The Restless Sex

He looked at the frosty glass, pushed it away from him:

"That was a sorry spectacle I made of myself last night. Can you beat that for degradation – a man who has made a damnable failure of marriage, skulking at his wife's heels to snap and snarl at any decent man who is civil to her?"

"Don't talk so bitterly – "

"I'm indulging in a luxury, Cleland – the luxury of truth, of honesty, of straight thinking… I've been bragging about it, celebrating it, extolling it for years. But I never did any until last night."

"You're rubbing it in pretty hard, Harry. A man is bound to make mistakes – "

"I'm the mistake! I realize it, now – as Verne realized it. That's why he did what he did. You don't, if you are right… I never supposed I could behave as rottenly as I did last night. But it's been a long strain… You heard that rotten outbreak of mine concerning women – the night we heard what Verne had done? Well, the strain was showing… It broke me last night…"

He lifted his head and looked intently at Cleland:

"It was the shock of seeing her in a public place with another man. I had never seen her with any other man. It's nearly three years, now, since I made a damned ass of myself, and she very quietly went her way leaving me to go mine… And in all that time, Cleland, there has not been a breath of suspicion against her. She has been in the lighter and more frivolous shows almost continuously; but she has lived as straight a life as any woman ever lived… And I know it… And I knew it – cur that I was – when I spoke to her as I did, and turned on you like a rotter – "

He extended his hand and took hold of the iced glass, but let it rest there.

"I've lied and lied and lied," he said, "to myself about myself; to others about my estimate of women… I'm just a four-flusher, Cleland. The best of 'em are better than our stars. The remainder average as well as we do… Verne got what was coming to him… And so have I, Cleland – so have I – "

"Wait a moment – "

"Wait?" Belter laughed mirthlessly. "All right. I know how to wait. Waiting is the best thing I do. I've waited for nearly three years before I've told myself the truth. I've told it now, to myself, and to you… But it's too late to tell it to her."

"Do you think it is?"

Belter looked up in pallid surprise:

"Of course."

"I wonder," mused Cleland.

Belter's sunken gaze had become remote and fixed again. He said, half to himself:

"I couldn't let her alone. I couldn't learn to mind my own business. I'd been bawling aloud my theories for years, Cleland, but I couldn't apply them to her or to myself. I bragged about my mania for personal liberty, for tolerance; I lauded the maxim of 'hands off.' But I couldn't keep my meddling hands off her; I couldn't understand that she had the right to personal liberty – freedom in the pursuit of happiness. No; I tried to head her off, check her, stampede her into the common corral whither all men's wives are supposed to be driven – tried to rope her and throw her and blindfold, hobble and break her to suit myself… And, Cleland, do you know what happened? I found I had come upon a character, a mind, a personality which would not endure the tyranny we men call domestic affection… That's what I discovered… And I did not do the breaking. No; she has accomplished that. And – here I am, to admit it to you… And I think I'll go, now – "

Cleland walked slowly to the door with him, one arm resting on his shoulder:

"I wish you'd tell her what you've told me, Harry."

"It's too late. She wouldn't care, now."

"Are you very sure?"

"Do you think a man can use a woman the way I have used her, and make her care a straw about what I say to her now?"

Cleland said in a low voice:

"I can't answer you. I don't understand women; I write about them… I have troubles of my own, too. So I can't advise you, Harry… Are you still in love with her?"

He said in a dead voice:

"I've always been. It's done things to me. I'll die of it, one day. But that's no argument."

"I don't know. Tell her."

"It's no argument," repeated Belter. "It's purely selfish. That's what I am – purely selfish. I'm thinking of myself. I'm in love with her… And she's better off without me."

"All the same, I think I'd take a chance. I think I'd tell her. After all, you owe her that much – whatever she may choose to do about it."

"She doesn't care, now."

"Still, you owe it to her. You're not a welcher, you know."

They had reached the foot of the stairs. Helen, coming out of the enclosed court, met them face to face; and they exchanged amiabilities there outside her studio door.

"Come in and have some tea," she said. "Harry, you look ill. Are you? Anyway, a cup of tea won't slay you in your tracks – " fitting her key to the door all the while she was talking – "so come in like two polite young men – "

The door swung open; they entered.

"Oho!" exclaimed Helen; "Steve must be here because the kettle-lamp is lighted. We'll have something to nibble presently, I expect. Find a chair, Harry, and watch that kettle. Jim, show him the cigarettes. I'm going to take off this blouse and I'll be back with Steve in a moment – "

She stopped short: Stephanie and Marie Cliff, coming from the kitchenette, appeared at the further end of the studio, the former bearing a big bowl of strawberries, the latter a tray of little cakes.

Stephanie greeted the newcomers with an airy wave of her hand; Marie Cliff promptly lost her colour; but there was nothing to do except to advance, which she continued doing, moving very close to Stephanie's elbow.

The situation was going to be as awkward as the people involved made it: Cleland, secretly aghast, came forward to relieve Stephanie and Marie of their burdens:

"If there isn't enough food for a party, I'll take Harry and go," he said gaily. "It isn't done – this grasshopper-like invasion of your natural resources."

"Piffle," said Helen, "there's plenty."

Harry Belter, who had been standing in the middle of the floor as though petrified, wrenched himself out of his trance and put his legs in motion. His face was very red: he greeted Stephanie elaborately but mutely; he bowed mutely to his wife.

She had managed to recover her self-control: a deep flush invaded her pallour. Then, under the eyes of them all, very quietly she did a thing which confirmed the admiration and respect of everybody there: she extended her child-like hand to her husband, saying:

"It is nice to see you again, and I'm very sure that there is enough tea for everybody."

Her hand lay in her husband's for an appreciable moment; then he bent over it, lower, to conceal the nervous working of his features – and touched it with trembling lips – something he had never before done in all his life – and passing, by the same token, out of the free and arid desert of his folly, he rested, sub jugum, beside the still waters of eternal truth.

Helen went on toward her room to shed her clay-stained smock; Stephanie investigated the kettle which was approaching the boiling point, and Cleland deposited the provender on a neighbouring table.

"Keep away from them," whispered Stephanie, close beside him – so close that the fragrance of her hair and breath caressed his cheek.

"You darling," he motioned with his lips.

"Oh, dear! Are we on such a footing!" she asked, with a little quick-drawn breath of smiling dismay.

"Why not?" he said under his breath. "You're awake, now."