not inherited. My father was an educated man, if he was nothing else. You know that. Your father knew it. All I needed was to be awakened. And I am awake."

She looked honestly into the honest eyes that met hers, and shook her head.

"No self-deception can aid us to lie down to pleasant dreams, Jacqueline. And the most terrible of all deceptions is self-righteousness. Let me know myself, and I can help myself. And I know now how it would be with me if the happiness of marriage ever came to me. I would give – give everything good in me, everything needed – strip myself of my best! Because, dear, we always have more to give than they; and they need it all – all we can give them – every one."

After a silence they kissed each other; and, when Cynthia had departed, Jacqueline closed the door and returned to her chair. Seated there in deep and unhappy thought, while the slow minutes passed without him, little by little her uneasiness returned.

Eight o'clock rang from her little mantel clock. She started up and went to the window. The street lamps were shining over pavements and sidewalks deserted. Very far in the west she could catch the low roar of Broadway, endless, accentless, monotonous, interrupted only by the whiz of motors on Fifth Avenue. Now and then a wayfarer passed through the silent street below; rarely a taxicab; but neither wayfarer nor vehicle stopped at her door.

She did not realise how long she had been standing there, when from behind the mantel clock startled her again, ringing out nine. She came back into the centre of the room, and, hands clasped, stared at the dial.

She had not eaten since morning; there had been no opportunity in the press of accumulated business. She felt a trifle faint, mostly from a vague anxiety. She did not wish to call up the club; instinct forbade it; but at a quarter to ten she went to the telephone, and learned that Desboro had gone out between eight and nine. Then she asked for Cairns, and found that he also had gone away.

Sick at heart she hung up the receiver, turned aimlessly into the room again, and stood there, staring at the clock.

What had happened to her husband? What did it mean? Had she anything to do with his strange conduct? In her deep trouble and perplexity – still bewildered by the terrible hurt she had received – had her aloofness, her sadness, impossible to disguise, wounded him so deeply that he had already turned away from her?

She had meant only kindness to him – was seeking only her own convalescence, desperately determined to love and to hold this man. Hadn't he understood it? Could he not give her time to recover? How could he expect more of her – a bride, confronted in the very first hours of her wedded life by her husband's self-avowed mistress!

She stood, hesitating, clenching and unclenching her white and slender hands, striving to think, succeeding only in enduring, until endurance itself was rapidly becoming impossible.

Why was he hurting her so? Why? Why? Yet, never once was her anger aroused against this man. Somehow, he was not responsible. He was a man as God made him – one in the endless universe of men – the only one in that limitless host existing for her. He was hers – the best of him and the worst. And the worst was to be forgiven and protected, and the best was to thank God for.