“As if I knew or cared. In my opinion you are depraved, and that is sufficient.”
“Why do you call me depraved? You are not fair. Depravity is synonymous with the unnatural. Girls in short frocks don’t interest me. Never yet have I loitered in the boudoir of a cocotte. Corydon was not a gentleman whom I would imitate. Neither was Narcissus. On the other hand, I like refined women. I have an unquestionable admiration for a pretty face. What man whose health is good has not? If capacity for such admiration constitutes depravity, then depraved I am.” He paused. “H’m,” he muttered to himself, “there’s nothing of the Joseph about me.”
But he might have continued his speech aloud. Eden had ceased to hear, her thoughts were far away. He looked at her inquiringly.
“Something is the matter,” he said at last. “What has happened?”
Eden aroused herself ever so little from her reverie. “Nothing,” she answered. “I wish you would go away.”
“Something is the matter,” he insisted. “Tell me what is troubling you. Who is there to whom you can turn more readily than to me? Eden, you forget so easily. For months I was at your side. And abruptly, a rumor, a whisper, a wind that passes took you from me. Eden, I have not changed. Nor have you ceased to preside over my life. It is idle and useless enough, I know. With your aid it would have been less valueless, I think; but such as it is, it is wholly yours. Tell me, what it is that troubles you.”
And Eden, influenced either by the caress of the words or that longing which in moments of mental anguish forces us to voice the affliction, though it be but to a wall, looked in his face and answered:
“A hole has been dug in my heart, and in that hole is hate.”
“Hate? Why, hate is a medieval emotion; you don’t know what it means.” And as he spoke he told himself she was mad.
“Do I not? Ah, do I not?” She beat a measure on her knee with her fingers, and her eyes roamed from Maule to the ceiling and then far into space. “There is one whom I think of now; could I see him smitten with agony such as no mortal ever felt before, his eyes filled with spectres, his brain aflame—could I see that and know it to be my work, I should lie down glad and willing, and die of delight.”
She stood up and turned to him again. “Do I not know what hatred means?”
“Eden, you understand it so well that your conception of love must be clearer still.”
“Love, indeed!” She laughed disdainfully. “Why, love is a fever that ends with a yawn. Love! Why, men used to die of love. Now they buy it as they buy their hats, ready-made.”
“Then I am in that fever now—Hush! here is your husband. The tenor wasn’t half bad, I admit. Mr. Usselex, I am glad to see you.”
Maule had risen at Usselex’s entrance and made a step forward to greet him. “I stopped on my way to Delmonico’s,” he added, lightly. “I made sure you were both going.”
“Yes,” Usselex answered. “The carriage is at the door now. We can give you a lift if you care to.”
He turned to Eden. “Shall I ring for your wrap?”
For one second Eden looked her husband straight in the eyes. And for one second she stood dumb, impenetrable as Fate, then gathering the folds of her dress in one hand, she answered in a tone which was perfectly self-possessed, “I have changed my mind,” and swept from the room.
VIII
On reaching her room Eden bolted the door. The maid rapped, but she gave no answer. Without was a whistling wind that parodied her anger. For a moment she looked through the darkness for that lighthouse which is Hope, but presumably she looked in vain. Then there came another rap, and she heard her husband’s voice. Misery had offered her its arm, and she was silent. Her husband rapped again, entreating speech with her, and still she made no answer. Presently she caught the sound of retreating footsteps. She removed the opals, disrobed, undid her hair, and accepting the proffered arm, she took Misery for bedfellow.
It was hours before she slept. But at last sleep came. In its beneficence it remained until the morning had gone; then at noonday it left her, and she started with a tremor like to that which besets one who awakes from a debauch. The incidents of the preceding days paraded with flying standards before her. They were victors indeed. “Vae soli!” they seemed to shout. They had been pitiless in their assault, and now they exulted at her defeat. They jeered at their captive; and Eden, with that obsession which captives know, thought only of release. In all the chartless future, freedom was the one thing for which she longed. Her wounds were many; they had depleted her strength; but in freedom is a balm that cures. Her strength might be irrevocable and the cicatrices not to be effaced, yet give her that balm, and come what sorrow could. As for resignation, the idea of it did not so much as visit her. Resignation is a daily suicide, and she had not enough to outlast the night.
The hours limped. The afternoon was on the wane, and still she toyed with sorrow until suddenly she bethought herself of the need of immediate action. Usselex would presently return, but when he came again to her room, he should find it empty. At once, then, she made her preparations, and telling the startled maid to complete them, and to follow with the boxes to her father’s house, she started out on foot, her wardrobe packed, and ready for removal.
As Eden hurried through the streets, she was conscious only that freedom was her goal. Everything else she put from her. It
