2015년 11월 17일 화요일

The Pest 30

The Pest 30


CHAPTER XX
 
 
THE next few days were to Marian days of tumult. Her abandonment of
herself to Geraldstein had wrought in her a far more serious and far
different change to that which had resulted from her leaving her husband
and going to live with Maddison. The latter loved her, Geraldstein did
not, indeed made no pretense of doing so, and her feeling toward him was
simply one of desire for physical excitement and abandon. With Maddison
it was, though of course she did not consciously argue it out as such,
an illegal marriage; with Geraldstein she stood merely on the footing of
a woman with a price. She now felt utterly adrift, floating upon the
ferocious stream of sensual pleasure, intoxicated with excitement, and,
as is always the case with every form of intoxication, the hours of
recovery, of struggling back to sobriety, were hours of pain,
half-regrets, half-formed resolutions toward future restraint, and of
deep depression and reaction.
 
She realized fully that she had sold herself to Geraldstein when she
received a letter from him inclosing her dressmaker’s bill receipted,
and an apology from him for having ventured without first asking her
permission, to take this care off her hands. Her first impulse was to be
indignantly angry; then with a half laugh, half shudder, she threw the
bill aside. As she had sold herself she would be foolish to reject any
portion of the price.
 
Very quickly all regret for what she had done, and for having committed
herself irretrievably to the life of a common woman, faded away. The
sensation of physical intoxication, of delight in the delirium of
yielding to every sensual impulse, was fresh and keen, and had not yet
lost anything of its savor. Momentary hesitations, indeed, came to her,
but arising solely from the fear that perhaps she might have jeopardized
her chances with West. She had not yet lost all ambition, though mere
love of pleasure was rapidly assuming imperious sway over her deeds and
thoughts.
 
Physical reaction and depression came to her now and again, as it must
come after all pleasures which are themselves entirely physical.
Lassitude, tiredness, irritability assailed her, and more and more
frequently she felt compelled to seek in stimulants an escape from
_ennui_ and weariness. She talked freely and with frank confidence to
Mrs. Harding, in whose companionship she no longer felt any restraint.
Hitherto this woman, with her outspoken brutality, had half amused, half
offended her; but now there was full community of aims and practice
between them; their lives were alike, so were their pleasures and their
longings.
 
She laughed with her over her dealings with Geraldstein and joked over
the gross deception she was practicing on Maddison. She canvassed with
her the schemes she had formed with regard to West, and the difficulty
and possibilities of accomplishing her aims. All this and more that she
observed for herself, Mrs. Harding reported fully to her employer Davis,
who in turn communicated it to Mortimer, who in turn kept his counsel,
believing it to be best to wait until a fitting opportunity arose for
opening Maddison’s eyes to the real character of the woman for whom he
was sacrificing so much of the present and perhaps all of the future.
 
Early one evening, about a week after the dinner at Goldoni’s, West
called upon Marian. Although it was only a little past six o’clock he
was in evening dress.
 
“I’m so glad to find you at home,” he said. “I’m all alone and have been
working like a nigger never does. I wonder will you take pity on me and
come and dine with me? We could go on to the theater or a music-hall
afterward, whatever you like best. I do hope you’re not already booked
upand will take pity on a lonesome grass-widower.”
 
Marian had not hoped for any so early an opening as this, and felt that
she must be guarded in taking advantage of it. West, she felt assured,
was not a man who cared to buy his company cheaply.
 
“I should like it very much,” she answered. “I don’t often go
outGeorge doesn’t like my going about much while he’s away. ButI’m
sure he wouldn’t mind my dining with you. I’m a bit lonesome, too; it’s
rather dreary sometimes when he’s not here.”
 
“Well, let’s cheer each other up and be sociable. I got a regular scare
this afternoon; for the first time in my life I felt not young, and I’m
blowed if I’m going to grow old yetnot me. But work, work, work
and——
 
He broke off without finishing his sentence and stared gloomily into the
fire.
 
“You old!” said Marian, laughing, “I can’t imagine you that. I thought
you were one of those men too full of energy ever to grow old. I expect
you’re tired.”
 
“I guess so, but I shall stay tired, unless I have something to stop my
stewing over business. I’ve had a tough fight for the last few days, but
I’ve downed a man who tried to down me; but he fought well and has tried
me. Young men ought to feel all the fresher after a fight.”
 
“Fight! It must be good to be a man and able to fight. A woman’s just an
onlookera silly, helpless onlooker. Oh! How I should love to be a man
and to fight! It’s sickening,” she exclaimed, pacing angrily up and down
the room, her fists clenched, her cheeks glowing, all for the moment
forgotten except the fiery ambition which had been smoldering and not
yet extinct. “It’s sickening to have one’s hands tied. A woman can’t
_do_ anything, she’s not allowed. She’s just a doll, an ugly doll or a
pretty doll, and she squeaks the words she’s expected to say.”
 
