# Munsey's Magazine/Volume 74/Issue 3/The Married Man

Extracted from Munsey's Magazine, 1921 December, pp. 411–422.
The Married Man
A MODERN COMEDY OF ENLIGHTENED THOUGHT
By Elisabeth Sanxay Holding
Author of "Angelica"
She had got used to Andrew's forgetting all sorts of important anniversaries. In fact, she rather liked him to do so. It gave her something to forgive, and fed her measureless indulgence. All his eccentricities, his absurdities, his brilliant and explosive energy, his terrible exactions, constituted "Andy's ways," which she loved with a deep and pitying love.
Even if he was clever and successful and attractive, he couldn't do the things she could do so easily and so well. He couldn't darn his own socks or cook a dinner or make a bed. She insisted that he was helpless—that all men were helpless. She was the sort of woman who would have pitied Julius Cæsar because he couldn't make an omelet.
Something of this kindly indulgence was reflected upon her nice face as she sat in the library sewing and waiting for Andrew. She was a handsome, dignified, good-tempered woman of thirty-five, who was never to be taken by surprise. No matter what might happen, she would raise her eyebrows and smile and say, "Well?"—which was her nice, kind way of saying, "I told you so!"
And generally she had told you so, because, like so many other unimaginative people, she could almost always foresee ordinary consequences. Her prognostications were based, not upon probabilities, but upon experience.
It was the tenth anniversary of their wedding—an important day in a household. And yet, knowing Andrew as she did, Marian had made no preparations for festivity, because he was as likely as not to forget or to neglect even a special dinner. She would remind him when he came in, and smile at him, and he would be startled and contrite. She would not acknowledge the little wound that was there, even to herself.
Nor would she acknowledge what she really knew quite well—that Andy wasn't happy, as she was. Hadn't she provided him with all the materials for happiness—a lovely, peaceful home, three pretty, healthy children, and just the social background he required?
What is more, she knew that no just man could find a fault in her as a wife. She was thrifty, conscientious, sympathetic, a correct and popular hostess, an excellent mother. She was never irritable, never gloomy, never exacting. She was handsome, and understood how to dress. There was really nothing within the domestic cosmos to which a sane man could object.
That may have been the trouble. Andrew was a man who did not approve of happiness. He wanted and required to be forever struggling and rebelling and resenting. Marian had often, with amusement, noticed him trying to provoke a quarrel with her; but of course he never could, for she never quarreled.
The clock struck eleven. She sighed a little, laid down her sewing, and picked up a book. It had been a very trying day. Andrew had vanished, without the least regard for appointments he himself had made, or office hours, and she had had to placate all sorts of people without knowing at all the cause of his delinquency. It was simply another of "Andy's ways," and a very troublesome one in a doctor.
She recognized it as part of a wife's duties to smooth the path of her husband—above all, of a husband who was the next thing to a genius. She was accustomed to hearing him spoken of as "brilliant." She was proud of it, and secretly a little proud of his eccentricities. He was an extraordinary man, no doubt about it, and he required a wife of extraordinary tact.
He was a physician, but not satisfied with that. He liked to write articles and give lectures, and he had a reputation as a very daring if not very sound investigator along sociological lines. He had proclaimed and printed office hours; but if he were busy writing, he wouldn't see any one who came, and it was Marian, of course, who did have to see these people and get them away not too grossly offended.
At other times there would be some patient who interested him, and he would shut himself up with him or her; and again in this case Marian had to soothe and placate the other patients who had seen the favored one admitted, and who naturally resented being kept waiting so outrageously. There was not a trace of jealousy, or of curiosity, in Marian. She smiled at his interest in a pretty woman.
She wasn't too much interested in anything—certainly not in the book she had taken up, for she put it down again with a yawn within a very few minutes, to look at the clock and to give a small sigh. She couldn't help wishing that Andrew had remembered what day it was, at least to the extent of an extra kiss. Even the most sensible and placid woman might wish that.
Then, at last, he did come in, in a mood she knew well; and her faint hope that perhaps he had remembered, and would bring her flowers, fell stone dead. He flung himself into a chair, hot and tired and rather pale, with his red hair ruffled up, giving him the look of a sulky and earnest child.
"Well!" said Marian, with a nice smile. "Here you are! Such a day as I've had, Andy! People telephoning and insisting that they had appointments and refusing to be put off; and poor me without the least idea where you were or when you'd come back! There was that poor woman with the albino twins—"
He frowned impatiently.
"That doesn't matter. I don't want the case, anyway. No! See here, Marian. I want to talk to you."
She said "Yes?" inquiringly, with her kind and pleasant face turned toward him, but he didn't look at her. He sat staring at the ground, huddled down in his chair, rumpled, disheveled.
"What is there about him so attractive?" Marian reflected, not for the first time.
He was not handsome, he was very untidy, he was casual, rude, distrait; a slender, wiry red-haired fellow of thirty-five, with a sharp-featured, rather pale, freckled face and restless, bright brown eyes.
At last he looked up at his wife, still frowning.
"Don't be hurt!" he said. "And try to understand!"
"Of course I will, Andy."
"I've been walking," he went on, "for hours—almost all day—thinking it out. This lecture that I'm to give, you know, to-morrow—"
"Oh, yes—before the Moral Courage Club."
