Jennie Gerhardt - Драйзер Теодор. Страница 71

when he married her, and he lived only four years—just long enough to

realise that he had married a charming, tolerant, broad-minded woman.

Then he died of pneumonia and Mrs. Gerald was a rich widow,

sympathetic, attractive, delightful in her knowledge of the world, and

with nothing to do except to live and to spend her money.

She was not inclined to do either indifferently. She had long since had her ideal of a man established by Lester. These whipper- snappers of counts,

earls, lords, barons, whom she met in one social world and another (for

her friendship and connections had broadened notably with the years), did not interest her a particle. She was terribly weary of the superficial veneer of the titled fortune-hunter whom she met abroad. A good judge of

character, a student of men and manners, a natural reasoner along

sociologic and psychologic lines, she saw through them and through the

civilisation which they represented. "I could have been happy in a cottage with a man I once knew out in Cincinnati," she told one of her titled women friends who had been an American before her marriage. "He was

the biggest, cleanest, sanest fellow. If he had proposed to me I would

have married him if I had had to work for a living myself."

"Was he so poor?" asked her friend.

"Indeed he wasn't. He was comfortably rich, but that did not make any difference to me. It was the man I wanted."

"It would have made a difference in the long run," said the other.

"You misjudge me," replied Mrs. Gerald. "I waited for him for a number of years, and I know."

Lester had always retained pleasant impressions and kindly memories of

Letty Pace, or Mrs. Gerald, as she was now. He had been fond of her in a

way, very fond. Why hadn't he married her? He had asked himself that

question time and again. She would have made him an ideal wife, his

father would have been pleased, everybody would have been delighted.

Instead he had drifted and drifted, and then he had met Jennie; and

somehow, after that, he did not want her any more. Now after six years of separation he met her again. He knew she was married. She was vaguely

aware he had had some sort of an affair—she had heard that he had

subsequently married the woman and was living on the South Side. She

did not know of the loss of his fortune. She ran across him first in the

Carlton one June evening. The windows were open, and the flowers were

blooming everywhere, odorous, with that sense of new life in the air

which runs through the world when spring comes back. For the moment

she was a little beside herself. Something choked in her throat; but she

collected herself and extended a graceful arm and hand.

"Why, Lester Kane," she exclaimed. "How DO you do! I am so glad. And this is Mrs. Kane? Charmed, I'm sure. It seems truly like a breath of

spring to see you again. I hope you'll excuse me, Mrs. Kane, but I'm

delighted to see your husband. I'm ashamed to say how many years it is,

Lester, since I saw you last! I feel quite old when I think of it. Why,

Lester, think; it's been all of six or seven years! And I've been married and had a child, and poor Mr. Gerald has died, and oh, dear, I don't know

what all hasn't happened to me."

"You don't look it," commented Lester, smiling. He was pleased to see her again, for they had been good friends. She liked him still—that was

evident, and he truly liked her.

Jennie smiled. She was glad to see this old friend of Lester's. This

woman, trailing a magnificent yellow lace train over pale, mother-of-

pearl satin, her round, smooth arms bare to the shoulder, her corsage cut low and a dark red rose blowing at her waist, seemed to her the ideal of

what a woman should be. She liked looking at lovely women quite as

much as Lester; she enjoyed calling his attention to them, and teasing

him, in the mildest way, about their charms. "Wouldn't you like to run and talk to her, Lester, instead of to me?" she would ask when some

particularly striking or beautiful woman chanced to attract her attention.

Lester would examine her choice critically, for he had come to know that

her judge of feminine charms was excellent. "Oh, I'm pretty well off where I am," he would retort, looking into her eyes; or, jestingly, "I'm not as young as I used to be, or I'd get in tow of that."

"Run on," was her comment. "I'll wait for you."

"What would you do if I really should?"

"Why, Lester, I wouldn't do anything. You'd come back to me, maybe."

"Wouldn't you care?"

"You know I'd care. But if you felt that you wanted to, I wouldn't try to stop you. I wouldn't expect to be all in all to one man, unless he wanted me to be."

"Where do you get those ideas, Jennie?" he asked her once, curious to test the breadth of her philosophy.

"Oh, I don't know, why?"

"They're so broad, so good-natured, so charitable. They're not common, that's sure."

"Why, I don't think we ought to be selfish, Lester. I don't know why.

Some women think differently, I know, but a man and a woman ought to

want to live together, or they ought not to—don't you think? It doesn't

make so much difference if a man goes off for a little while—just so long as he doesn't stay—if he wants to come back at all."

Lester smiled, but he respected her for the sweetness of her point of view

—he had to.

To-night, when she saw this woman so eager to talk to Lester, she realised at once that they must have a great deal in common to talk over;

whereupon she did a characteristic thing. "Won't you excuse me for a little while?" she asked, smiling. "I left some things uncared for in our rooms. I'll be back."

She went away, remaining in her room as long as she reasonably could,

and Lester and Letty fell to discussing old times in earnest. He recounted as much of his experiences as he deemed wise, and Letty brought the

history of her life up to date. "Now that you're safely married, Lester," she said daringly, "I'll confess to you that you were the one man I always wanted to have propose to me—and you never did."

"Maybe I never dared," he said, gazing into her superb black eyes, and thinking that perhaps she might know that he was not married. He felt

that she had grown more beautiful in every way. She seemed to him now

to be an ideal society figure—perfection itself— gracious, natural, witty, the type of woman who mixes and mingles well, meeting each new-comer upon the plane best suited to him or her.

"Yes, you thought! I know what you thought. Your real thought just left the table."

"Tut, tut, my dear. Not so fast. You don't know what I thought."

"Anyhow, I allow you some credit. She's charming."

"Jennie has her good points," he replied simply.

"And are you happy?"

"Oh, fairly so. Yes, I suppose I'm happy—as happy as any one can be

who sees life as it is. You know I'm not troubled with many illusions."

"Not any, I think, kind sir, if I know you."

"Very likely, not any, Letty; but sometimes I wish I had a few. I think I would be happier."

"And I, too, Lester. Really I look on my life as a kind of failure, you know, in spite of the fact that I'm almost as rich as Croesus—not quite. I think he had some more than I have."

"What talk from you—you, with your beauty and talent, and money—