"He was a fine man, Mr. Honeybun was, and my land! he was fond of you. He'd try to hide it; but half an eye could see that he was that proud of you! He'd be awful up-and-coming while you was here, and make out that it didn't matter to him whether you was here or not; but once you was away—my land! He'd be that down you'd think he'd never come up again. And one thing I could see as plain as plain; he was real determined2 that when you'd got up in the world he wasn't going to be a drag on you. He'd keep saying that you wasn't beholding4 to him for anything; and that he'd be glad when you could do without him so that he could get back again to his friends; but my land! half an eye could see."
During these first days Tom found the memory of a love as big as Honey's too poignant5 to dwell upon. He would dwell upon it later, when the self-reproach which so largely composed his grief had softened6
[Pg 314]
down. All he could do as yet was to curse himself for the obtuseness7 which had taken Honey at the bluff8 of his words, when the tenderness behind his deeds should have been evident to anyone not a fool.
He couldn't bear to think of it. Not to think of it, he asked Mrs. Danker for news of Maisie. He had often wondered whether Maisie might not have told her aunt in confidence of her engagement to himself; and now he learned that she had not.
"I hardly ever hear from her; but another aunt of Maisie's writes to me now and then. Says that that drummer fellow is back again. I hope he'll keep away from her. He don't mean no good by her, and she goes daft over him every time he turns up. My land! how do we know he hasn't a wife somewheres else, when he goes off a year and more at a time, on his long business trips? This time he's been to Australia. It was to get her away from him that I asked her to spend that winter in Boston; but now that he's back—well, I'm sure I don't know."
Tom had not supposed that at the suggestion of a rival he would have felt a pang9; and yet he felt one.
"Of course, there's some one; we know that. It must be some one too who's got plenty of money, because he's given her a di'mond ring that must be worth five hundred dollars, her other aunt tells me, if it's worth a cent. We know he makes big money, because he's got a fine position, and his family is one of the most high thought of in Nashua. That's part of the trouble. They're very religious and toney, so they wouldn't think Maisie a good enough match for him. Still, if he'd only do one thing or the other,
[Pg 315]
keep away from her, or ask her right out and out to marry him...."
Tom was no longer listening. The mention of Maisie's diamond had made him one hot lump of shame. He knew more of the cost of jewels now than when he had purchased the engagement ring, and even if he didn't know much he knew enough.
A few days later he was in Nashua. He went, partly because he had the day to spare before he took up college work again, partly because of a desire to learn what was truly in Maisie's heart, partly to make her some amends10 for his long neglect of her, and mostly because he needed to pour out his confession11 as to the diamond ring. Having been warned of his coming, Maisie, who had got rid of the children for an hour or two, awaited him in the parlor12.
A little powder, a little unnecessary rouge13, a sweater of imitation cherry-colored silk, gave her the vividness of a well-made artificial flower. Even Tom could see that, with her neat short skirt and high-heeled shoes, she was dressed beyond the note of the shabby little room; but if she would only twine14 her arms around his neck, and give him one of the kisses that used to be so sweet, he could overlook everything else.
Her eyes on the big square cardboard box he carried in his hand, she received him somberly. Having allowed him to kiss her, she sat down at the end of a table drawn15 up beside the window, while he put the box in front of her.
"What's this?"
He placed himself at the other end of the table,
[Pg 316]
having its length between them. Because of his waning16 love, because of the ring above all, he had done one of those reckless things which sometimes render men exultant17. From his slender means he had filched18 a hundred dollars for a set of furs. He watched Maisie's face as she untied19 knots and lifted the cover of the band-box.
On discovering the contents her expression became critical. She fingered the fur without taking either of the articles from the box. Turning over an edge of the boa, she looked at the lining20. It was a minute or two before she took out the muff and held it in her hands. She examined it as if she were buying it in a shop.
"That's a last year's style," was her first observation. "It'll be regular old-fashioned by next winter, and, of course, I shouldn't want a muff before then. The girls'll think I got them second-hand21 when they're as out of date as all that. They're awful particular in Nashua, more like New York than Boston." She shook out the boa. "Those little tails are sweet, but they don't wear them now. How much did you give?"
He told her.
"They're not worth it. It's the marked-down season too. Some one's put it over on you. I could have got them for half the price—and younger. These are an old woman's furs. The girls'll say my aunt in Boston's died, and left them to me in her will."
Brushing them aside, she faced him with her resentful eyes. Her hands were clasped in front of her, the diamond flashing on the finger resting on a
[Pg 317]
table-scarf of thin brown silk embroidered22 in magenta23 ferns.
"Well, Tom, what's your answer to my letter?"
At any other minute he would have replied gently, placatingly24; but just now his heart was hot. A hundred dollars had meant much to him. It would have to be paid back in paring down on all his necessities, in food, in carfares, even in the washing of his clothes. He too clasped his hands on the table, facing her as she faced him. He remembered afterward25 how blue her eyes had been, blue as lapis lazuli. All he could see in them now was demand, and further demand, and demand again after that.
