Sylvias Marriage | Page 4

New Nineveh which I
was investigating. And later on, when I knew her, she was a weak sister
whom I tried to help.
It happened that I knew much more about such matters than the average
woman--owing to a tragedy in my life. When I was about twenty-five
years old, my brother-in-law had moved his family to our part of the
world, and one of his boys had become very dear to me. This boy later
on had got into trouble, and rather than tell anyone about it, had shot
himself. So my eyes had been opened to things that are usually hidden
from my sex; for the sake of my own sons, I had set out to study the
underground ways of the male creature. I developed the curious custom
of digging out every man I met, and making him lay bare his inmost
life to me; so you may understand that it was no ordinary pair of
woman's arms into which Claire Lepage was thrown.
At first I attributed her vices to her environment, but soon I realized
that this was a mistake; the women of her world do not as a rule go to
pieces. Many of them I met were free and independent women, one or

two of them intellectual and worth knowing. For the most part such
women marry well, in the worldly sense, and live as contented lives as
the average lady who secures her life-contract at the outset. If you had
met Claire at an earlier period of her career, and if she had been
concerned to impress you, you might have thought her a charming
hostess. She had come of good family, and been educated in a
convent--much better educated than many society girls in America. She
spoke English as well as she did French, and she had read some poetry,
and could use the language of idealism whenever necessary. She had
even a certain religious streak, and could voice the most generous
sentiments, and really believe that she believed them. So it might have
been some time before you discovered the springs of her weakness.
In the beginning I blamed van Tuiver; but in the end I concluded that
for most of her troubles she had herself to thank--or perhaps the
ancestors who had begotten her. She could talk more nobly and act
more abjectly than any other woman I have ever known. She wanted
pleasant sensations, and she expected life to furnish them continuously.
Instinctively she studied the psychology of the person she was dealing
with, and chose a reason which would impress that person.
At this time, you understand, I knew nothing about Sylvia Castleman or
her fiancé, except what the public knew. But now I got an inside
view--and what a view! I had read some reference to Douglas van
Tuiver's Harvard career: how he had met the peerless Southern beauty,
and had given up college and pursued her to her home. I had pictured
the wooing in the rosy lights of romance, with all the glamour of
worldly greatness. But now, suddenly, what a glimpse into the soul of
the princely lover! "He had a good scare, let me tell you," said Claire.
"He never knew what I was going to do from one minute to the next."
"Did he see you in the crowd before the church door?" I inquired.
"No," she replied, "but he thought of me, I can promise you."
"He knew you were coming?"
She answered, "I told him I had got an admission card, just to make
sure he'd keep me in mind!"
4. I did not have to hear much more of Claire's story before making up
my mind that the wealthiest and most fashionable of New York's young
bachelors was a rather self-centred person. He had fallen desperately in
love with the peerless Southern beauty, and when she had refused to

have anything to do with him, he had come back to the other woman
for consolation, and had compelled her to pretend to sympathize with
his agonies of soul. And this when he knew that she loved him with the
intensity of a jealous nature.
Claire had her own view of Sylvia Castleman, a view for which I
naturally made due reservations. Sylvia was a schemer, who had known
from the first what she wanted, and had played her part with masterly
skill. As for Claire, she had striven to match her moves, plotting in the
darkness against her, and fighting desperately with such weak weapons
as she possessed. It was characteristic that she did not blame herself for
her failure; it was the baseness of van Tuiver, his inability to appreciate
sincere devotion, his unworthiness of her love. And this, just after she
had been naively telling me of her