Jennie Gerhardt
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JENNIE GERHARDT
a finer part than he. Worst of all, his deed could not be excused on the grounds of necessity. He could have lived on ten thousand a year; he could have done without the million and more which was now his. He could have done without the society, the pleasures of which had always been a lure. He could have, but he had not, and he had complicated it all with the thought of another woman.
Was she as good as Jennie? That was a question which always rose before him. Was she as kindly? Wasn't she deliberately scheming under his very eyes to win him away from the woman who was as good as his wife? Was that admirable? Was it the thing a truly big woman would do? Was she good enough for him after all? Ought he to marry her? Ought he to marry any one seeing that he really owed a spiritual if not a legal allegiance to Jennie? Was it worth while for any woman to marry him? These things turned in his brain. They haunted him. He could not shut out the fact that he was doing a cruel and unlovely thing.
Material error in the first place was now being complicated with spiritual error. He was attempting to right the first by committing the second. Could it be done to his own satisfaction? Would it pay mentally and spiritually? Would it bring him peace of mind? He was thinking, thinking, all the while he was readjusting his life to the old (or perhaps better yet, new) conditions, and he was not feeling any happier. As a matter of fact he was feeling worse – grim, revengeful. If he married Letty he thought at times it would be to use her fortune as a club to knock other enemies over the head, and he hated to think he was marrying her for that. He took up his abode at the Auditorium, visited Cincinnati in a distant and aggressive
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spirit, sat in council with the board of directors, wishing that he was more at peace with himself, more interested in life. But he did not change his policy in regard to Jennie.
Of course Mrs. Gerald had been vitally interested in Lester's rehabilitation. She waited tactfully some little time before sending him any word; finally she ventured to write to him at the Hyde Park address (as if she did not know where he was), asking, «Where are you?» By this time Lester had become slightly accustomed to the change in his life. He was saying to himself that he needed sympathetic companionship, the companionship of a woman, of course. Social invitations had begun to come to him now that he was alone and that his financial connections were so obviously restored. He had made his appearance, accompanied only by a Japanese valet, at several country houses, the best sign that he was once more a single man. No reference was made by any one to the past.
On receiving Mrs. Gerald's note he decided that he ought to go and see her. He had treated her rather shabbily. For months preceding his separation from Jennie he had not gone near her. Even now he waited until time brought a 'phoned invitation to dinner. This he accepted.
Mrs. Gerald was at her best as a hostess at her perfectly appointed dinner-table. Alboni, the pianist, was there on this occasion, together with Adam Rascavage, the sculptor, a visiting scientist from England, Sir Nelson Keyes, and, curiously enough, Mr. and Mrs. Berry Dodge, whom Lester had not met socially in several years. Mrs. Gerald and Lester exchanged the joyful greetings of those who understand each other thoroughly and are happy in each other's company. «Aren't you ashamed of yourself, sir,» she said to him when he made his
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appearance, «to treat me so indifferently? You are going to be punished for this.»
«What's the damage?» he smiled. «I've been extremely rushed. I suppose something like ninety stripes will serve me about right.»
«Ninety stripes, indeed!» she retorted. «You're letting yourself off easy. What is it they do to evil-doers in Siam?»
«Boil them in oil, I suppose.»
«Well, anyhow, that's more like. I'm thinking of something terrible.»
«Be sure and tell me when you decide,» he laughed, and passed on to be presented to distinguished strangers by Mrs. De Lincum who aided Mrs. Gerald in receiving.
The talk was stimulating. Lester was always at his ease intellectually, and this mental atmosphere revived him. Presently he turned to greet Berry Dodge, who was standing at his elbow.
Dodge was all cordiality. «Where are you now?» he asked. «We haven't seen you in – oh, when? Mrs. Dodge is waiting to have a word with you.» Lester noticed the change in Dodge's attitude.
«Some time, that's sure,» he replied easily. «I'm living at the Auditorium.»
«I was asking after you the other day. You know Jackson Du Bois? Of course you do. We were thinking of running up into Canada for some hunting. Why don't you join us?»
«I can't,» replied Lester. «Too many things on hand just now. Later, surely.»
Dodge was anxious to continue. He had seen Lester's election as a director of the C. H. & D. Obviously he was coming
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back into the world. But dinner was announced and Lester sat at Mrs. Gerald's right hand.
