“Oh, I know what you are going to say. But there is the difference between love and friendship. To those who have witnessed a bullfight, the circus I hear is commonplace.”
“You mean to imply that my husband was enjoying a bullfight?”
“I don’t mean anything of the sort. But what a way you have of reducing generalities to particulars! No, I don’t mean that at all. I am speaking in the air. What I meant to imply was that love has consolations which friendship does not possess.”
“Laura, you don’t understand. It is not a question of that. This woman’s husband has got into trouble and John was trying to get him out.”
Mrs. Manhattan eyed her again in the same gingerly fashion as before. “He said that, did he?”
Eden nodded.
“I hope you pretended to believe him.”
“Pretended! Why, I did believe him. I believed him at once.”
“Yes, that’s a good way.” Mrs. Manhattan tormented the point of her nose reflectively. “I used to too,” she added. “Now I simply don’t see. That I find even better. It makes everything go so smoothly. No arguments, no recriminations, perfect peace. Nicholas, as you know, is the most delightful man in the world. I have the highest respect for him. If he took it into his head to leave the planet and me behind, I should feel it my duty as a Christian woman to see that the trappings of my woe were becoming to his memory. But—but, well, I should feel that I had been vaccinated. I should feel that a minor evil had protected me from a greater one. In other words, I would not marry again. It is my opinion, an opinion I believe which is shared by a good many other people, that a woman who marries a second time does not deserve to have lost her first husband. Now, as I say of Nicholas, I have the greatest respect for him. He is charming. I haven’t the vaguest idea how he would get along without me. I do everything for him, but I am careful not to exact the impossible. We get along splendidly together. He makes the most elaborate efforts to throw dust in my eyes, and I aid him to the best of my ability, but I always know what he is up to. I can tell at a glance where he is in any affair. The moment he gives up his after-dinner cigar I can hear the fifes in the distance—he is making himself agreeable to someone with whom he intends to pass the evening. The second stage is when he comes in of an afternoon with a rose in his buttonhole. That means that he has been sending flowers and that the siege is progressing. The third stage is when he begins to smoke again. That means that the castle has capitulated and further diplomacy is unnecessary. The fourth and final stage is when he says in an offhand way, ‘Laura, I saw some stones this afternoon at Tiffany’s.’ That means remorse and reward—remorse at his own wickedness, and reward for my noninterference. There is nothing in the world that a man appreciates more than that. Yes, I certainly do my duty. Nicholas, as you know, was a widower when I married him. By his first wife he had one child and a great deal to put up with. Whereas, now—why, Eden, what are you crying about?”
“I am not crying.” In a moment Eden had choked back a sob. Her eyes flashed the more brilliant for their tears, but her voice had lost its former gentleness, it had grown vibrant and resolute. “Laura, if he has deceived me, I will leave him.”
“If who has deceived you? Surely Nicholas—”
“Laura, I am in no mood for jest. Last night I believed my husband, today I do not. If I can get proof, I leave him.”
“That is what we all say, but we don’t.”
“If he has deceived me—”
“Eden, how foolish you are! No, but, Eden, you are simply childish. You are sunshine one minute and tornado the next. Why, I haven’t a doubt in the world but that Mr. Usselex was trying to get the cab-lady’s husband out of trouble. I haven’t the faintest doubt of it.”
“Nor had I before you came.”
“Oh, Eden, forgive me. What I said was idle chatter. There, do be your old sweet self again.”
Eden stood up and pinioned her forehead with her hands. “I wonder,” she exclaimed, “I wonder—Laura, do you know that it is of a thing like this that hatred comes?”
“My dear, I had no idea that you were so much in love.”
But as she spoke there came into Eden’s face an expression so new and unlike her own, that Mrs. Manhattan started. “Sit down,” she said coaxingly. “Do sit down.” She took the girl’s hands in hers and drew her gently to the lounge on which she was seated. “Eden,” she continued, after a moment, “between ourselves, I think you are—how shall I say?—a little—” And Mrs. Manhattan touched her forehead and nodded significantly.
“I? Not a bit.”
“So much the worse, then. It would be an excuse. Now listen to me. They say that when a woman gets to be thirty the first thing she does is to ignore her age, and that by the time she is forty it has escaped her memory entirely. I am not forty yet, but I am old enough—well, I am old enough to be wiser than you, and I say this—you can contradict it as much as you please, but I will say it all the same—you have more pride in yourself than love for your husband.”
“Which means?”
“I mean this, that when pride gets the upper hand, love is bound to be throttled. In some, pride is a screen; behind it they rage at their ease: in others it is a bag of wind; prick it and behold, a tempest.
