Eden: An Episode

"There is a woman looking up here. She has just turned her head. Do you see her?"

"That woman with the blonde hair?"

"Yes; do you know her?"

"No, I can't say I know her. But I know who she is – "

"Who is she?"

"She has an apartment at the Ranleigh. Her name is Mrs. Feverill. She is a grass widow; rather fly, I fancy – "

"H'm;" said Eden, "I am sure I don't know what you mean by 'fly.' There, it isn't necessary to explain – " She turned her head – "Mr. Arnswald, would you mind getting me my cloak, there seems to be a draught."

Arnswald, who had been loitering in the rear of the box, went back into the vestibule in search of the garment.

On the stage the tenor in green and gold was still gesticulating, open-mouthed as before, and presently there came a blare of trumpets, a shudder of brass, dominated by the cry of violins, and abruptly the curtain fell.

Arnswald advanced with the cloak, and Jones stood up. The latter said some parting word to Miss Bolten and to her mother, bent over Eden's hand and left the box. Arnswald dropped in the seat which he had vacated. It was evident at once that he and Miss Bolten had met before. He had leaned forward, and was whispering in her ear.

"Eden," Maule began, "do you remember that ring you gave me?"

"Mr. Maule, you forget many things – "

"Why do you call me Mr. Maule? there was a time – "

"Yes, there was a time, as you say; but that time is no longer."

"You have something against me."

"I? Nothing in the world."

"Ah, but Eden, you have, though; that is evident: when I last saw you – "

"The next day I learned your reputation. It is deplorable."

"When I last saw you you gave me a ring. A serpent with its tail in its mouth. You said it meant eternity."

"Yes, I know I did; but – "

"Did it mean nothing as well?"

"A circle represents zero, does it not?"

"Eden, Eden, how cruel you can be! Will you not let me see you?"

"Certainly, I am at home on Saturdays."

"Yes, I know – Saturday is Fifth Avenue day. Eden, tell me, do you remember Second Avenue?"

From the orchestra came a murmur, a consonance of harps and of flutes. The curtain had parted again.

"No," she answered; "I have forgotten."

"Surely – "

"Yes, I have forgotten. It is good to forget. This is the last act, is it not?"

"No, it is the prologue."

The speech was as significant as her own. For a second he was silent, and bit his under lip. Then, as Jones had done before, he stood up.

"I will come," he muttered in her ear, "but not on Saturday."

"Good-night, Mr. Maule."

"Good-night, Mrs. Usselex."

With a circular salute to the other occupants, Maule left the box. Presently it was invaded by other visitors of whom no particular mention is necessary. At last there was a wail and final crash in the orchestra. The opera was done.

On the way home Usselex questioned his wife. "Who is that man Maule?" he asked.

"Miss Bolten is interested in him, I believe."

"I hope not," Usselex returned; "he has a bad face."

V

The next morning Eden awoke in her great room that overlooked Fifth Avenue. The night had been constellated with dreams, and now as they faded from her there was one that lingered behind. Through a rift of consciousness she had seen herself talking with feverish animation to Arnswald, on some subject of vital importance, the which, however, she was unable to recall; it had gone with the night, leaving on the camera of memory only the tableau behind. For a little space she groped after it unavailingly, and then dismissed it from her. But still the tableau lingered until it became obscured by her own vexation. She felt annoyed as at an impertinence. What right had Arnswald to trespass in her dreams?

She rang the bell, and when in answer to the summons her maid appeared, she gave herself up to the woman's ministrations. The annoyance faded as the dream had done, and she fell to thinking of the day and of her husband. At one there was a luncheon at which she was expected, and in the evening there was a dinner at Mrs. Manhattan's. Her husband, she knew, had gone to his office hours ago and would not return until late. It had occurred to her before that he worked harder than his clerks; even Arnswald seemed to have more leisure than he. But on this particular forenoon, when her equipment was completed, but one idea channeled her ruminations, and that was that if her husband worked harder than his clerks, it was because of her.

She smiled a little at the thought, and then at herself in the mirror. Truly the guests at the luncheon might have been recruited from the four quarters of the globe, and few could be fairer than she. She was contented with her appearance, not in any sense because it might eclipse that of other women, but because he was proud of it, and because his pride and laborious days were all in all for her. She gave to her gown and to the arrangement of her hair that coup de maître which no maid, however expert, is able to administer, and presently had herself driven up the avenue to the house at which she was to be entertained.

The luncheon, as the phrase is, went off very well. Made up of fresh gossip and new dishes, it was stupid yet agreeable, as women's luncheons are apt to be. But on leaving it Eden felt depressed. It was the first of the kind which in her quality of married woman she had attended, and as her carriage rolled down the avenue again, she wondered were it possible that such things as she heard could be true, the story that had been told about Viola Raritan, for instance, and the general agreement following it that married men were the worst[1 - The reader is referred to The truth about Tristrem Varick.]. Surely, she told herself, they might be, all of them indeed save one, who was above reproach. As for her recent companions, they discredited virtue in seeming to possess it. At the memory of things they had implied, the color mounted to her cheeks.

On the opposite sidewalk a girl was loitering. For a second, Eden, through the open window, eyed her gown. She raised some flowers to her face, and when she put them down again her face was white. Through the window she had seen a cab pass, and in the cab her husband and a woman.

In a conflict of emotions such as visit those who learn the dishonor and the death of one they cherished most, Eden reached her door. She left the carriage before the groom had descended from the box, and hurried into the house. There she entered the drawing-room and sought for a moment to collect her thoughts. It was impossible, she kept telling herself, that such a thing could be. She had been mistaken; it was not her husband that she had seen, and if it were her husband then was he on some errand as innocent as her own. But it was her husband. The effort she was making to deceive herself was useless as broken glass. And as for the woman with whom he was driving, what had he to do with her or she with him? She was certain she had seen her face before.

In her nervousness she rose from her seat and paced the room, tearing her gloves off and tossing them from her as she walked.

In the lives of most of us there are hours of such distress that in search of a palliative we strive as best we may to cheat ourselves into thinking that the distress is but a phase of our own individual imagination, close-locked therein, barred out of real existence, and unimportant and delusive as the creations of dream. And as Eden paced the room she tried to feel that her distress was but a figment of fancy, an illusory representation evoked out of nothing. She had been enervated by the gossip of the lunch-table; a child startled by the possible horrors of a dark closet was never more absurd than she. It was nonsense to suppose that a man such as her husband could be capable of a vulgar intrigue.

On the mantel a clock ticked dolently, as though in sympathy with her woe, and presently to her inattentive ears, it rang out four times. In an hour, she reflected, in two hours at most, he would return. She would ask him where he had been, and everything would be explained. It was nonsense for her to torment herself. Of course it would be explained, and meanwhile —

And as she determined that meanwhile she would give the matter no further thought the butler entered the room, bearing a note on a salver, which he gave to her and withdrew. The superscription was in her husband's handwriting and she pulled the envelope apart, confident that the explanation for which she sought was contained therein. But in it no explanation was visible. It was dated from Wall Street. "Dearest Eden," it ran, "I am detained on business. Send excuses to Mrs. Manhattan. In haste, as ever, J. U."

"Detained on business," she repeated aloud very firmly and pressed her hand to her head. She was calm, less agitated than she had been before. It behooved her to determine what she should do. Seemingly, but one course was open to her, and suddenly she perceived that she had stopped thinking. Night had seized and surrounded her; it was of this, perhaps, that she had spoken to Arnswald in her dream.