Jennie Gerhardt
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JENNIE GERHARDT
once knew out in Cincinnati,» she told one of her titled women friends who had been an American before her marriage. «He was the biggest, cleanest, sanest fellow. If he had proposed to me I would have married him if I had had to work for a living myself.»
«Was he so poor?» asked her friend.
«Indeed he wasn't. He was comfortably rich, but that did not make any difference to me. It was the man I wanted.»
«It would have made a difference in the long run,» said the other.
«You misjudge me,» replied Mrs. Gerald. «I waited for him for a number of years, and I know.»
Lester had always retained pleasant impressions and kindly memories of Letty Pace, or Mrs. Gerald, as she was now. He had been fond of her in a way, very fond. Why hadn't he married her? He had asked himself that question time and again. She would have made him an ideal wife, his father would have been pleased, everybody would have been delighted. Instead he had drifted and drifted, and then he had met Jennie; and somehow, after that, he did not want her any more. Now after six years of separation he met her again. He knew she was married. She was vaguely aware he had had some sort of an affair – she had heard that he had subsequently married the woman and was living on the South Side. She did not know of the loss of his fortune. She ran across him first in the Carlton one June evening. The windows were open, and the flowers were blooming everywhere, odorous with that sense of new life in the air which runs through the world when spring comes back. For the moment she was a little beside herself. Something choked
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in her throat; but she collected herself and extended a graceful arm and hand.
«Why, Lester Kane,» she exclaimed. «How do you do! I am so glad. And this is Mrs. Kane? Charmed, I'm sure. It seems truly like a breath of spring to see you again. I hope you'll excuse me, Mrs. Kane, but I'm delighted to see your husband. I'm ashamed to say how many years it is, Lester, since I saw you last! I feel quite old when I think of it. Why, Lester, think; it's been all of six or seven years! And I've been married and had a child, and poor Mr. Gerald has died, and oh, dear, I don't know what all hasn't happened to me.»
«You don't look it,» commented Lester, smiling. He was pleased to see her again, for they had been good friends. She liked him still – that was evident, and he truly liked her.
Jennie smiled. She was glad to see this old friend of Lester's. This woman, trailing a magnificent yellow lace train over pale, mother-of-pearl satin, her round, smooth arms bare to the shoulder, her corsage cut low and a dark red rose blowing at her waist, seemed to her the ideal of what a woman should be. She liked looking at lovely women quite as much as Lester; she enjoyed calling his attention to them, and teasing him, in the mildest way, about their charms. «Wouldn't you like to run and talk to her, Lester, instead of to me?» she would ask when some particularly striking or beautiful woman chanced to attract her attention. Lester would examine her choice critically, for he had come to know that her judge of feminine charms was excellent. «Oh, I'm pretty well off where I am,» he would retort, looking into her eyes; or, jestingly, «I'm not as young as I used to be, or I'd get in tow of that.»
«Run on,» was her comment. «I'll wait for you.»
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«What would you do if I really should?»
«Why, Lester, I wouldn't do anything. You'd come back to me, maybe.»
«Wouldn't you care?»
«You know I'd care. But if you felt that you wanted to, I wouldn't try to stop you. I wouldn't expect to be all in all to one man, unless he wanted me to be.»
«Where do you get those ideas, Jennie?» he asked her once, curious to test the breadth of her philosophy.
«Oh, I don't know, why?»
«They're so broad, so good-natured, so charitable. They're not common, that's sure.»
«Why, I don't think we ought to be selfish, Lester. I don't know why. Some women think differently, I know, but a man and a woman ought to want to live together, or they ought not to – don't you think? It doesn't make so much difference if a man goes off for a little while – just so long as he doesn't stay – if he wants to come back at all.»
Lester smiled, but he respected her for the sweetness of her point of view – he had to.
To-night, when she saw this woman so eager to talk to Lester, she realized at once that they must have a great deal in common to talk over; whereupon she did a characteristic thing. «Won't you excuse me for a little while?» she asked, smiling. «I left some things uncared for in our rooms. I'll be back.»
She went away, remaining in her room as long as she reasonably could, and Lester and Letty fell to discussing old times in earnest. He recounted as much of his experiences as he deemed wise, and Letty brought the history of her life up to date. «Now that you're safely married, Lester,» she said dar-
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ingly, «I'll confess to you that you were the one man I always wanted to have propose to me – and you never did.»
