The Forbidden Way

"Neither will I," said Camilla, smiling to herself. "She scored one on me yesterday, but I fancy our accounts are about even."

"Yes, they are. I suppose there's no use warning you."

"No, there isn't, Cort. I fancy I'll be able to look out for myself."

He examined her keenly and realized that she was looking at Jeff, who stood with some men at the end of the room toasting their hostess. He seemed to have forgotten Camilla's existence. In the field before they came into the house Jeff had spoken to her, and when Janney had given Camilla the Brush, Jeff had congratulated her noisily and with the heartiness and enthusiasm he always showed over things which reflected credit on himself. In their private life Jeff still stood a little in awe of Camilla. He realized that his many deficiencies put him at a disadvantage with a woman of her stamp, and, no matter what he felt, he had never asked more of her in the way of companionship than she had been willing to give him ungrudgingly; he was tolerant of her literary moods, her music, her love of pictures, and the many things he could not understand. She was the only cultured woman he had ever known, and his marriage had done little to change his way of thinking of her. Camilla had not meant to abide forever in the shrine in which Jeff had enthroned her.

In the earlier days of their married life she had been willing to sit enshrined because it had been the easiest way to conceal the actual state of her own mind; because it had come to be a habit with her – and with him to behold her there. Their pilgrimage to New York had made a difference. It was not easy for Camilla to define it just yet. He was a little easier in his ways with her, regarded her inaccessibility a little less seriously, and questioned by his demeanor rather than by any spoken words matters which had long been taken for granted by them both. He had made no overt declaration of independence and, in his way, gave her opinions the same respect he had always given them. The difference, if anything, had been in the different way in which they viewed from the very same angle the great world of affairs. Men, as Jeff had always known, were much the same all the world over, but, curiously enough, he had never seen fit to apply any rule to its women. It was flattery, indeed, for him to have believed for so long that, because Camilla was cultured, all cultured women must be like Camilla. His wife realized that Jeff's discovery of Mrs. Cheyne was requiring a readjustment of all his early ideas. And so, while she spoke lightly of Mrs. Cheyne to Cortland Bent, in her heart she was aware that if the lady took it into her pretty head to use Jeff as a weapon she might herself be put upon the defensive.

It seemed as though Cortland had an intuition of what was passing in her mind.

"If there's any way in which I can be of service," he ventured.

"Oh, yes, Cort," she laughed. "I'll call on you. The only thing I ask of you now is – not to fall in love with Mrs. Cheyne."

"Rita? I'd as soon think of falling in love with a kaleidoscope. Besides – "

But she laid restraining fingers on his arm.

"Tell me about Gretchen," she interrupted quickly.

"There's nothing to tell, except," he said with a sigh, "that she's quite gone on Larry."

"You can't mean it?"

"Really – she told me so."

Camilla glanced toward the hall where the two young people were sitting in the big haircloth sofa engaged in a harmless investigation of the science of palmistry.

Camilla laughed. "It really looks so, doesn't it? I am sorry, though. I had begun to look on Miss Janney as one of the solutions of our difficulty."

"There isn't any solution of it – not that way – you must take my word for it. Gretchen and I understand each other perfectly. If I can do anything to help Lawrence Berkely with her, I'll do it."

"Oh, you're quite hopeless, Cort," she sighed, "and I have no patience with Larry. I can't see why he doesn't mind his own business."

Bent glanced at the young couple in the hall. "He seems to me to be doing that tolerably well." He leaned forward so that his tone, though lowered, could be heard distinctly.

"There is another solution. Perhaps you had not thought of it." She turned her head quickly and searched his face for a meaning. For reply he coolly turned his gaze in the direction of Jeff and Mrs. Cheyne, who had withdrawn into an embrasure of one of the windows.

"A solution – " she stammered.

"Yes, a way out – for both of us."

"You mean Jeff – and Mrs. Cheyne?" she whispered.

"I do."

The poison of his suggestion flowed slowly through her mind, like a drug which stimulates and stupefies at the same time.

"You mean that I should allow Jeff – that I should connive in his – " She stopped, horror-stricken. "Oh, Cort, that was unworthy of you," she whispered.

"I mean it. They're well met – those two," he finished viciously.

Camilla held up her fingers pleadingly. "Don't speak. I forbid you." And, rising, she took up her gloves and crop from the table. "Besides," she said more lightly, "I have a suspicion that you are trying to stir up a tempest in a teapot."

"Do you mean you haven't noticed?" he insisted. "At my father's? At the Warringtons'? Last night at the Janneys'?"

"No," she replied carelessly, "I hadn't noticed."

Curtis Janney, who had been moving fussily from one group to another, came forward as he saw Camilla rise.

"I was hoping we might still get another short run, but I suppose you're too tired, Mrs. Wray?"

"A little – but don't let me interfere. I think I can find my way back."