"I'd made fairly comprehensive notes of what I was going to say; but it's been growing on me, every day, how weak and cowardly it is—how evasive. I hadn't dared to be frank. I never have dared. I've compromised. I've lied. I've kept it up for ten years—ten years to-day, Marian!"
"Kept up what?" she asked, startled.
"This damnable hypocrisy!" he cried. "This wretched, revolting pretense! Do you know that it's the anniversary to-night of that horrible ceremony—that perjury—that mockery we called our marriage?"
Marian had grown quite white.
"Why, Andy!" she faltered. "I never thought—I thought—I always hoped you were—happy!"
He sprang up and began to pace the room.
"I can't stand it any longer!" he cried. "I'm at the end of my tether. Oh, this marriage!"
"Is it—me, Andy?" Marian asked rather pitifully.
"No! No! It's simply marriage—marriage with any one. It's this base, disgusting monotony, this abominable pettiness, this eternal talk about servants and children and coal-bills and neighbors and card-parties. It stifles me. It sickens me. I can't live any more unless I'm free!"
"Do you mean that you—want a divorce, Andy?" she asked, with a gallant effort to disguise her terror and distress.
"No," he answered, "not necessarily. I shouldn't like to lose you altogether, Marian—unless, of course, you'd like to form another connection. Would you?"
"No—no, Andy, I wouldn't!"
"I didn't think so. What I want, Marian, is simply to ignore our marriage. I want to be released from its petty restrictions and obligations. Will you do that, Marian? Will you absolve me from all these preposterous 'vows,' and so on?"
"Yes," she answered promptly. "I will—if you like."
"And you won't be hurt? You won't be petty? You won't think I'm not fond of you, Marian?"
She shook her head.
"You see, don't you, that we can be just as fond of each other, and yet go our separate ways?"
"Are we—does that mean—that we're to—part?" she asked.
He came over and laid a hand on her shoulder.
"My dear girl," he said, "I can't live with you any longer."
She couldn't restrain a sob.
"Oh, Andy! Oh! Is there—some one else?"
"No! Can't you see? I want to be alone—to live alone—in freedom. I'll take a house for myself somewhere, and you'll go on here, just as usual; except that I'd like to have the children part of the time. I won't be unreasonable, though."
"I don't think I'd—like to—go on here, without you," she said in a trembling voice. "I'd be—lonely."
"Nonsense! Not after a day or so. You'd enjoy the freedom, too. I've got my eye on a little house that will suit me very well. And really, Marian, I'd very much prefer you and the children keeping on here in the same way. Of course, I should make you the same housekeeping allowance, and so on."
"I would like a little freedom, too," she said. "I—can't stop here—without you, Andrew."
"Well, of course," he answered, rather disconcerted, "I've no right to dictate to you."
"You can stay here," she said, "with the children, and I'll go and stop with mother for a few days, where I can think it over quietly. Then I'll send for the babies. I—you see, I want to—get used to this. It's—rather sudden."
It was no longer possible to conceal the fact that she was weeping. Her husband was really distressed. He patted her lovely, shining hair with a careless hand, while he scowled anxiously before him.
"My dear girl! Please! This isn't a tragedy, by any means. Simply let's be two sensible, modern people who refuse to be bound by certain conventions. Do be your own sensible self, won't you?"
"I—will—try!" she sobbed. "Only—you'll have to give me—a little time."
He looked at the clock; it was a little after midnight.
"Perhaps I'd better leave you alone," he said. "I'll be going now."
"Going? Where? At this hour?"
"Well, you see—that lecture to-morrow. It's to be 'Marriage from the Man's Point of View.' I can't, with any dignity, any decency, say what I wish to say—be really honest—in the character of a domestic man. It would be a farce. I must be able to say that I'm a free man, do you see?"
"Yes," she said, wiping her eyes. "But—does that mean it's got to begin now?"
"What?"
"The—living apart?"
"I'm afraid so. I thought I'd go to a hotel for the night, and send after my things in the morning."
"Oh, no, Andy, please! I couldn't explain—to the servants. No! That's the only thing I ask you. Let me be the one to go. You can say it's a telegram from mother."
"Nonsense, my dear girl! I won't hear of it! Turning you out of the house at this hour of the night! Let me go!"
"No, Andrew, I'd rather; really I would! I'd like to go. I—need a change. If you'll call a taxi while I pack my bag—"
"You're quite sure?" he asked anxiously, and again she assured him that she really wished to go.
She went up to the big, lamp-lit bedroom, so immaculate, so charming, with its two brass beds, the dressing-table and bureau gleaming with silver, the soft gray rug on the floor, her dear little sewing-table, all the photographs—
"Oh, why?" she cried. "Oh, why do I have to leave it?"
She went about in her brisk, sensible way, selecting things out of one drawer and another and packing them neatly into a bag; but long before she had finished a sudden spasm of pain overcame her. She sat down in her own particular wicker chair, and sobbed bitterly.
"I don't understand!" she cried. "I don't! I don't! Not a bit!"
II
She was her usual calm self when she came down-stairs again, and was able to give her husband a great many directions and suggestions as they rode to the station.