«Maybe I never dared,» he said, gazing into her superb black eyes, and thinking that perhaps she might know that he was not married. He felt that she had grown more beautiful in every way. She seemed to him now to be an ideal society figureperfection itself – gracious, natural, witty, the type of woman who mixes and mingles well, meeting each new-comer upon the plane best suited to him or her.
«Yes, you thought! I know what you thought. Your real thought just left the table.»
«Tut, tut, my dear. Not so fast. You don't know what I thought.»
«Anyhow, I allow you some credit. She's charming.» «Jennie has her good points,» he replied simply. «And are you happy?»
«Oh, fairly so. Yes, I suppose I'm happy – as happy as any one can be who sees life as it is. You know I'm not troubled with many illusions.»
«Not any, I think, kind sir, if I know you.»
«Very likely, not any, Letty; but sometimes I wish I had a few. I think I would be happier.»
«And I, too, Lester. Really, I look on my life as a kind of failure, you know, in spite of the fact that I'm almost as rich as Croesus – not quite. I think he had some more than I have.»
«What talk from you – you, with your beauty and talent, and money – good heavens!»
«And what can I do with it? Travel, talk, shoo away silly fortune-hunters. Oh, dear, sometimes I get so tired!»
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Letty looked at Lester. In spite of Jennie, the old feeling came back. Why should she have been cheated of him? They were as comfortable together as old married people, or young lovers. Jennie had had no better claim. She looked at him, and her eyes fairly spoke. He smiled a little sadly.
«Here comes my wife,» he said. «We'll have to brace up and talk of other things. You'll find her interesting – really.»
«Yes, I know,» she replied, and turned on Jennie a radiant smile.
Jennie felt a faint sense of misgiving. She thought vaguely that this might be one of Lester's old flames. This was the kind of woman he should have chosen – not her. She was suited to his station in life, and he would have been as happy – perhaps happier. Was he beginning to realize it? Then she put away the uncomfortable thought; pretty soon she would be getting jealous, and that would be contemptible.
Mrs. Gerald continued to be most agreeable in her attitude toward the Kanes. She invited them the next day to join her on a drive through Rotten Row. There was a dinner later at Claridge's, and then she was compelled to keep some engagement which was taking her to Paris. She bade them both an affectionate farewell, and hoped that they would soon meet again. She was envious, in a sad way, of Jennie's good fortune. Lester had lost none of his charm for her. If anything, he seemed nicer, more considerate, more wholesome. She wished sincerely that he were free. And Lester – subconsciously perhaps – was thinking the same thing.
No doubt because of the fact that she was thinking of it, he had been led over mentally all of the things which might have happened if he had married her. They were so congenial
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now, philosophically, artistically, practically. There was a natural flow of conversation between them all the time, like two old comrades among men. She knew everybody in his social sphere, which was equally hers, but Jennie did not. They could talk of certain subtle characteristics of life in a way which was not possible between him and Jennie, for the latter did not have the vocabulary. Her ideas did not flow as fast as those of Mrs. Gerald. Jennie had actually the deeper, more comprehensive, sympathetic, and emotional note in her nature, but she could not show it in light conversation. Actually she was living the thing she was, and that was perhaps the thing which drew Lester to her. Just now, and often in situations of this kind, she seemed at a disadvantage, and she was. It seemed to Lester for the time being as if Mrs. Gerald would perhaps have been a better choice after all – certainly as good, and he would not now have this distressing thought as to his future.
They did not see Mrs. Gerald again until they reached Cairo. In the gardens about the hotel they suddenly encountered her, or rather Lester did, for he was alone at the time, strolling and smoking.
«Well, this is good luck,» he exclaimed. «Where do you come from?»
«Madrid, if you please. I didn't know I was coming until last Thursday. The Ellicotts are here. I came over with them. You know I wondered where you might be. Then I remembered that you said you were going to Egypt. Where is your wife?»
«In her bath, I fancy, at this moment. This warm weather makes Jennie take to water. I was thinking of a plunge myself.»
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They strolled about for a time. Letty was in light blue silk, with a blue and white parasol held daintily over her shoulder, and looked very pretty. «Oh, dear!» she suddenly ejaculated, «I wonder sometimes what I am to do with myself. I can't loaf always this way. I think I'll go back to the States to live.»
