especially with women, whose society has had little attraction for me; perhaps, because I have never been thrown much into it, and I was nearly thirty when I first met my wife.”
“Was it in St. Louis?” Thérèse asked.
“Yes. I had been inveigled into going on a river excursion,” he said, plunging into the story, “Heaven knows how. Perhaps I was feeling unwell—I really can’t remember. But at all events I met a friend who introduced me early in the day to a young girl—Fanny Larimore. She was a pretty little thing, not more than twenty, all pink and white and merry blue eyes and stylish clothes. Whatever it was, there was something about her that kept me at her side all day. Every word and movement of hers had an exaggerated importance for me. I fancied such things had never been said or done quite in the same way before.”
“You were in love,” sighed Thérèse. Why the sigh she could not have told.
“I presume so. Well, after that, I found myself thinking of her at the most inopportune moments. I went to see her again and again—my first impression deepened, and in two weeks I had asked her to marry me. I can safely say, we knew nothing of each other’s character. After marriage, matters went well enough for a while.” Hosmer here arose, and walked the length of the room.
“Mrs. Lafirme,” he said, “can’t you understand that it must be a painful thing for a man to disparage one woman to another: the woman who has been his wife to the woman he loves? Spare me the rest.”
“Please have no reservations with me; I shall not misjudge you in any case,” an inexplicable something was moving her to know what remained to be told.
“It wasn’t long before she attempted to draw me into what she called society,” Hosmer continued. “I am little versed in defining shades of distinction between classes, but I had seen from the beginning that Fanny’s associates were not of the best social rank by any means. I had vaguely expected her to turn from them, I suppose, when she married. Naturally, I resisted anything so distasteful as being dragged through rounds of amusement that had no sort of attraction whatever for me. Besides, my business connections were extending, and they claimed the greater part of my time and thoughts.
“A year after our marriage our boy was born.” Here Hosmer ceased speaking for a while, seemingly under pressure of a crowding of painful memories.
“The child whose picture you have at the office?” asked Thérèse.
“Yes,” and he resumed with plain effort: “It seemed for a while that the baby would give its mother what distraction she sought so persistently away from home; but its influence did not last and she soon grew as restless as before. Finally there was nothing that united us except the child. I can’t really say that we were united through him, but our love for the boy was the one feeling that we had in common. When he was three years old, he died. Melicent had come to live with us after leaving school. She was a high-spirited girl full of conceits as she is now, and in her exaggerated way became filled with horror of what she called the mésalliance I had made. After a month she went away to live with friends. I didn’t oppose her. I saw little of my wife, being often away from home; but as feebly observant as I was, I had now and again marked a peculiarity of manner about her that vaguely troubled me. She seemed to avoid me and we grew more and more divided.
“One day I returned home rather early. Melicent was with me. We found Fanny in the dining-room lying on the sofa. As we entered, she looked at us wildly and in striving to get up grasped aimlessly at the back of a chair. I felt on a sudden as if there were some awful calamity threatening my existence. I suppose, I looked helplessly at Melicent, managing to ask her what was the matter with my wife. Melicent’s black eyes were flashing indignation. ‘Can’t you see she’s been drinking. God help you,’ she said. Mrs. Lafirme, you know now the reason which drove me away from home and kept me away. I never permitted my wife to want for the comforts of life during my absence; but she sued for divorce some years ago and it was granted, with alimony which I doubled. You know the miserable story now. Pardon me for dragging it to such a length. I don’t see why I should have told it after all.”
Thérèse had remained perfectly silent; rigid at times, listening to Hosmer often with closed eyes.
He waited for her to speak, but she said nothing for a while till finally: “Your—your wife is still quite young—do her parents live with her?”
“Oh no, she has none. I suppose she lives alone.”
“And those habits; you don’t know if she continues them?”
“I dare say she does. I know nothing of her, except that she receipts for the amount paid her each month.”
The look of painful thought deepened on Thérèse’s face but her questions having been answered, she again became silent.
Hosmer’s eyes were imploring her for a look, but she would not answer them.
“Haven’t you a word to say to me?” he entreated.
“No, I have nothing to say, except what would give you pain.”
“I can bear anything from you,” he replied, at a loss to guess her meaning.
“The kindest thing I can say, Mr. Hosmer, is, that I hope you have acted blindly. I hate to believe that the man I care for, would deliberately act the part of a cruel egotist.”
“I don’t understand you.”
“I have learned one thing through your story, which appears very plain to me,” she replied. “You married a woman of weak character. You furnished her with every means to increase that weakness, and shut her out absolutely from your life and yourself from hers. You left her then as practically without moral support as you have certainly done now, in deserting her. It was the act of a coward.” Thérèse spoke the last words with intensity.
“Do you think that a man owes nothing to himself?” Hosmer asked, in resistance to her accusation.
“Yes. A man owes to his manhood, to face the consequences of his own actions.”
Hosmer had remained seated. He did not even with glance follow Thérèse who had arisen and was moving restlessly about the room. He had so long seen himself as a martyr; his mind had become so habituated to the picture, that he could not of a sudden look at a different one, believing that it could be the true one. Nor was he eager to accept a view of the situation that would place him in his own eyes in a contemptible light. He tried to think that Thérèse must be wrong; but even admitting a doubt of her being right, her words carried an element of truth that he was not able to shut out from his conscience. He felt her to be a woman with moral perceptions keener than his own and his love, which in the past twenty-four hours had grown to overwhelm him, moved him now to a blind submission.
“What would you have me do, Mrs. Lafirme?”
“I would have you do what is right,” she said eagerly, approaching him.
“O, don’t present me any questions of right and wrong; can’t you see that I’m blind?” he said, self accusingly. “What ever I do, must be because you want it; because I love you.”
She was standing beside him and he took her hand.
“To do a thing out of love for you, would be the only comfort and strength left me.”
“Don’t