“You’re not like that, though,” West said, watching her with undisguised
admiration.
 
Here for the first time he was in contact with a woman both beautiful
and intellectually gifted. He envied Maddison, who, he felt assured,
could never call forth all that Marian could give a man. Maddison did
not deserve her, and if he could he would win her away from him. He
thought of his wife, the pretty doll; he looked at Marian. This was the
woman who could stir his pulse and who would spur him on to fight.
 
“You’re not like that,” he repeated; “you forget one thing. A man fights
for himself; a woman may not be able to do that, but she can make a man
fight for her as well as for himself. That’s the fight worth having.
Often and often, do you know, when I’ve scored heavily, I’ve just
dropped my hands and wondered what on earth I was working for. Ambition?
That’s not worth a damn. Money? I’ve got more now than I know how to
spend; I just spend it, risk it, for the sake of making morea regular
wild gambler’s risk very often. Butwell, be a good soul, pop on a
pretty frock and come along.”
 
“I’ll come. Would you like a drink? A B. and S., or anythingwell, not
anything, for my cellar’s jolly low at present.”
 
“Not for me, thanks. Appetizers spoil my appetite, and I’ve a rattling
good one at the present moment. How long’ll you behalf an houror an
houreh?”
 
“Half an hour, really not more. I won’t keep you waiting.”
 
“Right. Well, I’ll be back in half an hour, sharp.”
 
“But won’t you wait here?”
 
“No, thanks; I’ll go for a stroll and a cigarette. _Au revoir._”
 
They were both punctual, in fact, Marian was waiting for him.
 
He held out a spray of green orchids.
 
“I went out to get you thesedo wear them.”
 
She looked magnificent, he thought; a conqueror.
 
Under Maddison’s guidance she had cultivated her innate taste for
Oriental color and magnificence; gold and silver embroideries, touches
of brilliant flaming orange and scarlet seemed to defy, but in reality
enhanced, the splendid richness of her red-gold hair.
 
She stood before West in a strange greenish-blue cloak, with heavy gold
tassels and braid and with a hoodlike drapery of sable round her
shoulders. An antique Oriental silver comb, studded with green and blue
stones, held her hair.
 
“How strange,” he said, as she fastened the flowers in the corsage of
her amber gown, “how strange! If I’d known what you were going to put
on, I couldn’t have chosen the flowers better.”
 
“There’s one great pull you women have over us,” West said, as he looked
round the restaurant with its over-gorgeous gilding and its over-fed
crowd of men and women, “you can dress; men merely wear clothes. Just
look at all these silly black coats and blank white shirt fronts. What a
difference it would make if we weren’t afraid of colors and dressed for
effect!”
 
“It tempts women to wear what doesn’t suit them, though.”
 
“Either you’re not tempted, or you’re very clever and strong-minded.
Brave toothere are not many who could stand those colors you have, and
no one else I know who could wear them as if any other colors would be
wrong. You forget that among my many businesses I’m a man milliner. It’s
the most difficult job I’ve had to run that department. Men are easy
enough to content, no matter what they want to buyclothes, cigars,
wine; they’ve no scope for choice, it’s just a question of good or bad;
but womenand dresses! My goodness! Now, I wonder if your taste in
dinners iswell, I was going to say as good as your taste in dress, but
what I really mean isthe same as mine. No soup; just fish, a bird and
a sweet and one wine?”
 
“I’m not going to give myself away. You’re my host; the guests don’t
choose but take. But I’ll tell you candidly afterward whether I’ve
enjoyed it or not. Unless you’d rather I’d say nice things whether I
mean them or not.”
 
He laughed.
 
“It’s difficult to knowdifficult to choose between pretty insincerity
or candidcold water.”
 
“I should have thought you would always choose candor.”
 
“Why?”
 
“A woman’s why; I’ve no reason, but I sort of feel it. Aren’t I right?”
 
“Do you really expect me to answercandidly? To confess being fond of
being humbugged, or to tell a story and say I like candor always? Of
course I don’t; I like being made a fool of, so now you know and can act
accordingly.”
 
“I? You’ve handicapped me. It’s no fun being humbugged when you know it,
is it?”
 
“I’m not so sure of that,” said West, critically examining the _sole à
la Marguery_, which the waiter submitted for his inspection; “I fancy it
rather depends upon the humbugger. It’s funny in business to know a man
is trying to ‘do’ you, and to know that he doesn’t know you suspect him.
AndI think most men are rather pleasantly tickled when they find a
pretty woman who thinks it worth while getting round them. That’s where
you have a man; the greatest compliment you can pay a man is to flatter
him by trying to lay hold of him.”
 
“Doesn’t that depend upon the motive? A rich, ugly man must get rather tired of being run after.”

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