"Have I got to give you an answer, Maisie? If so, it's only the one I've given you before. We'll be married when I get through college, and have found work."
"And when'll that be?"
"I'm sorry to say it won't be for another two years, at the earliest."
"Another two years, and I've waited three already!"
"I know you have. But listen, Maisie! When we got engaged I was only sixteen. You were only eighteen. Even now I'm only nineteen, and you're only twenty-one. We've got lots of time. It would be foolish for us to be married...."
She broke in, drily. "So I see."
"You see what, Maisie?"
"What you want me to see. If you think I'm dying to marry you...."
"No, I'm not such an idiot as that. But if we're in love with each other, as we used to be...."
[Pg 318]
"As you used to be."
"As I used to be of course; and you too, I suppose."
"Oh, you needn't kill yourself supposing."
He drew back. "What do you mean by that, Maisie?"
"What do you think I mean?"
"Well, I don't know. It sounds as if you were trying to tell me that you'd never cared anything about me."
"How much did you ever care about me?"
"I used to think I couldn't live without you."
"And you've found out that you can."
"I've had to, for one thing; and for another, I'm older now, and I know that nobody is really essential to anybody else. All the same—"
"Yes, Tom; all the same—what?"
"If you'd be willing to take what I can offer you—"
"Take what you can offer me! You're not offering me anything."
He explained his ambitions, for her as well as for himself. Life was big; it was full of opportunity; his origin didn't chain any man who knew how to burst its bonds. He did know. He didn't know how he knew, but he did. He just had it in him. When you knew you had it in you, you didn't depend on anyone to tell you; you yourself became your own corroboration27.
But in order to fulfil this conviction of inner power you needed to know things. You needed the experience, the standing28, the rubbing up against other men, which you got in college in a way that you didn't get
[Pg 319]
anywhere else. You got some of it by going into business, but only some of it. In any case, it was no more than a chance in business. You might get it or you might not. With the best will in the world on your part, it might slip by you. In college it couldn't slip by you, if you had any intelligence at all. All the past experience of mankind was gathered up there for you to profit by. You could only absorb a little of it, of course. But you acquired the habit of absorbing. It was not so much what you learned that gave college its value; it was the learning of a habit of learning. You got an attitude of mind. Your attitude of mind was what made you, what determined your place in the world. With a closed mind you got nowhere; with an open mind the world was as the sea driving all its fish into your net. College opened the mind; it was the easiest method by which it could be done. If she would only be patient till he had got through the preliminary training and had found the job for which he would be fitted....
"But what's the use of waiting when you can get a job for which you'd be fitted right off the bat? There's a family up here on the hill that wants a shofer. They give a hundred and twenty-five a month. Why go to all that trouble about opening your mind when here's the job handed out to you? The gentleman-friend I told you about says that business has got college skinned. He says colleges are punk. He says lots of men in business won't take a man if he's been to college. They'd want a fellow with some get-up-and-get to him."
[Pg 320]
He began to understand her as he had never done before. Maisie had the closed mind. She was Honey's "orthodock," the type which accepts the limitations other people fix for it. He registered the thought, long forming in his mind subconsciously29, that among American types the orthodock is the commonest. It was not true, as so often assumed, that the average American is keen to forge ahead and become something bigger than he is. That was one of the many self-flattering American ideals that had no relation to life. Mrs. Ansley's equality of opportunity was another. People passed these phrases on, and took for granted they were true, when in everyday practice they were false.
There could be no breaking forth30 into a larger life so long as the national spirit made for repression31, suppression, restriction32, and denial. Maisie was but one of the hundred and sixteen millions of Americans out of a possible hundred and seventeen on whom all the pressure of social, industrial, educational, and religious life had been brought to bear to keep her mind shut, her tastes puerile33, and her impulses to expansion thwarted34. With a great show of helping35 and blessing36 the less fortunate, American life, he was coming to believe, was organized to force them back, and beat them into subjection. The hundred and seventeenth million loved to believe that it wasn't so; it was not according to their consciences that it should be so; but the result could be seen in the hundred and sixteen million minds drilled to disability, as Maisie's was.
A young man not yet hardened to life's injustices37, he saw himself rushing to Maisie's aid, to make the
[Pg 321]
best of her. Experience would help her as it had helped him. The shriveled bud of her mind would unfold in warmth and sunshine. This would be in their future together. In the meantime he must clear the ground of the present by getting rid of pretence38.
"There's one thing I want to tell you, Maisie, something I'm rather ashamed of."
The lapis lazuli eyes widened in a look of wonder. He might be going to tell her of another girl.
"You know, as I've just said, that when we got engaged I was only sixteen. I didn't know anything about anything. I thought I did, of course; but then all fellows of sixteen think that. I'd never had anyone to teach me, or show me the right hang of things. You saw for yourself how I lived with Honey; and before that, as you know, I'd been a State ward26. Further back than that—but I can't talk about it yet. Some day when we're married, and know each other better—"
"I'm not asking you. I don't care."