"I'll send a night letter to Miss Franklin to come and take care of the children till I send for them," she said. "I happen to know that she's free now. She's such a capable girl! You'll have nothing to worry about with her in the house."
Anxiously, but timidly, afraid that it was a reactionary and contemptible insistence, but resolute to save herself in the eyes of her world, contemptible or not, she added:
"And you'll be sure to say that I got a telegram from mother, won't you, Andrew?"
She kissed him good-by kindly, pleasantly, and succeeded in getting into the train with her nice smile still on her lips. Andrew was reassured, and went home to spend what was left of the night in completing his lecture notes.
He fell asleep toward morning on the sofa in his office. He would no doubt have slept peacefully on till noon, as he had often done before, if it hadn't been for an unusual noise in the dining-room at breakfast-time. He was a little indignant, for he had never been disturbed before, and he was curious, too. His children—even the four-year-old Frank—were singing lustily, in unison, a jubilant sort of chant, led by a very fresh, clear, loud young female voice.
"Hail! Hail!" they shouted.
All ruffled and rumpled as he was, he entered the room, to find a strange spectacle. His three children were standing on the window-seat, with arms outspread and face upturned. Behind them stood a young woman in the same yearning attitude, while they all cried their invocation:
"To the glorious sun that gives us life, all hail!"
That must have been the end of it, for the children got down and made a rush at him.
"Oh, daddy! Mother's gone to grandma's! "the eldest little girl told him eagerly. "Miss Franklin's going to take care of us. I'm going to write to mother every single day, but not Jean and Frank. They only scribble. She couldn't possibly read it!"
He was not attending. He was looking at the young woman who stood beside him, smiling. She was a short, sturdy blonde with a very pretty and impudent face, a wide, jolly mouth, and queer gray eyes, which were at the same time immensely candid and quite mysterious.
"I'm Christine Franklin," said she. "I'm the originator of the Franklin method of child care. I dare say you've heard of me. Your wife sent me a night letter to come and take charge of your little family for a time. That's what I do, you know—go from house to house, and liberate."
"Liberate?"
"That's how I put it. I always insist that there shall be no interference from parents or relatives or servants. Then I begin to set the children free—to let them express themselves—to be natural."
"I see!" said Andrew. "Is breakfast over?"
It was not, and after a brief toilet he sat down to enjoy it with his family. He felt that he rather liked Miss Franklin.
"Nothing clinging and hyperfeminine about her!" he thought. "A man could make a friend of a girl like that."
He decided to study her. Now that he was free and couldn't be misunderstood, he had decided to make a comprehensive study of woman in general. He knew that there were points about them that he didn't understand. He couldn't really generalize upon the effects of marriage without a better knowledge of females—he admitted that. Why not, he asked himself, begin with this interesting specimen?
"What is the Franklin method?" he asked her.
"It's not really a method at all," she said. "It would be better to call it a theory. It's simply nature and art, hand in hand. I don't believe in directing or controlling a child. I simply help it along the road it indicates itself. My mission is solely to point out beauty to it."
"That's likely to make it very much more difficult for them to become accustomed to discipline and self-restraint when they're old enough to be held responsible."
"But, you see, I don't believe either in discipline or self-restraint, in children or in adults. The natural impulses are sufficient. No, Dr. Nature implants in us only right and beautiful desires. I look upon self-restraint as superfluous, if not absolutely wrong, in a wholesome person."
"Social interdependence requires—" Andrew began.
"We shouldn't interdepend. We should each be a law unto himself. Let us be healthy, in mind and in body; then let desire be the sole rule, the sole conscience. Personally, I know that if I want to do a thing, it is right to do it. If I want to have a thing, it is a right thing for me to have."
Andrew contested that, but she merely smiled at his arguments.
"Well!" she said. "As for me, when I want something, I go after it—and I generally get it."
Andrew met her clear, shameless glance, and an unaccountable shudder ran through him. What a girl! What an enemy she would make—or what a pursuer!
She was undoubtedly an interesting and convenient subject for his new study, but he didn't study her. On the contrary, he avoided her. He shut himself up in his study and tried to write, but the new freedom for his children entailed such a distressing amount of noise and quarreling that he accomplished very little.
He wished to write a long and careful letter to Marian. He was afraid that she hadn't fully understood, that she was a little hurt, in spite of what she had said; but he found it a remarkably difficult thing to explain to a woman that you are very fond of her and yet wish to be rid of her. He was not the first man who has essayed such a task.
The noise in the dining-room became intolerable. He tore up his third attempt at a letter and went in there, in a very bad temper.
"Why the devil do you stay in here?" he shouted to his young family. "Why aren't you out in the garden, or at school, or wherever it is your mother sends you? Don't you know that I'm trying to work?"
Miss Franklin had entered from the kitchen, eating a slice of bread and sugar.
"Ask the cook for some!" she suggested, and the children vanished. "What are you writing?" she inquired frankly.
He didn't care to mention the letter, so he said:
"My lecture. I'm giving one this afternoon, you know."
"What on?"
"'Marriage from the Man's Point of View.'"
She pricked up her ears.
"What is a man's point of view?" she asked.
