The Butterfly House | Page 3

of Fairbridge. There was a strong feeling in
Fairbridge that in reality she might, if she chose, rival Bernhardt. Mrs.
Emerston Strong, who had been abroad and had seen Bernhardt on her
native soil, had often said that Mrs. Edes reminded her of the great
French actress, although she was much handsomer, and so moral! Mrs.
Wilbur Edes was masterly in morals, as in everything else. She was
much admired by the opposite sex, but she was a model wife and
mother.
Mr. Wilbur Edes was an admired accessory of his wife. He was so very
tall and slender as to suggest forcible elongation. He carried his head
with a deprecatory, sidewise air as if in accordance with his wife's
picture hat, and yet Mr. Wilbur Edes, out of Fairbridge and in his law
office on Broadway, was a man among men. He was an exception to
the personal esteem which usually expanded a male citizen of
Fairbridge, but he was the one and only husband of Mrs. Wilbur Edes,
and there was not room at such an apex as she occupied for more than
one. Tall as Wilbur Edes was, he was overshadowed by that
immaculate blond pompadour and that plumed picture hat. He was a
prime favourite in Fairbridge society; he was liked and admired, but his
radiance was reflected, and he was satisfied that it should be so. He
adored his wife. The shadow of her black picture hat was his place of
perfect content. He watched the admiring glances of other men at his
wonderful possession with a triumph and pride which made him really
rather a noble sort. He was also so fond and proud of his little twin
daughters, Maida and Adelaide, that the fondness and pride fairly
illuminated his inner self. Wilbur Edes was a clever lawyer, but love
made him something bigger. It caused him to immolate self, which is
spiritually enlarging self.
In one respect Wilbur Edes was the biggest man in Fairbridge; in
another, Doctor Sturtevant was. Doctor Sturtevant depended upon no
other person for his glory. He shone as a fixed star, with his own lustre.

He was esteemed a very great physician indeed, and it was considered
that Mrs. Sturtevant, who was good, and honest, and portly with a tight,
middle-aged portliness, hardly lived up to her husband. It was admitted
that she tried, poor soul, but her limitations were held to be impossible,
even by her faithful straining following of love.
When the splendid, florid Doctor, with his majestically curving
expanse of waistcoat and his inscrutable face, whirred through the
streets of Fairbridge in his motor car, with that meek bulk of
womanhood beside him, many said quite openly how unfortunate it
was that Doctor Sturtevant had married, when so young, a woman so
manifestly his inferior. They never failed to confer that faint praise,
which is worse than none at all, upon the poor soul.
"She is a good woman," they said. "She means well, and she is a good
housekeeper, but she is no companion for a man like that."
Poor Mrs. Sturtevant was aware of her status in Fairbridge, and she was
not without a steady, plodding ambition of her own. That utterly
commonplace, middle-aged face had some lines of strength. Mrs.
Sturtevant was a member of the women's club of Fairbridge, which was
poetically and cleverly called the Zenith Club.
She wrote, whenever it was her turn to do so, papers upon every
imaginable subject. She balked at nothing whatever. She ranged from
household discussions to the Orient. Then she stood up in the midst of
the women, sunk her double chin in her lace collar, and read her paper
in a voice like the whisper of a blade of grass. Doctor Sturtevant had a
very low voice. His wife had naturally a strident one, but she essayed to
follow him in the matter of voice, as in all other things. The poor hen
bird tried to voice her thoughts like her mate, and the result was a
strange and weird note. However, Mrs. Sturtevant herself was not
aware of the result. When she sat down after finishing her papers her
face was always becomingly flushed with pleasure.
Nothing, not even pleasure, was becoming to Mrs. Sturtevant. Life
itself was unbecoming to her, and the worst of it was nobody knew it,
and everybody said it was due to Mrs. Sturtevant's lack of taste, and

then they pitied the great doctor anew. It was very fortunate that it
never occurred to Mrs. Sturtevant to pity the doctor on her account, for
she was so fond of him, poor soul, that it might have led to a tragedy.
The Zenith Club of Fairbridge always met on Friday afternoons. It was
a cherished aim of the Club