# Twilight Sleep (Wharton)/Chapter 16

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XVI
PAULINE'S nervousness had gradually subsided. About the Rivingtons—why, after all, it wasn't such a bad idea to show them that, with a man of Manford's importance, one must take one's chance of getting him, and make the best of it if he failed one at the last. "Professional engagement; oh, yes, entirely unexpected; extremely important; so dreadfully sorry, but you know lawyers are not their own masters. . ." It had been rather pleasant to say that to a flustered Mrs. Rivington, stammering: "Oh, but couldn't he . . .? But we'll wait . . . we'll dine at half-past nine. . ." Pleasant also to add: "He must reserve his whole evening, I'm afraid," and then hang up, and lean back at leisure, while Mrs. Rivington (how Pauline pictured it!) dashed down in her dressing-gown and crimping pins to re-arrange a table to which as much thought had been given as if a feudal aristocracy were to sit at it.
To Pauline the fact that Manford wanted to be alone with her made even such renunciations easy. How many years had passed since he had expressed such a wish? And did she owe his tardy return to the Mahatma and reduced hips, or the Inspirational ​Healer and renewed optimism? If only a woman could guess what inclined a man's heart to her, what withdrew it! Pauline, if she had had the standardizing of life, would have begun with human hearts, and had them turned out in series, all alike, rather than let them come into being haphazard, cranky amateurish things that you couldn't count on, or start up again if anything went wrong. . .
Just a touch of rouge? Well, perhaps her maid was right. She did look rather pale and drawn. Mrs. Herman Toy put it on with a trowel . . . apparently that was what men liked. . . Pauline shed a faint bloom on her checks and ran her clever fingers through her prettily waved hair, wondering again, as she did so, if it wouldn't be better to bob it. Then the mauve tea-gown, the Chinese amethysts, and those silver sandals that made her feet so slender. She looked at herself with a sigh of pleasure. Dinner was to be served in the boudoir.
Manford was very late; it was ten o'clock before coffee and liqueurs were put on the low stand by the fire, and the little dinner-table was noiselessly removed. The fire glowed invitingly, and he sank into the armchair his wife pushed forward with a sound like a murmur of content.
"Such a day—" he said, passing his hand across his forehead as if to brush away a tangle of legal problems.
"You do too much, Dexter; you really do. I know how wonderfully young you are for your age, ​but still—." She broke off, dimly perceiving that, in spite of the flattering exordium, this allusion to his age was not quite welcome.
"Nothing to do with age," he growled. "Everybody who does anything at all does too much." (Did he mean to imply that she did nothing?)
"The nervous strain—" she began, once more wondering if this were not the moment to slip in a word of Alvah Loft. But though Manford had wished to be with her he had apparently no desire to listen to her. It was all her own fault, she felt. If only she had known how to reveal the secret tremors that were rippling through her! There were women not half as clever and tactful—not younger, either, nor even as good-looking—who would have known at once what to say, or how to spell the mute syllables of soul-telegraphy. If her husband had wanted facts—a good confidential talk about the new burglar-alarm, or a clear and careful analysis of the engine-house bills, or the heating system for the swimming pool—she could have found just the confidential and tender accent for such topics. Intimacy, to her, meant the tireless discussion of facts, not necessarily of a domestic order, but definite and palpable facts. For her part she was ready for anything, from Birth Control to neo-impressionism: she flattered herself that few women had a wider range. In confidential moments she preferred the homelier themes, and would have enjoyed best of all being tender and gay about the coal cellar, or reticent ​and brave about the leak in the boiler; but she was ready to deal with anything as long as it was a fact, something with substance and outline, as to which one could have an opinion and a line of conduct. What paralyzed her was the sense that, apart from his profession, her husband didn't care for facts, and that nothing was less likely to rouse his interest than burglar-alarm wiring, or the last new thing in electric ranges. Obviously, one must take men as they were, wilful, moody and mysterious; but she would have given the world to be told (since for all her application she had never discovered) what those other women said who could talk to a man about nothing.
Manford lit a cigar and stared into the fire. "It's about that fool Amalasuntha," he began at length, addressing his words to the logs.
The name jerked Pauline back to reality. Here was a fact—hard, knobby and uncomfortable! And she had actually forgotten it in the confused pleasure of their tête-à-tête! So he had only come home to talk to her about Amalasuntha. She tried to keep the flatness out of her: "Yes, dear?"
He continued, still fixed on the fire: "You may not know that we've had a narrow escape."
"A narrow escape?"
"That damned Michelangelo—his mother was importing him this very week. The cable had gone. If I hadn't put a stop to it we'd have been saddled with him for life."
​Pauline's breath failed her. She listened with straining ears.