"For a man," he said, "marriage is moral death. It is slavery—bondage of the worst sort. It is a handicap which prevents any effective progress. It is, of course, an invention of woman's, to safeguard herself and her offspring. She has found it necessary to provide herself with a refuge, and she has ruthlessly taken advantage of her sinister influence over the more sensitive and conscientious man to impress him with a mass of false and pernicious ideas about the 'home.' Man has not one single advantage to gain from marriage, yet he has actually been taught, by mothers, by women teachers, by all the females who surround young children, to think of it as a privilege. He secures a home. What is a home? A nest for the woman, a cage for the man. What is a wife? The most unprincipled, exacting slave-driver ever yet developed. For her and her children he is required to give all the fruit of his labor, and, in addition, a fantastic and debasing reverence and flattery—"
"You poor thing!" said Miss Franklin.
He stopped short, in surprise.
"Why?" he asked. "What do you mean?"
"You must have been so wretched with your wife," said she.
His face turned crimson.
"I wasn't," he said, with an immense effort at self-control. "Quite the contrary. One doesn't apply general remarks to—specific cases."
"Oh, yes, one does indeed!" Miss Franklin insisted.
III
He went off quite in the wrong frame of mind to deliver his lecture. When he had taken a stealthy peep at his audience, he became actually nervous. The Moral Courage Club seemed to be made up almost entirely of women—rows and rows of earnest faces. It would be very unpleasant to wound and distress them, as his words were sure to do, especially as they had all contributed toward the fee he was to receive. For a minute he was almost tempted to soften some of his remarks, but his reformer's ardor flamed up again, and he went out upon the platform bravely.
The sight of their feathers and furs and earrings helped him. After all, they were nothing but barbarians, who must be enlightened at any cost. He began. He told them, as kindly as possible, how selfish, how greedy, how uncivilized they were, how unpleasant they looked in their skins of dead animals and feathers of dead birds, with all their savage and unesthetic finery; how brutally they preyed upon man.
"Marriage ruins a man," he said. "It stifles his ambitions; it coarsens him, it debases him. It outrages his manly self-respect. He is debarred from wholesome and essential experiences. He is shamefully exploited. He is forced into hypocrisy and deceit. Partly from his native kindliness, partly from his woman-directed training, he never dares to tell the truth to the opposite sex."
And so on, directly into those earnest faces, framed by all their barbaric plumes and furs and jewels. To his surprise and dismay, none of them changed, grew abashed or angry or stern. They were only interested, all of them.
They came up in a body when he had finished, and congratulated him.
"You are always so stimulating!" said one.
"You brush aside the non-essentials!" said another.
"It gives one a new outlook!"
"I hope to see it in print. It is so suggestive, dear doctor!"
Only one of the earnest horde made any sort of individual impression, and that was a slender, dark, elegant woman who approached him after every one else had gone.
"Doctor!" she said in a low, thrilling voice. "I feel that I must speak to you. Let me take you home in my car, won't you?"
She was interesting, distinguished, and, he fancied, intelligent; so he was quite willing to follow her to her waiting motor-car and to seat himself beside her.
"Your lecture," she began. "It's such a startling idea to me—that of man being the victim in marriage."
"Yes," he said. "It's not the conventional, romantic idea, of course."
"Nor the true one," she cried. "Oh, doctor, your brain may be right, but your heart is wrong! There is so much that you don't seem to know—to understand! You don't seem to realize how hideously we suffer—what we endure. I cannot pretend to be impersonal. I want to tell you the truth—a side of it that you don't know. I want to tell you of one case. Then you must tell me what you think."
She laid her hand on his arm and looked earnestly into his face.
"I want you to hear my story, and then tell me frankly whether or not my husband was a victim!"
It was a very long and very harrowing story. It obliged them to go to the lady's house and to have tea there, and to sit in her charming little sitting-room until dark, in order that it should all be told.
She was Mrs. Hamilton, she said, known to Marian, as to all other women of any social pretentions in that particular suburb, as the martyr wife of a fiendish husband. What she had suffered no one knew—except the twenty or thirty people whom she had told. She ended in tears.
Andrew comforted her with kindly words and complete exonerations. He said that she was blameless. The clock struck six, and he rose to take leave.
"Good-by!" said Mrs. Hamilton, giving him her slender hand. "Doctor, you've helped me. You've understood. Mayn't I see you again? You don't know what sympathy means to a lonely, heart-broken woman."
He assured her that he would be delighted to come again, as soon as he had a free moment.
IV
He had declined the use of Mrs. Hamilton's motor; he preferred to walk home and to reflect upon this new type. He was not altogether a fool. In spite of the fact that she was a very attractive woman, he had made up his mind that he would never go to her house again—not even to study her.
"No!" he was saying to himself. "She's morbid—irresponsible. They're really dangerous, that reckless sort!"
A hand clutched his sleeve and a breathless voice cried:
"Oh, doctor, I've been rushing after you for miles and miles!"
It was little Mavis Borrowby, daughter of an old patient. Always in the past Andrew had taken Mavis for granted as part of old Borrowby's background. He was quite disconcerted to see her, this spring evening, as a detached individuality, and a very vivid one.
She took his arm and hung on it, looking up into his face with babyish violet eyes.
"Oh, doctor!" she cried. "I went to your lecture. It was simply wonderful! But it depressed me awfully. Please let me walk along with you and ask you some questions!"