«Why don't you?»
«What good would it do me? I don't want to get married. I haven't any one to marry now – that I want.» She glanced at Lester significantly, then looked away.
«Oh, you'll find some one eventually,» he said, somewhat awkwardly. «You can't escape for long – not with your looks and money.»
«Oh, Lester, hush!»
«All right! Have it otherwise, if you want. I'm telling you.» «Do you still dance?» she inquired lightly, thinking of a ball which was to be given at the hotel that evening. He had
danced so well a few years before. «Do I look it?»
«Now, Lester, you don't mean to say that you have gone and abandoned that last charming art. I still love to dance. Doesn't Mrs. Kane?»
«No, she doesn't care to. At least she hasn't taken it up. Come to think of it, I suppose that is my fault. I haven't thought of dancing in some time.»
It occurred to him that he hadn't been going to functions of any kind much for some time. The opposition his entanglement had generated had put a stop to that.
«Come and dance with me to-night. Your wife won't object. It's a splendid floor. I saw it this morning.»
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«I'll have to think about that,» replied Lester. «I'm not much in practice. Dancing will probably go hard with me at my time of life.»
«Oh, hush, Lester,» replied Mrs. Gerald. «You make me feel old. Don't talk so sedately. Mercy alive, you'd think you were an old man!»
«I am in experience, my dear.»
«Pshaw, that simply makes us more attractive,» replied his old flame.
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CHAPTER XLVI
That night after dinner the music was already sounding in the ball-room of the great hotel adjacent to the palm-gardens when Mrs. Gerald found Lester smoking on one of the verandas with Jennie by his side. The latter was in white satin and white slippers, her hair lying a heavy, enticing mass about her forehead and ears. Lester was brooding over the history of Egypt, its successive tides or waves of rather weak-bodied people; the thin, narrow strip of soil along either side of the Nile that had given these successive waves of population sustenance; the wonder of heat and tropic life, and this hotel with its modern conveniences and fashionable crowd set down among ancient, soul-weary, almost despairing conditions. He and Jennie had looked this morning on the pyramids. They had taken a trolley to the Sphinx! They had watched swarms of ragged, half-clad, curiously costumed men and boys moving through narrow, smelly, albeit brightly colored, lanes and alleys.
«It all seems such a mess to me,» Jennie had said at one place. «They are so dirty and oily. I like it, but somehow they seem tangled up, like a lot of worms.»
Lester chuckled, «You're almost right. But climate does it. Heat. The tropics. Life is always mushy and sensual under these conditions. They can't help it.»
«Oh, I know that. I don't blame them. They're just queer.»
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To-night he was brooding over this, the moon shining down into the grounds with an exuberant, sensuous luster.
«Well, at last I've found you!» Mrs. Gerald exclaimed. «I couldn't get down to dinner, after all. Our party was so late getting back. I've made your husband agree to dance with me, Mrs. Kane,» she went on smilingly. She, like Lester and Jennie, was under the sensuous influence of the warmth, the spring, the moonlight. There were rich odors abroad, floating subtly from groves and gardens; from the remote distance camel-bells were sounding and exotic cries, «Ayah!» and «oosh! oosh!» as though a drove of strange animals were being rounded up and driven through the crowded streets.
«You're welcome to him,» replied Jennie pleasantly. «He ought to dance. I sometimes wish I did.»
«You ought to take lessons right away then,» replied Lester genially. «I'll do my best to keep you company. I'm not as light on my feet as I was once, but I guess I can get around.»
«Oh, I don't want to dance that badly,» smiled Jennie. «But you two go on, I'm going up-stairs in a little while, anyway.»
«Why don't you come sit in the ball-room? I can't do more than a few rounds. Then we can watch the others,» said Lester rising.
«No. I think I'll stay here. It's so pleasant. You go. Take him, Mrs. Gerald.»
Lester and Letty strolled away. They made a striking pair – Mrs. Gerald in dark wine-colored silk, covered with glistening black beads, her shapely arms and neck bare, and a flashing diamond of great size set just above her forehead in her dark hair. Her lips were red, and she had an engaging smile, showing an even row of white teeth between wide, full, friendly lips.
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