Sylvias Marriage | Page 9

wife to wait upon her, was not committing cruelty within the meaning of the English law. I heard Sylvia's exclamation of horror, and met her stare of incredulity; and then suddenly I thought of Claire, and a little chill ran over me. It was a difficult hour, in more ways than one, that of my first talk with Mrs. Douglas van Tuiver!
I soon made the discovery that, childish as her ignorance was, there was no prejudice in it. If you brought her a fact, she did not say that it was too terrible to be true, or that the Bible said otherwise, or that it was indecent to know about it. Nor, when you met her next, did you discover that she had forgotten it. On the contrary, you discovered that she had followed it to its remote consequences, and was ready with a score of questions as to these. I remember saying to myself, that first automobile ride: "If this girl goes on thinking, she will get into trouble! She will have to stop, for the sake of others!"
"You must meet my husband some time," she said; and added, "I'll have to see my engagement-book. I have so much to do, I never know when I have a moment free."
"You must find it interesting," I ventured.
"I did, for a while; but I've begun to get tired of so much going about. For the most part I meet the same people, and I've found out what they have to say."
I laughed. "You have caught the society complaint already--_ennui_!"
"I had it years ago, at home. It's true I never would have gone out at all if it hadn't been for the sake of my family. That's why I envy a woman like you--"
I could not help laughing. It was too funny, Mrs. Douglas van Tuiver envying me!
"What's the matter?" she asked.
"Just the irony of life. Do you know, I cut you out of the newspaper, and put you in a little frame on my bureau. I thought, here is the loveliest face I've ever seen, and here is the most-to-be-envied of women."
She smiled, but quickly became serious. "I learned very early in life that I was beautiful; and I suppose if I were suddenly to cease being beautiful, I'd miss it; yet I often think it's a nuisance. It makes one dependent on externals. Most of the beautiful women I've known make a sort of profession of it--they live to shine and be looked at.
"And you don't enjoy that?" I asked.
"It restricts one's life. Men expect it of you, they resent your having any other interest."
"So," I responded, gravely, "with all your beauty and wealth, you aren't perfectly happy?"
"Oh, yes!" she cried--not having meant to confess so much. "I told myself I would be happy, because I would be able to do so much good in the world. There must be some way to do good with money! But now I'm not sure; there seem to be so many things in the way. Just when you have your mind made up that you have a way to help, someone comes and points out to you that you may be really doing harm."
She hesitated again, and I said, "That means you have been looking into the matter of charity."
She gave me a bright glance. "How you understand things!" she exclaimed.
"It is possible," I replied, "to know modern society so well that when you meet certain causes you know what results to look for."
"I wish you'd explain to me why charity doesn't do any good!"
"It would mean a lecture on the competitive wage-system," I laughed--" too serious a matter for a drive!"
This may have seemed shirking on my part. But here I was, wrapped in luxurious furs, rolling gloriously through the park at twilight on a brilliant autumn evening; and the confiscation of property seems so much more startling a proposition when you are in immediate contact with it! This principle, which explains the "opportunism" of Socialist cabinet-ministers and Labour M.P.s may be used to account for the sudden resolve which I had taken, that for this afternoon at least Mrs. Douglas van Tuiver should not discover that I was either a divorced woman, or a soap-box orator of the revolution.
9. Sylvia, in that first conversation, told me much about herself that she did not know she was telling. I became fairly certain, for instance, that she had not married Mr. Douglas van Tuiver for love. The young girl who has so married does not suffer from ennui in the first year, nor does she find her happiness depending upon her ability to solve the problem of charity in connection with her husband's wealth.
She would have ridden and talked longer, she said, but for a dinner engagement. She asked me to call on