«Aren't you coming to pay me a dinner call some afternoon after this?» asked Mrs. Gerald confidentially when the conversation was brisk at the other end of the table.
«I am, indeed,» he replied, «and shortly. Seriously, I've been wanting to look you up. You understand though how things are now?»
«I do. I've heard a great deal. That's why I want you to come. We need to talk together.»
Ten days later he did call. He felt as if he must talk with her; he was feeling bored and lonely; his long home life with Jennie had made hotel life objectionable. He felt as though he must find a sympathetic, intelligent ear, and where better than here? Letty was all ears for his troubles. She would have pillowed his solid head upon her breast in a moment if that had been possible.
«Well,» he said, when the usual fencing preliminaries were over, «what will you have me say in explanation?»
«Have you burned your bridges behind you?» she asked. «I'm not so sure,» he replied gravely. «And I can't say that
I'm feeling any too joyous about the matter as a whole.»
«I thought as much,» she replied. «I knew how it would be with you. I can see you wading through this mentally, Lester. I have been watching you, every step of the way, wishing you peace of mind. These things are always so difficult, but don't you know I am still sure it's for the best. It never was right the other way. It never could be. You couldn't afford to sink back into a mere shell-fish life. You are not organized temperamentally for that any more than I am. You may regret what you are doing now, but
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you would have regretted the other thing quite as much and more. You couldn't work your life out that way – now, could you?»
«I don't know about that, Letty. Really, I don't. I've wanted to come and see you for a long time, but I didn't think that I ought to. The fight was outside – you know what I mean.»
«Yes, indeed, I do,» she said soothingly.
«It's still inside. I haven't gotten over it. I don't know whether this financial business binds me sufficiently or not. I'll be frank and tell you that I can't say I love her entirely; but I'm sorry, and that's something.»
«She's comfortably provided for, of course,» she commented rather than inquired.
«Everything she wants. Jennie is of a peculiar disposition. She doesn't want much. She's retiring by nature and doesn't care for show. I've taken a cottage for her at Sandwood, a little place north of here on the lake; and there's plenty of money in trust, but, of course, she knows she can live anywhere she pleases.»
«I understand exactly how she feels, Lester. I know how you feel. She is going to suffer very keenly for a while – we all do when we have to give up the thing we love. But we can get over it, and we do. At least, we can live. She will. It will go hard at first, but after a while she will see how it is, and she won't feel any the worse toward you.»
«Jennie will never reproach me, I know that,» he replied. «I'm the one who will do the reproaching. I'll be abusing myself for some time. The trouble is with my particular turn of mind. I can't tell, for the life of me, how much of this disturbing feeling of mine is habit – the condition that I'm accustomed to – and how much is sympathy. I sometimes think I'm the the most pointless individual in the world. I think too much.»
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«Poor Lester!» she said tenderly. «Well, I understand for one. You're lonely living where you are, aren't you?»
«I am that,» he replied.
«Why not come and spend a few days down at West Baden? I'm going there.»
«When?» he inquired. «Next Tuesday.»
«Let me see,» he replied. «I'm not sure that I can.» He consulted his notebook. «I could come Thursday, for a few days.»
«Why not do that? You need company. We can walk and talk things out down there. Will you?»
«Yes, I will,» he replied.
She came toward him, trailing a lavender lounging robe. «You're such a solemn philosopher, sir,» she observed comfortably, «working through all the ramifications of things. Why do you? You were always like that.»
«I can't help it,» he replied. «It's my nature to think.» «Well, one thing I know – « and she tweaked his ear gen-
tly. «You're not going to make another mistake through sympathy if I can help it,» she said daringly. «You're going to stay disentangled long enough to give yourself a chance to think out what you want to do. You must. And I wish for one thing you'd take over the management of my affairs. You could advise me so much better than my lawyer.»
He arose and walked to the window, turning to look back at her solemnly. «I know what you want,» he said doggedly.
«And why shouldn't I?» she demanded, again approaching him. She looked at him pleadingly, defiantly. «Yes, why shouldn't I?»
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«You don't know what you're doing,» he grumbled; but he kept on looking at her; she stood there, attractive as a woman of her age could be, wise, considerate, full of friendship and affection.
«Letty,» he said. «You ought not to want to marry me. I'm not worth it. Really I'm not. I'm too cynical. Too indifferent. It won't be worth anything in the long run.»
«It will be worth something to me,» she insisted. «I know what you are. Anyhow, I don't care. I want you!»
