The Mask | Page 7

of a connoisseur. Other men, drawn by her
exceptional beauty, fascinated by the spell of her soulful eyes, her tall
graceful figure, and delicate classic face, framed in Grecian head dress,
made violent love to her, their heated imaginations and jaded senses
conceiving a conquest compared with which the criminal passion of
Paolo for Francesca should pale. These would-be Lotharios might as
well have tried to set an iceberg on fire. Quietly, but firmly and in
unmistakable terms, she let them understand that they were wasting
their time and their ardor thus quenched, one by one they dropped away
and left her in peace. Only Signor Keralio had persisted. She had
snubbed him, insulted him, time after time, yet wherever she turned she
found him at her elbow. Society soon resigned itself to considering her
as one apart--a beautiful, chaste Juno whose ideals all must respect.
Indeed, the only thing with which she could be reproached was that she
was in love with her husband--the unpardonable sin in society's
eyes--but seeing who it was and despairing of ever changing her point
of view, society forgave her.
It never occurred to Helen that she was different in any way from other
women. She did not see how it was possible for a woman to be untrue
to the man whose name she bore and still retain her self-respect. The
day she ceased to love her husband she would leave him forever. To
her way of thinking, it was shocking to go on living with a man merely
because it suited one's convenience and comfort. She knew married
women who did not care for their husbands, some actually detested the
men they had married, and had always held in horror the intimate
relation which marriage sanctioned. She felt sorry for such women, but

secretly she despised them. They alone were to blame. Had they not
married knowing well that there was no real affection in their hearts for
the men to whom they gave themselves? The cynicism and effrontery
of young girls regarding marriage particularly revolted her. Eager for
wealth and social position, they offered themselves with brazen
effrontery in the matrimonial market, immodestly displaying their
charms to the lecherous, covetous eyes of blasé, degenerate men. Any
question of attachment, love, affection was never for a moment
considered. The idea that a man could be even considered unless he
were able to provide a fine establishment was laughed to scorn. The
girls were all men hunters but they hunted only rich men. They called
the feeling they experienced for the man they caught in their toils
"love." They meant something quite different. To a girl of Helen's ideas,
such manoeuvers were shocking. To her the marriage tie was
something sacred, a relation not to be entered into lightly. Kenneth was
rich, it was true, but she would have loved him none the less had he
been one of his own fifteen dollar a week clerks. When they were
married and the romance was over, he stopped playing the lover to
devote himself to the more serious business of making money, but with
her, time, instead of dimming the flame, only caused it to burn the
brighter. This man whom she had married was her only thought. In him
centered every interest of her life.
A muffled outburst of profanity from Kenneth aroused her from her
reveries.
"That's always the way when one's in a hurry," he exclaimed petulantly.
"Ring for François. Why the devil isn't he here?"
Quickly, Helen sprang up from the trunk and touched an electric
button.
"What's the matter, dear?" she asked.
She approached her husband who, at the far end of the room, was red in
the face from the unusual exertion of trying to coax the buckle of a
strap into a hole obviously out of reach. He pulled and strained till the
muscles stood out on his neck and brawny arms like whipcord, and still

the obstinate buckle declined to be coerced. The more it resisted, the
more determined he was to make it obey. Go in it must, if sheer
strength would do it. The vice-president of the Americo-African
Mining Company was no weakling. A six-foot athlete and captain of
the Varsity football team in his college days, his muscles had been
toughened in a thousand lively scrimmages and in later life plenty of
golf, rowing and other out-of-door sports had kept him in condition.
When he pulled hard something had to give way. It did in this instance.
There was a tearing, rending sound and the strap broke off short. With a
gesture of despair he turned to his wife as men are wont to do when in
trouble.
"Wouldn't that jar you?" he cried, as he threw the broken strap away.
"What the deuce am