The Brute

It was nearly a week after his first visit to the Rogers’ apartment that he suddenly made up his mind to call, and, as luck would have it, Donald was not at home on that particular evening, having gone to a meeting of one of the engineering societies of which he was a member. The absence of a telephone brought West before the Rogers’ door without any previous knowledge of his friend’s absence. Edith, who was sitting alone, reading a magazine, and, to tell the truth, thinking of West himself and wondering what had become of him, received her caller with unfeigned gladness and insisted upon his remaining until Donald’s return, which, she assured him, would not be late. Between spending the evening alone at his hotel, and here with the woman he had half-begun to believe was dearer to him, in spite of the lapse of years, than anyone else in the world, there was no choice. West came in and sat down, delighted at the opportunity which fate had thus generously accorded him.

They talked along conventional lines for a time, West entertaining her with an account of his experiences during the past week, and dilating upon the merits of his new automobile, which he insisted she must try at once. Edith was delighted at the prospect – he told her that he was taking lessons in driving, and would soon be able to manage it with the best of them.

After a time, the topic having been exhausted, a silence came upon them, one of those portentous intervals that form a prelude to the expression of the unspoken thought, the unbidden wish.

Edith was more than ever conscious of some powerful attraction in this man; he seemed to represent vast possibilities – possibilities for future happiness – of what nature she did not dare even to ask herself. She felt, whenever she was with him, a strange confidence in the outcome of things; although what things she did not know. “I should be so glad to go,” she had said, in reply to his suggestion regarding the proposed automobile trips. “I am alone so much!” There had been a touch of sadness in her voice that did not escape him. He looked at her keenly. “Are you happy, Edith?” he asked with directness which startled her.

“Why – yes – of course I am. I hope you do not think that I was complaining. I only meant that I am a good deal alone during the day, and – and – ” She hesitated. He knew quite well that she was not happy – or, at least, that she found her life far more empty than she had ever dreamed it would be when she married.

“ – And you will take pity on a lonely bachelor,” he completed her sentence for her. “As a matter of fact, I haven’t anyone else to go about with, you know.”

“And so you fall back on me. You’re not very complimentary, Billy. I’ll have to find someone to help you spend your money.” She laughed, watching him narrowly as she spoke. After her eight years of married life, the subtle flattery of this man’s attentions seemed doubly sweet, and, woman-like, she wanted to hold on to them, and enjoy them, as long as she could.

“I don’t think I’d care about any young girl,” he remarked gravely. “You know I always liked you better than anyone else, Edith, and I’m glad to say I still do.”

“In spite of my gray hairs,” she laughed. She had none, as a matter of fact, being especially youthful in appearance for a woman of nearly thirty, but she longed for the compliment she felt sure her remark would elicit.

“In spite of everything,” he declared, “I have never forgiven Donald for cutting in and marrying you while I was away trying to make a fortune to lay at your feet.” He spoke banteringly, with a laugh, but something in his voice told her that he was far more in earnest than his manner indicated. “Now that I have made it, I am determined that you shall have some pleasure out of it.”

“That’s very sweet of you, Billy,” she said, with a touch of gravity in her manner. “I cannot tell you how much I appreciate it.”

“Nonsense. Think what old friends we are. If you will take pity on my loneliness, and all that, I shall feel that I am the one who should be grateful.” He rose from his chair and came over to where she sat, near the desk. “Do you know, Edith,” he said suddenly, “that in all the time I have been away I don’t suppose a single day went by that I did not think of you?”

“Don’t tell me that, Billy. If you thought of me once in six months you did well.” Her nervous laugh, as she attempted to meet his gaze, sounded unconvincing. She almost began to believe that he had thought of her every day.

“Do you remember that picture you once gave me – the one in the big Leghorn hat?”

“Why, yes,” she answered slowly.

“I’ve had it on my dresser always, wherever I’ve been – it was the last thing I looked at when I went to bed at night. So, you see, I did think of you every day – honestly.”

She felt her color coming – something in his manner, as he stood there gazing down at her, alarmed her. She felt that he still loved her, and that it would be only a question of time until he should tell her so. She was by no means prepared for any such rupture in their friendly relations, for rupture she knew it would certainly be, should he speak. She rose hastily and went toward the piano.

“Shall I play for you?” she asked. In the past it had been his invariable habit to ask her to do so.

“Will you?” His voice showed his appreciation of the fact that she had remembered.

“What would you like?”

“Oh, anything – it’s been so long since I’ve heard any good music!” He joined her at the piano. “How about that beautiful thing you used to sing sometimes – Massenet’s ‘Elegy,’ wasn’t it? Don’t you remember I always said I’d rather hear you sing that than listen to a grand opera?”

“Oh – I couldn’t. I haven’t sung for years.”

“What a pity! I shouldn’t think Donald would let you give it up.”

“Donald doesn’t care much for music.” She felt as she spoke that she had in some way criticized her husband and hastened to make amends. “He’s too busy – that’s the reason. Donald is working very hard, and has to do a lot of work at home – nights. If I sang, it would bother him.” She began to play the piece with considerable feeling and skill, and West, who was intensely fond of music, leaned over the piano and watched her happily. To have this woman all to himself seemed to him the only thing that fortune had denied him. The love which had lain so quiet all these years surged up within him with unsuspected force. His arms longed to draw her to him, to clasp her to his heart. He looked at her expressive, delicate face, her round, smooth neck, her dark, heavy hair, and wondered how Donald could bring himself to think that she could possibly be happy in the position of a mere household drudge. His reflections did Donald scant justice; the latter, poor fellow, was trying with all his strength to lift both Edith and himself out of their present environment, but Donald was a silent man, who endured all things patiently, and he expected his wife to do the same.