"Child, you shouldn't go to my lectures," said Andrew indulgently. "You're too young. They're not for you."
"Oh, but they are, doctor! Why, I'm engaged, you know—at least, I was engaged, but I sha'n't be any longer. I wouldn't for worlds do all that harm to a helpless man. I'm going to tell Edward so to-night."
Andrew was a little taken aback. He said something about thinking things out for oneself—not accepting another person's ideas.
"Oh, no!" said little Mavis confidently. "I know you can think ever so much better than me. I like to get my ideas from wonderful men like you!"
The innocent, naive, violet-eyed little thing touched him with pity. What, he thought, was there in life for her except marriage? He couldn't imagine her engaged in any work, any profession, any art. Would it not perhaps be better if some man were enslaved and sacrificed for the sake of this poor little baby-girl?
"Look here, Mavis," he said; "this won't do. You mustn't throw over this fellow, you know, without a great deal of serious reflection. You might ruin your life and his, too."
"But you said I'd ruin him by marrying him—"
"Never mind that. You—you're too young to grasp it. And there are always exceptions. If you care for this chap—"
"I don't really think I do, much," she said thoughtfully. "Anyway, I simply couldn't stand making a martyr of him, and having him be the one to do all the sacrificing. But, doctor, what are we to do, if men mustn't get married?"
He couldn't answer. To tell the truth, he had thought of marriage so exclusively from a man's point of view that he had quite overlooked the woman's. Freedom was all very well, but it wasn't for the little Mavises of this world. He began to deliberate whether there weren't certain men who should be set apart for marriage and martyrdom for the sake of the really nice young girls.
He was about to suggest this theory to Mavis, when he found himself before his own door.
"Hurry off home now, won't you?" he said. "It '11 be dark soon. And see here, Mavis, don't say anything to your Edward just yet—don't do anything until we've talked it over. Come into the office some afternoon."
She said she would, and hurried off, in the sunset.
As he let himself in, he heard from the dining-room the uproar which seemed an inevitable accompaniment of the Franklin method. Because playing in the dining-room had formerly been an unimaginable thing rather than a forbidden joy, it was now the rule. The doctor didn't like it. He wanted his dinner in peace. It was not the sort of dinner he liked, either, and Miss Franklin distressed him by incessantly crunching lumps of sugar.
He retired to his study, where he swore furiously to himself; but for some reason which he didn't care to analyze, he dared not tell Miss Franklin to take away the children. Nor was he surprised when she knocked at the door, and, being told to enter, did so, and sat down opposite him, prepared to spend the evening.
Crashes, screams, and slaps from the dining-room disturbed her not at all. She said she didn't believe in supervising children; it hampered them.
She talked persistently about free love, which Andrew didn't like. When spoken of as the relation of the sexes, it was quite proper and scientific; but directly one introduced that idea of love, it was entirely changed. It became sensational and distinctly alarming.
He was thankful when an accident occurred in the dining-room which could not be ignored. Little Frank had climbed into a drawer of the sideboard and broken through, and in the course of his struggles he upset everything within reach.
Once he had got Miss Franklin out, Andrew took good care that she should not get in again.
V
He had forgotten all about Mavis, and he was pleasantly surprised when she came into his office the next afternoon.
"I pretended that I had a sore throat," she said, "so I could come and see you. You see, Edward came last night, and oh, doctor, he did seem so awfully flat, after you!"
"You mustn't be so extreme," he said. "There are some men who aren't at all unhappy in marriage."
"I know. Ordinary little men aren't. It's only the wonderful men like you. But, doctor dear, I couldn't be happy with an ordinary man. I—I want a man like you!"
It wouldn't do, of course, to tell her that there were mighty few men of this sort, and that they wouldn't care for naive little girls, anyway. Andrew wasn't even much flattered by her admiration; it was too indiscriminate.
"Suppose you don't marry," he said. "What will you do?"
"I thought you could tell me. I thought, of course, you had some perfectly wonderful sort of plan for women."
Well, he hadn't, and he saw that he must make one. It seemed that his first step toward the settlement of this specific case would be to make an analysis, and he at once began. Mavis answered all his questions readily and fully, but he had a suspicion that she told him what she thought he would like to hear, instead of keeping to facts. Still, even at that, he learned a great deal, for she was too ignorant and young to deceive a trained observer. Of course it took a very long time; his other office patients had to be sent away.
He went politely to the door with Mavis, and he was surprised to see Miss Franklin standing in the hall—the little private hall which was only for outgoing patients, and in which she had no possible business to be.
"What are you doing out here?" he asked.
"I was just wondering what you were doing," she retorted, "shut up in there with that girl all this long time!"
"I was writing an analysis of her."
"Let's see your analysis!"
"It's not finished. Besides—"
"Do let me see it! Perhaps I can help you."
"You don't know Miss Borrowby—"
"Oh, yes, I do know Miss Borrowby!" said Miss Franklin. "I know her better than you do!"
Andrew didn't like her tone, but he let it pass, with a meekness quite new to him. Miss Franklin smiled and went away.
He intended to spend the evening perfecting has analysis in peace; but scarcely had he got well started when Miss Franklin opened the door.
"A patient!" she said.
