The Proper Thing

The street was empty, the night starless, the hour homicidal and serene. As the taxi flew up, Wentworth had the impression of lights extinguished, an impression which he at once revised. It was, he told himself, lights in the house adjoining that he had seen. He got out, paid the fare, ascended the steps. The cab turned. Across the street a cat cried. Beyond, afar and above, a train shone, rattled, vanished.

Wentworth opened the door. The hall was black. Feeling his way, he entered the drawing room. That too was black. At the entrance was the button of the switch. He groped for it, then stopped. Though he could see nothing and had heard nothing, he had become conscious that he was not alone. There was someone else in the room. At the sudden apperception, his nerves, dominating his flesh, made it creep.

It was one of those moments in which the past surges. In a sort of retrograde vision a panorama unfolded in which, centrally, was Julianne, his wife, who, unaware of his return, was then asleep in her room above.

That morning, with the purchase of a villa by the sea in view, he had gone from New York to Boston where ordinarily the details of it would have detained him at least until the morrow. But the matter had been more speedily concluded than he had expected, and he had taken the night train back. The villa was on the North Shore, and shortly with Julianne he intended to return there for the summer, when guests would come, among others Gordon, a relative of Julianne, one whom she had latterly unearthed. Long before Wentworth had met him, as for that matter he met everybody who was worth it, but it was only recently, since the exhumation, that he had got to know and to like the man.

Now, as he stood in the darkness it was not Gordon that the vision presented but Julianne, and it was then that he felt his flesh creep. Whoever was in this room might already⁠—

At that inhuman possibility he touched the button. With a regret that was to be eternal he wished he had not, wished rather as many do when it is too late, that he had done otherwise, that he had vacated the room, gone upstairs, given them time, himself too, only the few minutes in which any situation may be saved.

In the light which the button brought, he lost that chance. Beyond, behind a center table, looking tolerably strained and, as he afterward thought, equally stupid, there they stood.

In the unawaitedness of it, with a subconscious movement, he turned the light off. Then immediately he turned it on again. But now Gordon was firing away. “We saw you coming and⁠—” It must have been a bit difficult but, with an attempt at a grin that twisted his face, he carried it off. “Rather a joke on you, eh?”

For a second Wentworth looked at the ceiling. It was charming. On it cupids sprawled. He did not see them. What he did see was that which in every spiritual crisis we all see⁠—that he stood absolutely alone. He looked at the man and nodded.

“Yes, you have a rare sense of humor.”

From Gordon he turned to Julianne. She differed from the ordinary. On seeing her you had the impression of one of those mother-of-pearl sultanas that peer from the illuminated text of Persian script. Her voice was luscious. Wentworth loved it. He loved her beauty, her grace, the contour of her mouth that glowed with ardent life, her eyes that were light as blue water and yet large and profound. But most, it had been her heart that he had loved, that enigmatic heart of hers that had also its depths, depths hitherto unsounded. It was covered now, as she was, with what is ridiculously known as a saut-de-lit.

From the woman he turned again to the man. Gordon’s white neckcloth might have been better tied. Under his overcoat it showed loosely.

Already Wentworth had reconstructed it all; Gordon who had been about to go, Julianne who had accompanied him down, then the taxi, the alarm, the lights switched off, the wait, the suspense! Well, they had had enough of it, so too had he.

“Yes,” he repeated and mercifully dropped it there.

As he spoke he removed his hat. About the ears his hair was gray. He was nearly forty. Gordon was younger, more the woman’s man perhaps, but less fine than Wentworth, who had that air of extreme distinction which certain New Yorkers occasionally attain.

In removing his hat he approached the table behind which they stood and looked at Julianne again.

“That is a very pretty thing you have on,” he told her. “But a trifle thin perhaps. This is one of our nice, warm April nights when everybody catches cold. Better get something heavier, don’t you think?”

Beneath the flimsy frippery, that enigmatic heart of hers had been beating, beating, beating. She did not know what might happen. In circumstances not similar perhaps but cognate a woman seldom does know. Though usually a beautiful woman becomes aware that in her existence there is always something of the fairy tale. Now, in the rain of his calm, colorless words there was that reassurance which, au fond, she had expected. Her sultana air, momentarily disturbed, but momentarily only, returned. Her lips glowed, her eyes shone, she smiled, and lusciously she spoke:

“I will, dear.”

With those unique syllables which in a woman’s mouth are so fluid, she undulated, moved to the door, looked back. The hall engulfed her. On the marble there, the slight click-clack of her slippers sounded.

Wentworth turned to Gordon. “I haven’t seen an evening paper. How did the market go?”

But Gordon was not Julianne. He knew nothing of fairy tales. He had not found life a dream fulfilled. None the less there was a game to be played, and he played it.