"You haven't seen her, then—she hasn't told you?" Manford continued. "She was getting him out on her own responsibility to turn a film for Klawhammer. Simply that! By the mercy of heaven I headed her off—but we hadn't a minute to lose."
In her bewilderment at this outburst, and at what it revealed, Pauline continued to sit speechless. "Michelangelo—Klawhammer? I didn't know! But wouldn't it have been the best solution, perhaps?"
"Solution—of what? Don't you think one member of the family on the screen's enough at a time? Or would it have looked prettier to see him and Lita featured together on every hoarding in the country? My God—I thought I'd done the right thing in acting for you . . . there was no time to consult you . . . but if you don't care, why should I? He's none of my family . . . and she isn't either, for that matter."
He had swung round from the hearth, and faced her for the first time, his brows contracted, the veins swelling on his temples, his hands grasping his knees as if to constrain himself not to start up in righteous indignation. He was evidently deeply disturbed, yet his anger, she felt, was only the unconscious mask of another emotion—an emotion she could not divine. His vehemence, and the sense ​of moving in complete obscurity, had an intimidating effect on her.
"I don't quite understand, Dexter. Amalasuntha was here today. She said nothing about films, or Klawhammer; but she did say that you'd made it unnecessary for Michelangelo to come to America."
"Didn't she say how?"
"She said something about—paying his debts."
Manford stood up and went to lean against the mantelpiece. He looked down on his wife, who in her turn kept her eyes on the embers.
"Well—you didn't suppose I made that offer till I saw we were up against it, did you?"
His voice rose again angrily, but a cautious glance at his face showed her that its tormented lines were damp with perspiration. Her immediate thought was that he must be ill, that she ought to take his temperature—she always responded by first-aid impulses to any contact with human distress. But no, after all, it was not that: he was unhappy, that was it, he was desperately unhappy. But why? Was it because he feared he had exceeded his rights in pledging her to such an extent, in acting for her when there was no time to consult her? Apparently the idea of the discord between Lita and Jim, and Lita's thirst for scenic notoriety, had shocked him deeply—much more, in reality, than they had Pauline. If so, his impulse had been a natural one, and eminently in keeping with those Wyant traditions with which (at suitable moments) she con​tinued to identify herself. Yes: she began to understand his thinking it would be odious to her to see the names of her son's wife and this worthless Italian cousin emblazoned over every Picture Palace in the land. She felt moved by his regard for her feelings. After all, as he said, Lita and Michelangelo were no relations of his; he could easily have washed his hands of the whole affair.
"I'm sure what you've done must be right, Dexter; you know I always trust your judgment. Only—I wish you'd explain. . ."
"Explain what?" Her mild reply seemed to provoke a new wave of exasperation. "The only way to stop his coming was to pay his debts. They're very heavy. I had no right to commit you; I acknowledge it."
She took a deep breath, the figure of Michelangelo's liabilities blazing out before her as on a giant blackboard. Then: "You had every right, Dexter," she said. "I'm glad you did it."
He stood silent, his head bent, twisting between his fingers the cigar he had forgotten to relight. It was as if he had been startled out of speech by the promptness of her acquiescence, and would have found it easier to go on arguing and justifying himself.
"That's—very handsome of you, Pauline," he said at length.
"Oh, no—why? You did it out of regard for me, I know. Only—perhaps you won't mind our talking ​things over a little. About ways and means . . ." she added, seeing his forehead gloom again.
"Ways and means—oh, certainly. But please understand that I don't expect you to shoulder the whole sum. I've had two big fees lately; I've already arranged—"
She interrupted him quickly. "It's not your affair, Dexter. You're awfully generous, always; but I couldn't think of letting you—"
"It is my affair; it's all of our affair. I don't want this nasty notoriety any more than you do . . . and Jim's happiness wrecked into the bargain. . ."
"You're awfully generous," she repeated.
"It's first of all a question of helping Jim and Lita. If that young ass came over here with a contract from Klawhammer in his pocket there'd be no holding her. And once that gang get hold of a woman. . ." He spoke with a kind of breathless irritation, as though it were incredible that Pauline should still not understand.
"It's very fine of you, dear," she could only murmur.
A pause followed, during which, for the first time, she could assemble her thoughts and try to take in the situation. Dexter had bought off Michelangelo to keep one more disturbing element out of the family complication; perhaps also to relieve himself of the bother of having on his hands, at close quarters, an idle and mischief-making young man. That was comprehensible. But if his first object had been ​the securing of Jim's peace of mind, might not the same end have been achieved, more satisfactorily to every one but Michelangelo, by his uniting with Pauline to increase Jim's allowance, and thus giving Lita the amusement and distraction of having a lot more money to spend? Even at such a moment, Pauline's practical sense of values made it hard for her to accept the idea of putting so many good thousands into the pockets of Michelangelo's creditors. She was naturally generous; but no matter how she disposed of her fortune, she could never forget that it had been money—and how much money it had been—before it became something else. For her it was never transmuted, but only exchanged.
