According to the Pattern (12 page)

They stood in the full light of the main entrance as
Claude again appeared in sight at the foot of the stairs.
He was just in time to get a glimpse of his wife’s face
turned smilingly toward her escort’s as she stepped into
the shadow of the carriage. A moment more and the
senator’s white hair made a gleam of light as he entered
the carriage, and the door was slammed shut. Claude
could hear the rumble of the wheels and the subdued
clatter of the horses’ hoofs as they moved away.

To think of his wife shut into a carriage with such a man incensed Claude more than anything had ever had
the power to do before. He felt as if he must rush after
them down the street, crying Help! Murder! Police!
Anything to overtake them and get her away from that
man.

But what he did was to control himself. His face was
deathly white and his eyes, as Mrs. Sylvester looked into
them, were angry eyes.

“How silly of you!” she laughed softly in his ear as
they waited for her carriage to be called. “She is perfectly
able to take care of herself. Didn’t you see how well she
worked it to get away from you? You ought to be willing
she should have a little pleasure, when you are enjoying
yourself. I thought that last movement was well done.
She will make quite a success in society if she keeps on
as she has begun. I am not sure but I shall take her up
myself. You surely are in no position, Claude, to object
to a little giddiness on her part,” and she tapped him
familiarly on his arm with her fan as the carriage drove
up

He gravely helped her into the carriage, then giving
the word to the footman, “To Mrs. Sylvester’s home,”
he bowed and said to the lady:

“I will wish you good evening, madam,” closed the
carriage door, and turned away into the dark street, walking as rapidly as possible.

What so false as truth is,

False to thee?

Where the serpent’s tooth is,

Shun the tree—

Where the apple reddens,

Never pry—

Lest we lose our
Edens,

Eve and I.

—Robert Browning

MIRIAM had got rid of the senator gracefully, leaving him with a glow of satisfaction about his blasé old heart, and locked herself into the guest chamber with her grief. This room was as far from the other bedrooms as the house would allow. Here she could not be heard if a sob escaped her.

The house was still and dark when Claude after his
long, breathless walk reached it. He had been too agitated to trust himself in any kind of public conveyance. He wanted to be alone and to have the physical exertion
of walking to help him grow calm. Inaction was more
than he could bear. He had had enough of that during
the evening. Before he reached home he had gone over the miserable matter in every possible phase. He had
excused all his own wrong-doing again and again, only
to sec himself the next moment in a more miserable,
despicable light than ever. He had blamed Miriam, and
excused her. He had raged with both the senator and
Mrs. Sylvester until he was weary of the thought of
them, and still he did not come to any conclusion. He
began to dread to meet his wife as he approached the
house, for he knew that she could use scathing words if
she chose, and his own heart told him she had reason.
Still, the fact that he had left Mrs. Sylvester as he had, just
now stood for a great deal in his favor in the summing
up of himself by himself. He almost felt that it undid the
past completely. He had been angry, of course, or he
would not have had the courage to do it. But that he did
not recognize now. He thought himself strong and noble
to have dismissed her as he had done. It was the end of
any relations with her, for she would consider that he
had insulted her. He thought he knew Mrs. Sylvester
well enough to be sure that her pride was the strongest
thing about her. He had yet to learn that he did not
know how little he knew about women—some women.

He was almost relieved to find the house dark when
he reached home. Miriam had retired. Would she waken and speak to him? He struck a match and glanced about
the hall and parlor. Miriam’s long wrap, a white glove
and a programme of the evening’s concert lay on a chair near the door, proving that his wife had really reached
home. She was not still out in the darkness with that
awful man. In anguish of soul he went upstairs and found
all dark there save a little light in the bedroom. Miriam,
then, had gone to another room. She was angry or she
did not care for him any longer. Which? The terrible
thought that Miriam could possibly ever be weaned
from him suddenly struck him with heavy force. It had
not seemed strange to him that he should amuse himself
with a beautiful and attractive woman for a little while
when Miriam was busy at home with the children and
could not give him all the attention he wanted, but to have her, whom he had always been wont to consider
his devoted slave, relax in her great clinging devotion to him was another thing. A wife was meant for a life-long adoration of her husband. It was an indignity to him that
she should have any desire for pleasure in the company
of others than himself. His indignation waxed at the
thought, as his vanity was hurt by the reflection that he might not be sufficient for all her earthly needs. He was not naturally a vain man but he had certainly always
supposed that he was Miriam’s ideal of all the manly
virtues. It was terrible to think that this might be otherwise. For once in his life the very depths of his nature were stirred to their utmost. He did not sleep well. He began to tremble over meeting his wife on the morrow. How could he say what he wished to say about Senator
Bradenberg when she had seen him in the company of
Mrs. Sylvester? How could he open such a subject? How
could he justify himself?

With thoughts like these he tossed the long night
through and only fell into an uneasy doze as morning was beginning to dawn. The long delayed home-com
ing kiss to his wife had not yet been given and it began
to seem unlikely that it would come soon. He had even forgotten it in the graver questions that were arising.

Miriam forced herself into a sort of gayety in the
morning. The long night watch had been a desperate
one for her. She had been trying to find out what to do,
but her final conclusion had been to bide her time and
go on in the way she had set for herself.

There were letters on the breakfast table. She busied
herself with them when Claude came in, and thus they
met in a constrained calmness that neither felt.