West’s intentions, if, indeed, he admitted to himself that he had any at this time, were directed toward two ends – his own amusement and Edith’s. Perhaps amusement is not the exact word – it was more than that to him, for he could have amused himself with many women. He was really very fond of Edith, more so, perhaps, than he himself fully realized, and in giving her pleasure he gave himself pleasure as well. The idea of making love to her, of coming in any way between herself and Donald, had never entered his mind. After all, we so rarely erect barriers against certain experiences in life until after they have occurred, by which time barriers are no longer of any avail.

When Edith stopped playing, West begged her to go on, and presently, running into the accompaniment of “Oh, Promise Me,” she began to sing in a clear, sweet voice which brought back to him the evenings, long before, when she had sung this song to him. Unconsciously the years passed from them – he joined in the chorus of the song with his uncultivated, yet not unmusical, baritone, and once more they seemed back in the boarding-house parlor, she the young girl with life all before her, and he the happy-go-lucky Billy West, making and spending his small salary with joyous indifference as to the future.

He stayed until nearly half-past ten, hoping that Donald would return, but the latter evidently had been kept longer than he expected. Edith did not press him to remain – somehow, in spite of her old friendship for West, it seemed a bit queer, this sensation of being here alone in her apartment with a man other than her husband. She did not propose to conceal the fact of his having been there from Donald, but it seemed to her easier to tell Donald that Billy had called during his absence than to have him come in and find them together even as innocently engaged as they were. She knew that this feeling on her part was absurd, that Donald would not have the least idea of jealousy or suspicion – he was too clean minded a man for that. Her scruples arose from a deeper cause. She had begun to think about West in a way that caused her to feel guilty of disloyalty to her husband when no disloyalty had occurred – to desire to avoid the appearance of evil where no evil existed. All that she had done had been to liken her life with Donald, to what it might have been had she married West. It is a curious fact that the best of women are willing at times to compare the husband at his worst, with the lover at his casual best, and judge both accordingly.

West rode back to his hotel in a maze of doubts. He was genuinely fond of Donald – he liked him better than any man he knew, and this, probably, because he was in all things so nearly the other’s opposite. He wondered whether Donald would object in any way to the attentions he proposed showing Edith – whether he would become jealous, and feel that his wife’s place was at home, rather than dashing about in a five-thousand-dollar automobile with another man. Perhaps it would be but natural that he should, although not by nature a jealous man, and West realized the confidence that he placed in both his wife and himself. What West did not realize was the effect which his money and the pleasures and luxuries it could command would have upon this woman whose married life had been one long lesson in economy. He had no conception of the contrast in Edith’s life between a quiet existence in a Harlem flat and the land of dreams to which his money was the open sesame, the golden key, unlocking the barriers between poverty on the one hand and all that the heart could desire on the other. He did not, could not, realize the upheaval which would necessarily take place in her life, the dissatisfaction which must inevitably ensue, if she were once drawn into a whirl of pleasures and excitements to which her existence for so many years had been totally foreign. If she and Donald lunched or dined together at an expensive restaurant it was an event, commemorating some anniversary – such as their wedding or a birthday. West, on the contrary, regarded dropping into any of the hotels or cafés for luncheon or dinner as a most ordinary performance – he was forced to do it himself, and his only desire was for company. As for going to the theater, he knew that the best seats were always obtainable at the hotels, or on the sidewalk – at a small advance in price, it is true. But what difference did that make to a man who had a hundred dollars a day to spend and no reason whatever for not spending it?

Even before West’s coming, the subtle poison of dissatisfaction had begun to eat its way into Edith’s heart. Money had always appeared to her a vital necessity in life – her mother had taken care of that – but in the flush of youthful enthusiasm she had believed that, with Donald at her side, she could endure comparative poverty with a light heart, until he had made his fortune, as so many another man had done before him. She had not thought, however, that the time would be so long. West came into her life at a moment when she was fertile soil for the seeds of discontent which he so unconsciously was planting in her nature.

She greeted her husband with indifferent coldness upon his return, about half-past eleven, and told him of West’s call. Donald was unfeignedly sorry that he had missed his friend, but showed no least trace of annoyance on learning that West and Edith had spent the evening together. “I hope he will come often,” he said. “We have both been a bit lonely of late. It will do you good, dear, to have new interests in life. I am only sorry that I cannot do more for you myself.” He drew her to him, and kissed her tenderly, but, somehow, under his caress she shivered and grew cold. “Billy is a splendid fellow, and I don’t doubt you will be doing him a real kindness to help him amuse himself a bit until he has got settled in town. It makes a great difference to a man, to be away from New York for five years.”

West had suggested to Edith that they take a trial trip in the new automobile the following Friday, but of this Edith said nothing at the time. It was not that she wished to conceal the fact, but it seemed to her pointed, and as though drawing especial attention to an unimportant matter, to speak of it at this time. So she said nothing. After all, she had nothing to conceal or be ashamed of. It is true that, in her more introspective moments, she saw a dim shadow of danger ahead; but she put it resolutely aside, and contented herself with a sophistry which has led many another along devious paths. “Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.”