The Golden House | Page 7

of what was best for him, but that Edith should have taken up with such a perfect type of the aimlessness of the society strata of modern life. The wonder, however, was based upon a shallow conception of the nature of woman. It would have been more wonderful if the qualities that endeared Jack to college friends and club men, to the mighty sportsmen who do not hesitate, in the clubs, to devastate Canada and the United States of big game, and to the border ruffians of Dakota, should not have gone straight to the tender heart of a woman of ideals. And when in all history was there a woman who did not believe, when her heart went with respect for certain manly traits, that she could inspire and lift a man into a noble life?
The silver clock in the breakfast-room was striking ten, and Edith was already seated at the coffee-urn, when Jack appeared. She was as fresh as a rose, and greeted him with a bright smile as he came behind her chair and bent over for the morning kiss--a ceremony of affection which, if omitted, would have left a cloud on the day for both of them, and which Jack always declared was simply a necessity, or the coffee would have no flavor. But when a man has picked a rose, it is always a sort of climax which is followed by an awkward moment, and Jack sat down with the air of a man who has another day to get through with.
"Were you amused with the dancing--this morning?"
"So, so," said Jack, sipping his coffee. "It was a stunning place for it, that studio; you'd have liked that. The Lamons and Mavick and a lot of people from the provinces were there. The company was more fun than the dance, especially to a fellow who has seen how good it can be and how bad in its home."
"You have a chance to see the Spanish dancer again, under proper auspices," said Edith, without looking up.
"How's that?"
"We are invited by Mrs. Brown--"
"The mother of the Bible class at St. Philip's?"
"Yes--to attend a charity performance for the benefit of the Female Waifs' Refuge. She is to dance."
"Who? Mrs. Brown?"
Edith paid no attention to this impertinence. "They are to make an artificial evening at eleven o'clock in the morning."
"They must have got hold of Mavick's notion that this dance is religious in its origin. Do you, know if the exercises will open with prayer?"
"Nonsense, Jack. You know I don't intend to go. I shall send a small check."
"Well, draw it mild. But isn't this what I'm accused of doing--shirking my duty of personal service by a contribution?"
"Perhaps. But you didn't have any of that shirking feeling last night, did you?"
Jack laughed, and ran round to give the only reply possible to such a gibe. These breakfast interludes had not lost piquancy in all these months. "I'm half a mind to go to this thing. I would, if it didn't break up my day so."
"As for instance?"
"Well, this morning I have to go up to the riding-school to see a horse-- Storm; I want to try him. And then I have to go down to Twist's and see a lot of Japanese drawings he's got over. Do you know that the birds and other animals those beggars have been drawing, which we thought were caricatures, are the real thing? They have eyes sharp enough to see things in motion--flying birds and moving horses which we never caught till we put the camera on them. Awfully curious. Then I shall step into the club a minute, and--"
"Be in at lunch? Bess is coming."
"Don't wait lunch. I've a lot to do."
Edith followed him with her eyes, a little wistfully; she heard the outer door close, and still sat at the table, turning over the pile of notes at her plate, and thinking of many things--things that it began to dawn upon her mind could not be done, and things of immediate urgency that must be done. Life did not seem quite such a simple problem to her as it had looked a year ago. That there is nothing like experiment to clear the vision is the general idea, but oftener it is experience that perplexes. Indeed, Edith was thinking that some things seemed much easier to her before she had tried them.
As she sat at the table with a faultless morning-gown, with a bunch of English violets in her bosom, an artist could have desired no better subject. Many people thought her eyes her best feature; they were large brown eyes, yet not always brown, green at times, liquid, but never uncertain, apt to have a smile in them, yet their chief appealing characteristic was trustfulness, a pure sort of steadfastness, that