It was a lady. She sat down beside Andrew's desk, without raising her veil, and at once began to sob.
"Oh, doctor!" she cried. "I don't know what to do! Oh, my suffering! What shall I do?"
He felt quite sure that this was a drug addict, and his manner, though kind, was one of thorough sophistication.
"Now, now, my dear madam!" he said. "Don't excite yourself!"
"You don't even know me!" she cried, pushing up her veil.
"I do!" he protested guiltily. "It's Mrs. Hamilton. I knew your voice; but it's dark here in the corners of the room when there's only the lamp lighted."
She smiled bitterly.
"Yes," she said. "That's it. I'm lost in the darkness, outside the circle of lamplight!"
"This chair—"
"I'm speaking figuratively, doctor. I'm in such trouble. I wish I were dead!"
Reluctantly, but in duty bound, he said:
"Tell me about it."
She began to weep again.
"You're the only one I can tell. You showed such an interest in me the other day. You cared, didn't you?"
"Yes, certainly I did; but please don't cry."
"Oh, dear doctor, it is your own great trouble that makes you so sympathetic to others, I am sure!"
"My own great trouble?"
"I heard of it indirectly—through Miss Franklin. She mentioned it to some one I know. She said that your wife"—Mrs. Hamilton dropped her voice, and ended with the greatest delicacy: "That your wife has left you. I am so sorry!"
"Nothing of the sort!" Andrew began angrily.
Then it occurred to him that it would be difficult, if not impossible, to explain so modern a situation to so romantic a creature; so instead he encouraged her to tell him her own sad story.
He never learned what her trouble was, because she didn't tail him. "My husband" and "a woman's sensitive heart," and "disgusting intoxication," had something to do with it. She cried forlornly, and he tried to stop her. Common sense and all that he had learned from experience of her type warned him not to be too sympathetic, but it was difficult. She was exquisite. She had a sort of morbid charm about her—a sensibility at once dangerous and pitiful.
He rose, went over to her, and laid his hand on her shoulder.
"It's hard," he said. "Life is bound to be hard for people like you; but you must try to see it in a more robust way, with more humor, more indifference."
"I do! No one knows how I try!" she said, looking up into his face with her dark eyes, luminous with tears.
Suddenly the door opened, without warning. Miss Franklin looked in, and disappeared again. Mrs. Hamilton rose.
"Who was that?" she asked.
"That's Miss Franklin."
"Oh! I didn't know she was so young. Does she stay here as late as this?"
"She lives here."
"Lives here—with your wife away?"
Mrs. Hamilton was moving toward the door.
"Good night, doctor!" she said, and there was a decided coolness in her voice.
VI
Peculiarly disturbed, Andrew returned to his office, to find Miss Franklin there, waiting for him. He was about to reprove her sharply for her outrageous intrusion, but she spoke first.
"Who was that?"
"A patient; and you must never, under any circumstances, come into this room when I have a patient here."
"It's long after office hours. I didn't know it was a patient. She was 'a lady to see the doctor,' and I wondered what you were doing shut up here."
"You needn't constitute yourself my mentor!" he cried angrily.
"Why, doctor, I never thought of such a thing!"
"Then please don't do it again."
"But, if she wasn't a patient, what was she here for?"
He stared at her, astounded at her effrontery—and uneasy.
"As I told you once before, I am making a series of analyses. I was making a study of—that lady."
"You only analyze women, don't you?"
"Certainly not!" he answered with a frown. "Only they happen to be about—"
"Yes, they do!" Miss Franklin agreed warmly. "They certainly do happen to be about!" She sat down. "I've been analyzing you," she said.
Again instinct warned him, and he would have fled.
"Not worth it!" he said lightly.
"I can analyze you," she went on; "but I can't understand myself. I don't quite see why you should affect me so. I'm not at all inclined to sentimentality. I've never felt like this before."
He sat in frozen silence.
"And as a perfectly free woman," she went on, "I'm not ashamed to tell you that I want you."
"Want me to what?" he asked stupidly.
"I'd be even willing to marry you," she said, "as soon as you get a divorce. I can see that you're timid and conventional, like most men."
"Good God!" cried Andrew. "Please—"
"Why not? If you don't love me now, you will later. I'll make you. I've set my mind on you. I think you're a fascinating creature!"
"You don't know me!" he protested feebly.
"I do. I know that I'm in love with you, anyway, and that you're lonely and need me."
"Lonely!" thought the wretched man. "Not exactly!"
Aloud he said nothing, but sat silent, conscious of the steady gaze of her fierce, candid eyes.
"I hadn't intended to tell you to-night," she went on. "I know you're very shy, and I'd intended to win you over little by little. Not by any feminine trickery or illusion, you understand. I'd just reveal myself. I'm sure that if you knew me, you'd love me. We're so perfectly matched," she ended, a bit impatiently. "I wish there weren't all this fuss and trouble! I wish you'd make up your mind promptly!"
"But—" he began.
"Don't answer me now, when you're in this contrary, obstinate humor. I'll wait till to-morrow evening. Now let's talk about something else."
"No!" said Andrew. "I'm going to bed. Good night!"
He went off with a quick step and a frown; but his going was not effective. It was too much like flight, and it was spoiled by the grin on Miss Franklin's face.