He took her hands, then her arms. Finally he drew her to him, and put his arms about her waist. «Poor Letty!» he said; «I'm not worth it. You'll be sorry.»
«No, I'll not,» she replied. «I know what I'm doing. I don't care what you think you are worth.» She laid her cheek on his shoulder. «I want you.»
«If you keep on I venture to say you'll have me,» he returned. He bent and kissed her.
«Oh,» she exclaimed, and hid her hot face against his breast.
«This is bad business,» he thought, even as he held her within the circle of his arms. «It isn't what I ought to be doing.»
Still he held her, and now when she offered her lips coaxingly he kissed her again and again.
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CHAPTER LVI
It is difficult to say whether Lester might not have returned to Jennie after all but for certain influential factors. After a time, with his control of his portion of the estate firmly settled in his hands and the storm of original feeling forgotten, he was well aware that diplomacy – if he ignored his natural tendency to fulfil even implied obligations – could readily bring about an arrangement whereby he and Jennie could be together. But he was haunted by the sense of what might be called an important social opportunity in the form of Mrs. Gerald. He was compelled to set over against his natural tendency toward Jennie a consciousness of what he was ignoring in the personality and fortunes of her rival, who was one of the most significant and interesting figures on the social horizon. For think as he would, these two women were now persistently opposed in his consciousness. The one polished, sympathetic, philosophic – schooled in all the niceties of polite society, and with the means to gratify her every wish; the other natural, sympathetic, emotional, with no schooling in the ways of polite society, but with a feeling for the beauty of life and the lovely things in human relationship which made her beyond any question an exceptional woman. Mrs. Gerald saw it and admitted it. Her criticism of Lester's relationship with Jennie was not that she was not worth while, but that
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conditions made it impolitic. On the other hand, union with her was an ideal climax for his social aspirations. This would bring everything out right. He would be as happy with her as he would be with Jennie – almost – and he would have the satisfaction of knowing that this Western social and financial world held no more significant figure than himself. It was not wise to delay either this latter excellent solution of his material problems, and after thinking it over long and seriously he finally concluded that he would not. He had already done Jennie the irreparable wrong of leaving her. What difference did it make if he did this also? She was possessed of everything she could possibly want outside of himself. She had herself deemed it advisable for him to leave. By such figments of the brain, in the face of unsettled and disturbing conditions, he was becoming used to the idea of a new alliance.
The thing which prevented an eventual resumption of relationship in some form with Jennie was the constant presence of Mrs. Gerald. Circumstances conspired to make her the logical solution of his mental quandary at this time. Alone he could do nothing save to make visits here and there, and he did not care to do that. He was too indifferent mentally to gather about him as a bachelor that atmosphere which he enjoyed and which a woman like Mrs. Gerald could so readily provide. United with her it was simple enough. Their home then, wherever it was, would be full of clever people. He would need to do little save to appear and enjoy it. She understood quite as well as any one how he liked to live. She enjoyed to meet the people he enjoyed meeting. There were so many things they could do together nicely. He visited West Baden at the same time she did, as she suggested. He gave himself over to her in
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Chicago for dinners, parties, drives. Her house was quite as much his own as hers – she made him feel so. She talked to him about her affairs, showing him exactly how they stood and why she wished him to intervene in this and that matter. She did not wish him to be much alone. She did not want him to think or regret. She came to represent to him comfort, forgetfulness, rest from care. With the others he visited at her house occasionally, and it gradually became rumored about that he would marry her. Because of the fact that there had been so much discussion of his previous relationship, Letty decided that if ever this occurred it should be a quiet affair. She wanted a simple explanation in the papers of how it had come about, and then afterward, when things were normal again and gossip had subsided, she would enter on a dazzling social display for his sake.
«Why not let us get married in April and go abroad for the summer?» she asked once, after they had reached a silent understanding that marriage would eventually follow. «Let's go to Japan. Then we can come back in the fall, and take a house on the drive.»
Lester had been away from Jennie so long now that the first severe wave of self-reproach had passed. He was still doubtful, but he preferred to stifle his misgivings. «Very well,» he replied, almost jokingly. «Only don't let there be any fuss about it.»
«Do you really mean that, sweet?» she exclaimed, looking over at him; they had been spending the evening together quietly reading and chatting.
«I've thought about it a long while,» he replied. «I don't see why not.»
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