“Well,” he threw out, “the best I can say for it is that it did not go sidewise.” Without transition he added, “I thought Julianne might be lonely, and I just looked in.” For a moment he hesitated, scrutinizing Wentworth’s face. It was quite blank. Then zealously he resumed, “But you must be tired. I’ll run. Good night.”

“Good night.”

Less thoroughly now than before Wentworth was again alone in this room which, fitted with things costly and futile, seemed to him bare. For a while at the table he stood occupied with that journey to the irreparable which is at once the quickest and the longest that any man can take. In considering things, he considered, too, his own attitude. In circumstances such as these he saw that another might have merely gone and, in going, omitted, technically at least, to condone. Or else he might have shot⁠—yes, and shouted. Or again he might have beaten the man, abused the woman, thrown them both in the street. More barbarously still, he might have laughed and said, “Good God, sir, is it possible that you have been embracing this lady without being obliged to?”

One or another of these things a man might do, but not a civilized man or, more exactly perhaps, an evolved one, and Wentworth at least was that. The point did not detain him. What preoccupied him was the question of duty, the proper thing to do.

Opposite, across the room, hung an inferior daub that had been signed by a superior name. Absently he looked at it, and suddenly it counseled, reminding him that a prophet, discovering that his wife was in love with another man and that the other man was in love with her, had moved aside, got her a divorce, attended the wedding, given her away.

Wentworth was not Ruskin, and certainly Gordon was not Millais. But the procedure appealed to Wentworth to whom it seemed the only way in which he could rightly act.

He did not reach the decision at once or even as here summarized. It was the next day and after much mental wrestling that he attained it. Meanwhile he had inquired concerning his wife. With her Pekingese she had gone for a drive.

It was then high noon. Shortly, in one of those trains which the night before had shone and vanished, he got to the office of a lawyer. The latter, Mr. Tatum, was a man with the air of a chucker-out and a manner of almost infantile gentleness.

“And so,” he cooed, when Wentworth had had his say, “you want to give Mrs. Wentworth a divorce. Well, now, that presupposes a corespondent. From what you tell me I assume that there is none, in which case if for the purposes of Mrs. Wentworth’s action, you procure one, it is collusion.”

Wentworth nodded. “And consequently more expensive.”

Mr. Tatum moistened his lips. “But I think it can be arranged. The main difficulty may be with Mrs. Wentworth’s attorneys.”

Again Wentworth nodded. “And who need not consider the expense either.”

“I wish all my clients were like you,” Mr. Tatum comfortably replied. “Or rather I wish you were not my client at all. Yes, I do. It is not for me to go behind what you have told me. But it is clear that you are here to do, not the right thing, but the gentlemanly one. The gentlemanly thing is the conventional thing, and all conventionality is cowardice.”

“I think I have heard that before,” Wentworth got in.

Mr. Tatum made a gesture. “Perhaps then you have also heard this: There are certain edicts that no court can dissolve. Issued by our forefathers ages ago they determine our instincts, make us what we are. These instincts used to make men so agreeable that they stoned certain women. Nowadays, in men of your class, they urge them to open all the doors, all the windows, run around and jump off, fish for a divorce and bring it back on a silver platter.

“I’m not a married man,” the lawyer resumed, “but if I were, and I⁠—well, let us say the devil tempted me, I should deeply regret to have my wife discover it. But if she did I would expect her forgiveness. Certainly I would, and if she were a good woman and cared for me, in time I would get it. All love is pity. On the other hand, if the devil tempted my wife, I would forgive her. The one affection worth having is that which can, not only forgive, but console. The majority think otherwise, but in all matters stupidity is very generally diffused. Personally on that score I have no cause for complaint. It is on general stupidity that we lawyers subsist.

“In other words, you mean that I am an imbecile,” Wentworth again got in.

“I mean in matters of this kind, the proper thing is to run a sponge over whatever may be amiss. None the less I am at your service. Mrs. Wentworth shall have a divorce, if you still wish it.”

“Still wish it? I did not come here to change my mind.”

Tatum laughed. “Do you know, I have a room that I use for no other purpose. Changing the mind is a cleanly habit and consequently hygienic.”

But as he laughed, he stood up. Mantled with the dicta which he had let fall, his client was leaving.

These dicta, in the train back, that client examined. They did not seem to him very cogent. To employ a sponge was, he reflected, all very well. But there are sponges of different sizes and classes. The kind he required was a divorce sponge, one that would release Julianne and enable her to marry Gordon who, confound him, would jump at the chance of it. However Tatum might argue, that, he determined, was not only the proper thing, it was the only thing.

But now, abandoning the train, he crossed to Fifth Avenue and entered a club where behind a paper for a while he sat and waited. A member strolled in and yawned; another appeared; a third; finally the one he wanted.