Alone in his room he gave up the effort to hide his alarm.
"That woman's got to go!" he cried. "I'm not going to be hounded and bothered by her like this! How am I to do any work? How can I get rid of her?"
Reflection convinced him that he could not.
"Then I'll get myself called away, and I'll stay away until—"
Until what? What was to save him? Where could he find a refuge from feminine persecution?
He went to bed, but he could not sleep. He was quite worn and haggard in the morning, and Miss Franklin observed it at the breakfast-table.
"You look awfully tired," she said. "Why don't you take a rest to-day?"
"Never was busier!" he answered hastily. "I haven't a free moment all day. Please see that I'm not disturbed."
"How am I to know which women disturb you and which ones you're—studying?" Miss Franklin asked with outrageous impudence. "Better give me a list."
He strode into his office, closed the door, and tried to resume that unfinished letter to Marian. He hadn't got well started when the bell rang and the parlor-maid ushered in little Mavis Borrowby, flushed and out of breath.
"Oh, doctor!" she cried. "Such a row! Imagine! I've had to run away! Papa is in the most awful rage!" She sank into a chair. "You see," she said, "I told Edward last night that I wouldn't marry him—ever. I said I didn't believe in marriage. And he—nasty little sneak!—ran off to papa and told him. You can imagine how papa took it, with his old-fogy ideas. He roared and stamped and swore. He wanted to know where I got such ideas from; and I said, very calmly, from you. Then he said I must never speak to you again, and all sorts of nonsense. Of course I said I would speak to you, and I would never, never renounce you for any one—"
"Renounce me! Really, Mavis, isn't that a bit—"
"I told him that you were the most wonderful man I'd ever seen, and that I would not give you up. But, doctor dear, where are you going to hide me? He'll be here after me any minute!"
"I'm not going to hide you at all!" cried Andrew. "It's all nonsense!"
"Oh, but you must!" she cried. "You can't be so horrible, when I've been so loyal to you."
"There's no reason for hiding, you silly child! You've done nothing wrong."
"Oh, but papa thinks so! He told me not to dare to see you again. He says it's all your fault that I won't marry Edward. He says you've put all sorts of awful ideas in my head. Oh, doctor! There's the door-bell now! I know it's father! Oh, don't let him get me! He says he'll send me to a convent!"
She had clutched his arm frantically and was looking into his face with brimming eyes.
"Oh, please, please hide me!" she cried. "Just till I can think of some sort of plan!"
He faltered and weakened. At last he opened the door of a clothes-closet.
"Lock the door and keep quiet," he said. "I'll see if I can get him away."
After an earnest look around to see that she had not left any trace of herself—hat, gloves, or other incriminating articles—the doctor opened his office door, and there stood Mrs. Hamilton. She looked very pale and ill.
"Just an instant!" she said, with an odd smile. "I won't keep you a minute. I only came to say good-by."
"Where are you going?" he asked kindly.
She smiled again.
"It doesn't matter. I thought if I came early, before your office hours, I might catch you alone for a few minutes; but it doesn't matter."
"But you have caught me alone," he answered cheerfully. "Sit down, Mrs. Hamilton. I'm in no hurry."
"Please don't try to deceive me," she said coldly. "I know all about that girl who came in here. That nursery governess—that Franklin person—told me in the hall. I have no claim on you, doctor. There's no reason for deceiving me. You're quite, quite free to do as you please. You won't be troubled with me again. I'm going away."
"Where?" he asked, wretchedly scenting some new and obscure trouble.
"It doesn't matter," she said again. "Nothing matters. My husband insists upon my going out to Wyoming with him at once. Of course I refused; so here I am penniless, alone in the world—"
"Your children?"
"He's going to take them. They're better without me, anyway. I'm a weak and indulgent mother. I love too intensely. That's my nature—to be intense. I give—I ask nothing, I expect nothing, I simply give and give. I'm not complaining. I only wish," she ended, with a pitiful little break in her voice, "that there were some one—just one person in the world—who cared! I'm not strong enough to stand alone. I'm not complaining. I know one can't command the heart; but for a little while I did think—"
He felt like a brute.
"Good-by!" she said, holding out her slender hand and smiling pitifully. "Good-by, my dear!"
He grasped her hand.
"Where are you going?" he demanded.
She looked at him steadily.
"Good-by!"
"No—look here! You won't do anything reckless?"
"I shall have to carry out my plans. Good-by!"
"I sha'n't let you go like this!"
"Please let go of my hand! There's some one coming!"
VII
As Mrs. Hamilton went out, there came brushing by her, bursting into the room, a stout, middle-aged man. It was Mr. Borrowby, in a terrible fury. He resembled a heavy, solid little dog. One could imagine the impact of his body against the furniture, how he might hurl himself about and always rebound unhurt. His talk was like barking, growling, and snapping, and his bloodshot eyes were fixed unwaveringly upon his enemy. He was terrific.
"Where's my girl?" he bellowed.
"Don't shout like that!" said Andrew. "I can't stand it. I'm worn out."
"I'll wear you out! Where's my girl?"
"I don't know."
"Don't lie to me, you dirty, low-lived, degenerate hound! You vile, treacherous Bolshevist!"