He looked at his watch. "Hello! It's time we were off anyway. The other guests will be eating all our breakfast. Come, Cort, Gretchen, Mrs. Cheyne – you know you're my guest still," strolling from group to group and ruthlessly breaking up the tête-a-têtes so successfully that Rita Cheyne rebelled.

"You're a very disagreeable person, Mr. Janney – Ivywild resents it. You're trying to form the hospitality of the county into one of those horrid trusts. Every time accident throws the hunt my way you insist on dragging it off to Braebank. It isn't fair. Of course, if you insist – "

And then, crossing to Camilla, "Dear Mrs. Wray, I'm borrowing your husband for a while. I feel a little tired, so he promised to lunch with me here and go on to Braebank later. You don't mind, do you?"

"Not in the least, my dear Mrs. Cheyne. I'm so sorry you feel badly." And then to her husband, "Remember, Jeff, Mr. Janney expects you later." Each spoke effusively, the tips of their fingers just touching. Then Mrs. Cheyne followed her visitors to the door.

Outside a coach-horn was blowing, and, as they emerged upon the porch the Janney brake arrived, tooled by the coachman and bearing aloft Mrs. Rumsen, General Bent, and Gladys, who had arrived from town on the morning train. But they would not get down, and the cavalcade soon wound its way along the drive, leaving Jeff and Mrs. Cheyne waving them a good-by from the steps.

Camilla took the road thoughtfully. It was the first time in their brief social career that Jeff had not consulted her before he made his own plans. She did not blame him altogether, for she knew that Jeff's inexperience made him singularly vulnerable to the arts of a woman of the type of Mrs. Cheyne, who, for want of any better occupation in life, had come to consider all men her lawful prey. Camilla knew that mild flirtations were the rule rather than the exception in this gay world where idle people caught at anything which put to flight the insistent demon of weariness and boredom. And she discovered that it was a part of the diversion of the younger married couples to loan husbands and wives to satisfy the light fancy of the hour. All this was a part of the fabric in which she and Jeff were living and endangered society only when the women were weak and the men vicious. But Jeff somehow didn't seem to fit into the picture. His personality she had learned to associate with significant achievements. His faults, as well as his virtues, were big, and he had a habit of scorning lesser sins. The pleasure of a mild flirtation such as his brothers of the city might indulge in for the mere delight of the society of a woman would offer nothing to Jeff, who was not in the habit of doing anything mildly or by halves. Camilla knew him better than Mrs. Cheyne did.

Of course, no one thought anything of his new interest in Mrs. Cheyne. All of the younger men were interested in Mrs. Cheyne at one time or another, and it was doubtful if people had even noticed his attentions. Cortland had, but there was a reason for that. Anything that could discredit Jeff in her eyes was meat and drink to him. But it was cruel of Cortland to take advantage of her isolation, but how could she cut herself off from Cort, when her husband, by the nature of the situation, had thrown her so completely on his mercies? It seemed as though all the world was conspiring to throw her with the one man whose image she had promised her conscience she would wipe from her heart. He rode beside her now remorselessly, proving by his silence more eloquently the measure of his appreciation of the situation. She felt that he, too, was entering the Valley of Indecision, with the surer step of a dawning Hope, while she faltered on the brink of the Slough of Despond.

They had fallen well behind the others, and followed a quiet lane bordered by a row of birch trees which still clung tenaciously to the remnants of their autumn finery. At one side gushed a stream, fed by the early snows, which sang musically of the secrets of earth and sky. There was no indecision here. Every twig, every painted stone, the sky and breeze, spoke a message of blithe optimism. All was right with the world, and if doubt crept into the hearts of men it was because they were deaf to the messages of Nature. The spell of its beauty fell on Camilla, too, and she found herself smiling up at Cortland Bent. There were many things to be thankful for.

"Are you happy?" he asked.

"One can't be anything else on a day like this."

"You don't care then?"

"For what? Oh, yes. I have a natural interest in the welfare of my husband. But I think Mrs. Cheyne is wasting her time."

"I think perhaps you underrate her," he muttered.

"I'd rather underrate Mrs. Cheyne than underrate myself," proudly.

He was silent for a moment, flicking at the weeds with his riding-crop.

"Mrs. Cheyne and you have nothing in common, Camilla," he said. "I'm afraid it isn't in you to understand this crowd. The set in which she and I were brought up is a little world in itself. The things which happen outside of it are none of its concern. It doesn't care. It has its own rules and its own code of decency to which it makes its members subscribe. It is New York in miniature, the essence, the cream of its vices, its virtues, and its follies. It lives like that poison-ivy along the fence, stretching out its tendrils luxuriously in the direction of the sun, moving along the line of least resistance. It does not care what newer growth it stunts, what blossom learns to grow beneath its shade, to fade and droop, perhaps to wither for lack of air and sunlight – "

"And yet – there's Gretchen," she said, "and you."