He waved the paper. “Gordon!”

At that, Gordon, had he been able, would have turned tail. He had an animal feeling of being snared. Heartily he wished himself out of it. But, summoning a smile, he approached, straddled a chair, and quite affably looked Wentworth over.

“I have been to my lawyer,” the latter told him.

“And how was he?” Gordon inquired. He found but that. Yet since the morning he had been in and out of the club thinking that, at any moment, a message might come from Julianne to whom⁠—lest Wentworth should get it⁠—he had discreetly omitted to telephone. Now without knowing at all how the land lay, here he was in the thick of it. None the less the smile remained, and at once he was on again.

“By George, you will never believe me, but the last time I consulted a lawyer I had to advise him. On my word I did. He was in a stew over some mess of his own, and I reminded him of Antoninus and how, one night, when the empire was in a turmoil, and the old chap was dying, the captain of the guard came to him for the watchword, ‘Equanimity,’ he replied. You remember?”

“Yes,” Wentworth answered. “It is one of the most consoling things in history.”

Gordon’s smile deepened. “And precious few of them there are. History is dull as ditch-water and ought to be brilliant as a ballet.”

He was but sparring for wind, only he rather felt that Wentworth knew it.

“I had to advise my lawyer, too,” the latter was saying.

Appreciatively, smiling still, Gordon nodded. “They are just like physicians. It is stupid to go to a doctor unless you can tell him what’s wrong with you. If you don’t know, how in the world can you expect him to? If you can’t tell a lawyer how to act⁠—”

“I told mine.”

“And paid him too. That’s always the way.”

“I told him to get Julianne a divorce.”

“Eh?” Gordon exclaimed. His smile vanished. He sat back. He had not known what to expect, but of all things he had not expected that.

“It will be quite simple,” Wentworth continued and would have said more, but now a man in a blue swallowtail and a waistcoat of slashed mustard approached.

“You are wanted at the telephone, sir.”

It was Gordon whom he addressed, and Gordon rose to it. It was a straw, a plank, a raft, rescue from the awkwardness of the situation. With a gesture of excuse he got to his feet, followed the man, entered a corridor in which there were booths.

“Number two, sir.” The operator announced.

Gordon, closing the door, took the receiver. “Hello! Oh, it is you! Well, he’s here. Have you seen him since? You did not see him this morning? I have a bit of news for you then. He has been to his lawyer. No, no, not that at all. It will be for you. All the honors of war. No, honors I said, not horrors. What? I did not get it. Rubbish? Did you say rubbish? Well, rubbish is always a point of view. Hello! Hello!”

The connection was cut. Gordon stared at the instrument. But it was not that which he saw, the necessity rather of returning to Wentworth and of taking medicine which it was shameful of him to dose him with. But, he instantly decided, he could avoid all that. The telephone was excuse enough. He could invent a message and vanish.

“Here,” he called to a boy as he left the booth. “My hat and stick.”

Weaponed with these, he went and waved at Wentworth. “Got to run. In a taxi at that.”

But Wentworth stood up and approached him. “Is it so very pressing?”

Gordon turned and made for the door. “My father’s had a fit.”

Wentworth followed. “I had rather hoped for a minute with you, but⁠—”

“Yes, I’m sorry. Another time.”

Both now were on the pavement. Gordon beckoned a chauffeur, threw him an order, entered the cab.

“You see,” Wentworth said to him through the window, “when it is all over you can marry⁠—”

He was about to add “Julianne.” But Gordon was too quick for him.

“When what’s all over? Good Lord, what are you driving at? I’m not a marrying man.”

Already the car was in motion. Before Wentworth could reply, it spat, veered, darted.

The house of cards about him, Wentworth reentered the club. He had been sure that Gordon would jump at it. Now the man’s defection left him in the dark. In that darkness he sat until, another darkness supervening, he went out into it and on to his home.

In the hall there a servant addressed him. “Mrs. Wentworth has been asking for you, sir. Mrs. Wentworth’s in the dining room. Dinner is served.”

Lusciously, a moment later, that lady also addressed him. “Now tell me, dear, all about your trip.”

Never had she seemed more fair, more desirable. Her mouth glowed, her eyes deepened, and, confident in her charm, she smiled.

Wentworth, coerced by that charm, sat down. “There is not much to tell,” he replied. “But I think you will like the house.”

He paused, looked at her. At the spectacle of her beauty something spoke in him.

“I know that I shall,” he at once continued. “It is almost directly on the sea.”

And why not? he reflected as he helped himself to an oyster. Why not, since love is pity? Besides, he decided, as he helped himself to another oyster, Tatum is right. It’s the proper thing.