"You're going too far!" cried Andrew. "You'll behave yourself, or I'll put you out!"
"No, you won't! I'll have my daughter, or I'll call in the police. Don't you dare!" he shouted, shaking his fist in Andrew's face. "Don't you dare deny it! That young woman who opened the door for me told me Mavis was in here."
It occurred to the desperate Andrew that the only possible course was that of complete candor.
"What if she is?" he replied. "I'm not—"
"I know what you are! Didn't the girl herself tell me that since she'd known you, she could never marry? Good God! I could kill you, you scoundrel! Where is she?"
"In there," said Andrew. "I sha'n't deny it. There's nothing to be ashamed of—absolutely nothing wrong."
He was really afraid, for an instant, that the angry little dog was about to launch itself upon him. Instead, to his relief, Borrowby began to pound upon the closet door.
"Open the door!" he roared.
"No, I sha'n't!" came Mavis's calm response.
"I'll break in the door!"
"All right! Begin! There's a window in here, and I'll jump out of it and run away; and every one will see me from the street!"
In the midst of this pounding and shouting the telephone rang.
"Keep quiet!" Andrew roared. "Stop your infernal noise! It may be something important!"
Mr. Borrowby desisted for an instant. Andrew took up the receiver, to hear the voice of Mrs. Hamilton.
"I want to say good-by to you," she said in a calm and bitter voice. "It's the last word you will ever hear from me. This is really good-by, to you and to all the world. I have something here that will end it all, all my sufferings—"
"No!'he cried. "No! What are you thinking of?"
"Don't worry!" she said. "It is the best way, my dear!"
The doctor gave vent to such a strange and terrible howl that even Mr. Borrowby was startled.
"What is it?" asked a quiet voice beside him.
He was not surprised.to see Marian there. He was past surprise.
"Mrs. Hamilton!" he explained. "Going to take poison!"
"Speak to her," whispered Marian. "Tell her you're coming at once."
He did so, and hung up the receiver.
"Now, go up-stairs and lie down, dear," said Marian. "You're worn out. I'll send your lunch up to you. Don't worry about anything. I'll manage."
"There's Mavis Borrowby shut up in the closet," he told her wearily; "and Mrs. Hamilton—and something worrying about Miss Franklin—I've forgotten just what."
"Poor boy!" she murmured. "I'm so sorry! Go on, dear, and lie down. Try not to worry."
He went up-stairs to his room and lay down on the bed, quite exhausted, trying to think, but unable to do so. A long time passed. He watched the trees moving in the April wind, and the clouds slipping across the gay blue sky.
VIII
At last Marian came, bringing a lunch-tray well laden with the proper things. She set it down on a table at the bedside, and drew up two chairs.
"Now, Andy dear!" she said in her old pleasant way. "Come on! You need food, you know. It's after three o'clock!"
He was really very hungry. He began to eat without delay, while Marian watched him indulgently.
"I telephoned to Dr. Gryce. He'll take your patients to-day," she said. "You need a rest, don't you? Miss Franklin's gone home. Mr. Borrowby took Mavis home, and left a note, apologizing for his mistake. I explained to him about your theories, you know. I sent for Mr. Hamilton, and I stayed with his wife until he came. They had a perfectly beautiful reconciliation. They're going out to Wyoming with the children, to start a new life; so there's nothing to trouble you, is there?"
"Marian," he said gravely, "I'll tell you all about it later on. Just now I can't think of anything but the relief—"
The parlor-maid knocked at the door.
"There's a young gentleman from the Daily Review, sir," she said. "He says the doctor promised him an interview."
"The doctor is resting—" Marian began.
Andrew sat up.
"No!" he said. "I'll see him. Bring him up, Sarah!"
"I'll go," said Marian.
"I'd rather you stayed," said Andrew. "I'd like you to hear what I'm going to say."
He was sitting up in bed, more rumpled and excited than ever, when the young man entered. The interviewer was surprised and a little embarrassed by the presence of a wife, because the opinions which the doctor was reputed to hold on marriage were not the sort of views that most wives like. However—
"We thought it would be of great interest to our readers if you would give us a few words on 'Marriage from a Man's Point of View,'" he began; "along the lines of the address you gave before the Moral Courage Club one afternoon last week, you know."
"I said that marriage hampered and degraded a man, didn't I? I said that marriage was slavery for my sex—don't take that down, that's only what I said last week. Now, please get this properly. I offer, as my earnest conviction, based upon experiment, that marriage is man's only safeguard. Without its protection man could not survive. This is a woman's world, dominated and developed by women. Every man imperatively requires the protection of a wife. Without it, he—he would be hounded to death."
"Andrew!" murmured Marian, rather shocked.
The young man wrote it all down as faithfully as he could.
"That's all. You can enlarge on that. I suppose you would, anyway. You might head it 'Marriage Man's Only Hope.'"
The young man thanked the doctor, took up his hat, and left.
Andrew looked at Marian, and she smiled affectionately at him.
"I shall never know," said he, "whether you had any hand in all this, or whether it just happened; but I'm beaten, absolutely, and you are supremely vindicated. That's what women always do. They're able to prove a man wrong and make him see it himself, in spite of the fact that he's right!"
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929.
The longest-living author of this work died in 1955, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 68 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
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