"No, I know you don't care, and that you're not asking me; but I want you to understand how it was that I was so ignorant, so much more ignorant than I suppose any other fellow would have been. When I went out to buy that ring you've got on—"
He knew by the horror in her face that she divined what he had to tell her. He knew too that she had already been afraid of it.
"You're not going to say that it isn't a real diamond?"
To nerve himself he had to look at her steadily39. Confessing a murder would have been easier.
[Pg 322]
"No, Maisie, it isn't a real diamond. At the time I bought it I didn't know what a real diamond was. I'm not sure that I know now—"
He stopped because, without taking her eyes from his, she was slipping the ring from her finger. She was slipping, too, an illusion from her mind. He knew now that to be trifled with in love, to be betrayed in a great trust, would be small things to Maisie as compared to this kind of deception40. Her wrath41 and contempt were the more scathing42 to behold3 because of her cherry-colored prettiness.
The ring lay on the table. Drawing in the second finger of her right hand, she made of it a spring against her thumb. She loosed the spring suddenly. The faked diamond sped across the table hitting against his hand. He picked it up, putting it out of sight in his waistcoat pocket. For a fellow of nineteen, eager to be something big, no lower depth of humiliation43 could ever be imagined.
Maisie stood up. "You cheap skate!"
He bowed his head as a criminal sometimes does when sentenced. He had no protest to make. A cheap skate was what he was. He sat there crushed. Skirting round him as if he were defiled44, she went out into the little entry.
He was still sitting crushed when she came back. She did not pause. She merely flung his hat on the table as she went by. It was a cheap skate's hat, a brown soft felt, shapeless, weather-stained, three years out of style. With no further words, she opened the door into the adjoining room, passed through it, and closed it noiselessly behind her.
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1
prim
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| adj.拘泥形式的，一本正经的；n.循规蹈矩，整洁；adv.循规蹈矩地，整洁地 | |
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2
determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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3
behold
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| v.看，注视，看到 | |
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4
beholding
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| v.看，注视( behold的现在分词 )；瞧；看呀；（叙述中用于引出某人意外的出现）哎哟 | |
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5
poignant
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| adj.令人痛苦的，辛酸的，惨痛的 | |
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6
softened
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| （使）变软( soften的过去式和过去分词 )； 缓解打击； 缓和； 安慰 | |
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7
obtuseness
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| 感觉迟钝 | |
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8
bluff
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| v.虚张声势，用假象骗人；n.虚张声势，欺骗 | |
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9
pang
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| n.剧痛，悲痛，苦闷 | |
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10
amends
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| n. 赔偿 | |
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11
confession
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| n.自白，供认，承认 | |
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12
parlor
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| n.店铺，营业室；会客室，客厅 | |
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13
rouge
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| n.胭脂，口红唇膏；v.(在…上)擦口红 | |
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14
twine
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| v.搓，织，编饰；（使）缠绕 | |
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15
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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16
waning
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| adj.（月亮）渐亏的，逐渐减弱或变小的n.月亏v.衰落( wane的现在分词 )；（月）亏；变小；变暗淡 | |
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17
exultant
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| adj.欢腾的，狂欢的，大喜的 | |
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18
filched
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| v.偷（尤指小的或不贵重的物品）( filch的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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19
untied
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| 松开，解开( untie的过去式和过去分词 )； 解除，使自由； 解决 | |
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20
lining
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| n.衬里，衬料 | |
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21
second-hand
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| adj.用过的，旧的，二手的 | |
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22
embroidered
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| adj．绣花的 | |
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23
magenta
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| n..紫红色（的染料）；adj.紫红色的 | |
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24
placatingly
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25
afterward
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| adv.后来；以后 | |
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26
ward
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| n.守卫，监护，病房，行政区，由监护人或法院保护的人（尤指儿童）；vt.守护，躲开 | |
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27
corroboration
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| n.进一步的证实，进一步的证据 | |
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28
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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29
subconsciously
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| ad.下意识地，潜意识地 | |
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30
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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31
repression
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| n.镇压，抑制，抑压 | |
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32
restriction
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| n.限制，约束 | |
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33
puerile
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| adj.幼稚的，儿童的 | |
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34
thwarted
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| 阻挠( thwart的过去式和过去分词 )； 使受挫折； 挫败； 横过 | |
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35
helping
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| n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的 | |
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36
blessing
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| n.祈神赐福；祷告；祝福，祝愿 | |
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37
injustices
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| 不公平( injustice的名词复数 )； 非正义； 待…不公正； 冤枉 | |
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38
pretence
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| n.假装，作假；借口，口实；虚伪；虚饰 | |
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39
steadily
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| adv.稳定地；不变地；持续地 | |
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40
deception
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| n.欺骗，欺诈；骗局，诡计 | |
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41
wrath
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| n.愤怒，愤慨，暴怒 | |
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42
scathing
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| adj.（言词、文章）严厉的，尖刻的；不留情的adv.严厉地，尖刻地v.伤害，损害（尤指使之枯萎）( scathe的现在分词) | |
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43
humiliation
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| n.羞辱 | |
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44
defiled
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| v.玷污( defile的过去式和过去分词 )；污染；弄脏；纵列行进 | |
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