"You're not satisfied—you don't think I did right?" Manford began again.
"I don't say that, Dexter. I'm only wondering—. Supposing we'd given the money to Jim instead? Lita could have done her house over . . . or built a bungalow in Florida . . . or bought jewels with it. . . She's so easily amused."
"Easily amused!" He broke into a hard laugh. "Why, that amount of money wouldn't amuse her for a week!" His face took on a look of grim introspection. "She wants the universe—or her idea of it. A woman with an offer from Klawhammer dangling in front of her! Mrs. Landish told me the figure—those people could buy us all out and not know it."
​Pauline's heart sank. Apparently he knew things about Lita of which she was still ignorant. "I hadn't heard the offer had actually been made. But if it has, and she wants to accept, how can we stop her?"
Manford had thrown himself down into his armchair. He got up again, relit his cigar, and walked across the room and back before answering. "I don't know that we can. And I don't know how we can. But I want to try. . . I want time to try. . . Don't you see, Pauline? The child—we mustn't be hard on her. Her beginnings were damnable. . . Perhaps you know—yes? That cursed Mahatma place?" Pauline winced, and looked away from him. He had seen the photograph, then! And heaven knows what more he had discovered in the course of his investigations for the Lindons. . . A sudden light glared out at her. It was for Jim's sake and Lita's that he had dropped the case—sacrificed his convictions, his sense of the duty of exposing a social evil! She faltered: "I do know . . . a little. . ."
"Well, a little's enough. Swine—! And that's the rotten atmosphere she was brought up in. But she's not bad, Pauline . . . there's something stillto be done with her . . . give me time . . . time. . ." He stopped abruptly, as if the "me" had slipped out by mistake. "We must all stand shoulder to shoulder to put up this fight for her," he ​corrected himself with a touch of forensic emphasis.
"Of course, dear, of course," Pauline murmured.
"When we get her to ourselves at Cedarledge, you and Nona and I. . . It's just as well Jim's going off, by the way. He's got her nerves on edge; Jim's a trifle dense at times, you know. . . And, above all, this whole business, Klawhammer and all, must be kept from him. We'll all hold our tongues till the thing blows over, eh?"
"Of course," she again assented. "But supposing Lita asks to speak to me?"
"Well, let her speak—listen to what she has to say. . ." He stopped, and then added, in a rough unsteady voice: "Only don't be hard on her. You won't, will you? No matter what rot she talks. The child's never had half a chance."
"How could you think I should, Dexter?"
"No; no; I don't." He stood up, and sent a slow unseeing gaze about the room. The gaze took in his wife, and rested on her long enough to make her feel that she was no more to him—mauve tea-gown, Chinese amethysts, touch of rouge and silver sandals—than a sheet of glass through which he was staring: staring at what? She had never before felt so inexistent.
"Well—I'm dog-tired—down and out," he said with one of his sudden jerks, shaking his shoulders and turning toward the door. He did not remember ​to say goodnight to her: how should he have, when she was no longer there for him?
After the door had closed, Pauline in her turn looked slowly about the room. It was as if she were taking stock of the havoc wrought by an earthquake; but nothing about her showed any sign of disorder except the armchair her husband had pushed back, the rug his movement had displaced.
With instinctive precision she straightened the rug, and rolled the armchair back into its proper corner. Then she went up to a mirror and attentively scrutinized herself. The light was unbecoming, perhaps . . . the shade of the adjacent wall-candle had slipped out of place. She readjusted it . . . yes, that was better! But of course, at nearly midnight—and after such a day!—a woman was bound to look a little drawn. Automatically her lips shaped the familiar: "Pauline, don't worry: there's nothing in the world to worry about." But the rouge had vanished from the lips, their thin line looked blue and arid. She turned from the unpleasing sight, putting out one light after another on the way to her dressing-room.
As she bent to extinguish the last lamp its light struck a tall framed photograph: Lita's latest portrait. Lita had the gift of posing—the lines she fell into always had an unconscious eloquence. And that little round face, as sleek as the inside of a ​shell; the slanting eyes, the budding mouth. . . men, no doubt, would think it all enchanting.
Pauline, with slow steps, went on into the bigshining dressing-room, and to the bathroom beyond,all ablaze with white tiling and silvered taps and tubes. It was the hour of her evening uplift exercises, the final relaxing of body and soul before she slept. Sternly she addressed herself to relaxation.