There were invitations. Miriam read them and
passed them over for her husband to sec. He frowned
as he read them and wondered how they came to be
sent to them. This belonged to the new order of things
of which he did not wish for more until the trouble
between himself and his wife was settled. He was
puzzled too, at the kind of people that seemed suddenly
to have become aware of their existence. They were
people who did not often take up the quiet and ob
scure. He wondered vaguely if Mrs. Sylvester had a
hand in it, or the senator, or who?

Then he tried to frame a sentence of warning to his
wife, but words would not come. At last he asked
lamely:

“Do you know anything about the man who was with you last evening?”

She looked up with cool dignity.

“Why he is a most delightful old gentleman, and he is
a very warm friend of your Mrs. Sylvester, is he not?”

The children came trooping in just then and the maid
opened the opposite door and brought in the coffee.
- Claude’s face grew deeply red. There was no more to be
said then. Miriam did not seem to notice that anything
had happened. He ate the very few mouthfuls of break
fast that he took hurriedly, and left the house.

The day was spent in a round of worry. He dreaded
to go home because he had not yet decided how to settle matters with Miriam and yet he confidently expected to bring the matter to some kind of a settlement at once.

But there were guests. Miriam explained in a low tone
at the door that he had hurried away so in the morning
she had forgotten to mention them, and then she slipped
back to the parlor and left him scowling. Was it ever to
be like this? Were outsiders to invade his world, even in his own house, forever?

During the days that followed the same state of things
prevailed between husband and wife. There was always
a cool distance, always someone else present, always some invitation or some guest or some excuse. Claude
began to understand that it was of a purpose. Such things
could not happen continually without a cause. Miriam
was showing him that she wished to stay at a distance.
She was pleasant, always attentive to his needs, but not with the loving, caressing touch, nor the joy of service
for him in her face. He could sec that it was simply a part of her housewifely duties and she performed it gracefully
as she had grown to perform all her duties of late.

The little afternoon teas that had begun so bravely the day of his arrival in accordance with the advice received from the magazine letter went on. They grew popular. There was a charming informality and simplicity about them that was not always to be found.

Contrary to Claude’s expectation the matter with
Mrs. Sylvester was not yet ended. After some weeks’
silence he received a note from her at his place of
business. It read:

Dear Claude: I hoped you would have recovered from
your fit of childishness before this and come to apologize. But I suppose matters are somewhat complicated and it is
not so easy to do. However I forgave you without the
asking. You were excited and I know you are sorry for your rudeness.

Please run in this afternoon. I want to see you about
something very important. If you don’t want your wife to find out everything you had better obey this invitation.

Yours as ever,

Sylvia.

He tore the note into shreds and then sent his office
boy on a fool’s errand while he burned it scrap by scrap.
He ground his teeth angrily and sat down to think what
he should do. He did not wish to go near that woman
again. His conscience told him that he ought not to do
so. But what was he to do and what did she mean by her hint about his wife’s knowing? He wished she did know, he told himself, and then spent the remainder of the
afternoon in trying to plan how he could prevent her
from knowing. At the end he took his hat and hurried,
as he had known from the first he would do, to Mrs.
Sylvester’s. It was a trifle after five o’clock, the hour
named, and he rang the bell hastily. He hoped no one
was with her. He would get through with her in short
order this time. He had planned just how he would do
it. He meant to be sharp and to the point. If she
threatened to reveal anything he would tell her to go
ahead and do her worst, and then he would go home and
have it out with Miriam. He wished he had done that
long ago. That was what he ought to have done. It was
his miserable hesitancy that had made all the trouble. He
would be firm this time as he had been at the carriage
door that night.

He had just reached this conclusion for the fiftieth
time that afternoon when the door was opened—it was
too soon for his ring to have been answered unless the footman was in close attendance on the door as during calling hours—he heard the soft rustle of a woman’s garments and his wife stood before him!

One instant they stood there face to face, she deathly
white, he crimson to the hair and looking as if he had
been caught in the greatest crime the world can know. He could not get his voice nor command his brain. He felt stunned. Before he could come to himself she had
forced a smile—such a wan, wild smile—and flitted by him like a spectre.

He turned, coming to himself. A carriage had driven
up to the curb. He had noticed it in the street before. Miriam was getting in.

“Miriam!” he called in anguish and ran down the steps
at a bound, but she was in and had closed the door with
a click, and the driver started up his horse. It was a hired
carriage from the livery around the corner from them.
Miriam had not looked up nor given any sign that she
knew him since that glance in the doorway. It contained
reproach and wounded pride and hurt love and sense of
deep injury received, all in one. It seemed to him he
could never forget that look.

He suddenly became aware that Mrs. Sylvester’s foot
man was standing with respectful curiosity in the door
waiting for him to enter, and there he stood looking after
that vanishing carriage and knowing not what to do.

For an instant his impulse led him to go in and tell that
false woman exactly what he thought of her, and then
the sight of the carriage as it turned the corner drove all
else from his mind. He must not let Miriam get out of
his sight. With a mad idea of overtaking her he started
down the street. Afterward it seemed to him he had fled
from the house which had stood for temptation to him.

He grew calmer soon and realized that he could never
overtake that swift carriage. It had turned and turned
again, and he had lost sight of it. To the best of his ideas
it did not seem to be on the way home. But he must go
there at once. He must be there when Miriam came
home if possible. He would meet her and tell her all.

There should be no weak delay any more. This must end
at once. He was being well punished for all the sins he
had ever committed, he told himself.