Was It Right to Forgive? A Domestic Romance

“Stop your foolish chatter! You have driven your husband from you, at last. Now I hope you are satisfied.”

“So he has gone, has he? And pray, where has my lord gone?”

“To Arizona.”

“I am glad he has gone so far.”

“Now, madam, you will have to fight the world without him. There is not a decent woman who will notice you.”

“What have I done wrong? And I do not believe Antony has gone. He will come trailing home to-night.”

“He will not. And as to what you have done wrong, if there were nothing against you but that Duval affair it shuts you out of society.”

Then she rose in a passion, and snapped her fingers in his face. “You!” she cried, “you dare to come here and reproach me with Duval! Pray, what about 25 °Cora Mitchin? It is the devil correcting sin for you to talk virtuously. And the divine Yanna is just as bad to live with you. I would not. I would have respected Antony if he had turned on his heel when he saw me with Duval on the steamer; if he had turned on his heel and left me forever, I would have respected him! As it is, I despise him. Arizona is the best place for him.”

“There is no use, and no sense, in putting your fault and mine on the same level, Rose. Society will teach you who is the worst next winter.”

“What do I care for society? Society is not Jehovah; and being a man will not help you, sir, at the Day of Judgment. You are a great deal worse than I am. You are not fit for any woman’s company; and the sooner you leave mine, the better I shall like it.”

And Harry went. He had nothing further to say. He was convicted by his own conscience, and by the swift passage through his mind of certain words that came from the Blameless One – “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.”

CHAPTER X

It was near Christmas, and New York had the sense of its festivity in all her streets and avenues. The store windows were green and gay, and the sidewalks crowded with buyers. The crisp, frosty air and bright sunshine – full of promise and exhilaration – touched even Rose Van Hoosen, and made her consciously subject to the pervading influence. She had been to see her father and mother, who had just returned from Europe, and she was going to the loneliness of her own handsome home. No letter had come to her from her husband; but his lawyer brought her every month the liberal income which had been left in his charge for the maintenance of the Van Hoosen household.

As yet she had lived in seclusion, but her mother had advised a different course. “You must give some small but extremely fine dinners and entertainments, Rose,” she said. “Nothing stops gossip like hospitality. People will want to come to your little parties, and they will pooh-pooh all ill-natured reports, for their own sake. To-morrow we will talk over this plan, and arrange the most suitable functions.”

“But they will wonder at Antony’s absence, mamma.”

“They will hardly take it into account. His indifference and his refusal to dance were always cold water on your social efforts. As far as they are concerned, he is better away. And what more promising excuse can you have than that gold has been found on 252 his place. It has a rich sound, and, of course, he has to look after it. No one will think further than that. How are Harry and his wife getting on?”

“I think Yanna has quite spoiled Harry. Will you believe that I used to meet him driving with the baby last summer; and he trotted to meeting every Sunday with Yanna. I can tell you, mother, that your day is over. Yanna has Harry quite under her thumb now, or I am much mistaken.”

“And the Cora Mitchin affair?”

“I should say it is dead and buried. I do not see the girl’s name at any theatre, and her picture is not staring you in the face from every window this season. She has been retired evidently.”

“We shall see. Now, Rose, throw aside this nonsensical air of seclusion and sorrow. Get some pretty costumes, and prepare gradually to open your house. A woman with your income aping the recluse is ridiculous.”

“You do me so much good, mamma.”

“Well, my dear, there is nothing for wrong but to try and put it right. I think you have been to blame, but there is no use going about the world to accuse yourself. You must try and make your peace with your husband. It is such bad form, this quarreling. Send for Yanna and Miss Alida, and ask their advice – just to flatter them. You must have the support of your family.”

“I do not speak to either of them. I have made a business of offending them. Yanna was the inventor of the Duval romance; and Alida Van Hoosen thinks her thoughts. They have been living together.”

“I am awfully sorry you have offended them. Can you not be friends with Yanna?”

“I don’t want to be friends with her. I have quarreled with Harry, too. The idea of Harry coming to tell me my sins! I suppose Yanna sent him. Well, he heard the truth about his own sins, for once in his life! Mamma, I have quarreled with every one but you.”

As she was speaking, Harry entered. He took his mother in his arms, and then turned to Rose. “Good morning, Rose,” he said pleasantly. But Rose looked past him, and without a word in reply, she left the house.

“I am sorry you have quarreled with your sister, Harry,” said Mrs. Filmer. “If ever she needed your countenance and aid, it is now.”

“It is not my fault. Has she told you about the last – ?”

“I have heard a dozen versions of the affair. Poor girl!”

“Mother, you ought not to condone her sins.”

“You made no objections to my condoning your sins, Harry – much more flagrant ones, too. And I do not think your wife need to put on so many airs about poor Rose.”

“Rose has wantonly wounded Yanna’s feelings very often.”

“Poor feelings! I wonder how they endured the pretty Cora’s extravagances of every kind.”

“Mother!”

“Well, Harry, there is no use in our quarreling. Where is Antony?”

“In Arizona.”

“It is a great shame. I shall make your father go and see him.”

“There is no necessity. A word of contrition from 254 Rose will bring him home. Without that word, nothing will bring him. You had better get Rose to write to him. A dozen words will do.”

“She will never write one.”

“Then she had better get a divorce.”

“And lose all Antony’s money!”

“She has behaved shamefully to Antony. I will not talk any more about her.”

“However, she is going to entertain quietly; and her own family must support her. You may tell your wife I said so.”

“Did you have a pleasant summer, mother?”

Then Mrs. Filmer began a long complaint of the weather, and the weary hours her husband spent in the libraries, and the exorbitant charges, and the dreadful laundry work, and finally she opened one of her trunks, and took out of it some presents for Yanna and the child. So the morning went rapidly away, and Harry stayed to lunch with his father and mother, and then went downtown and attended to some business for them; so that the day was all broken up and spoiled, and he resolved to go home and take Yanna her presents.

When he entered the parlor of his own home, he was astonished to see Yanna sitting at a little Dutch table, drinking tea with a woman in the regulation dress of the Salvation Army – astonished to see that she had been weeping; and still more lost in amazement when the guest stood up and faced him, for it was undoubtedly Cora Mitchin.

She looked with grave eyes straight at Harry, who had paused in the middle of the room, and said: “Mr. Filmer, I came here to-day to ask Mrs. Filmer’s pardon. You may see that she has forgiven me.”

“Miss Young,” said Adriana, rising, “it is my wish that you tell Mr. Filmer all that you have told me. He will be glad to hear it.” And then she went quietly out of the room, leaving the two alone. For a moment Harry was angry. He did not like standing face to face with his transgression; and he was quite inclined to escape from the position in some way or other, when Cora said:

“May I tell you what has happened?”

“Is there any use now? If I can do anything, Cora – ”