Black Oxen Part 36

"No doubt you will see him, for he always had the greatest respect for your opinion--was it not you who advised him to sell out practically everything he possessed, except the land in Galicia, and invest it in America? I have no doubt he will confide in you and ask your advice.

You have a wonderful flair for politics, dear Marie, and you know what we all expect of you. Hurry, hurry and come back to us. We need you in a thousand ways. But what a rest that sojourn in the gay and brilliant and _rich_ city of New York must have given you. It is both wonderful and saddening to read of the almost unbelievable contrast to our poor Vienna. But they are generous. The second cheque from your Vienna Fund came yesterday. Do leave the _oeuvre_ in reliable and sympathetic hands, dear Marie, so that it may go on until--well, G.o.d only knows when."

Mary read this portion of the letter over twice, the serenity of her face routed by a frown. Of course she had expected to meet this man in the future, indeed had had a very definite idea of playing his cards immediately upon her return to Vienna. But that he should come here!

Now. That was another matter. She had succeeded in dismissing the past, and she resented this dark reminder. Well, she could refuse to see him, and possibly he would not arrive until after her departure.

And then she sighed again. The futility of attempting to travel through even one brief cross-section of life on a straight line!

Her luncheon was brought up to her and when it was finished she answered her letters and settled down to the latest novel of one of her new friends. But Gora Dwight was announced and she put the book aside with a sensation of pleasant antic.i.p.ation. She liked no one better, of her new American acquaintances, and had made no objection when Clavering had asked her to let him confide his engagement to Gora Dwight alone. He felt that he owed her the compliment (how he was to obtain the forgiveness of Mrs. Oglethorpe was a thought he dared not dwell on), and Mary, little disposed as she was to intimacies, had felt a certain release in speaking of her engagement to another woman.

XLI

Gora was looking her best in a smart spring frock of brown tweed with a drooping red feather on her hat, whose pointed brim almost but not quite obscured one eye. The two women greeted each other with something like affection, and after the usual feminine preliminaries were over, Gora exclaimed with enthusiasm:

"I have come to tell you how really wonderful Lee's play is, and to say that I could have shaken him for not letting you hear it, but he seems determined that it shall burst upon you in the unmitigated glory of a first-night performance."

Madame Zattiany smiled, very slightly. "Yes, he made a great point of that. I could only let him have his way. He is very fond of having his way, is he not?"

"Well, we've spoiled him, you see. And those of us who have heard the play are more excited than we have been over anything for a long time.

Those that haven't are not far behind. I believe there is a dinner or a party in his honor projected for every night for weeks to come."

Madame Zattiany raised her eyebrows in genuine surprise. "Isn't it rather unusual, that--to fete an author before he has made his debut?"

"It is, rather. But in this case it's different. We've waited so long for Clavey to do the big thing that we must let off steam at once."

"He certainly seems to be a tremendous favorite among you. Several of his friends were here at dinner the other night--I was so sorry you were unable to come--and really they seemed to be able to talk of nothing else. They are all very charming to me now, but I am wondering if they will be more than amiably interested in me when I am merely the wife of a famous playwright?"

"Oh, you must do something yourself," said Miss Dwight emphatically.

"I am sure you could write. And equally sure that you will try, for you could not live constantly with such workers as we are without being stung by the same busy little bee. You have suggested genius to me from the first, and I am convinced it is not merely the genius of personality. Your life has stifled your talents, but now is the time to discover them and take your place in American letters."

"I had thought such talents as I possessed should be used in the attempt to play a humble part in the reconstruction of Europe,"

murmured Madame Zattiany; and one of her beautiful white hands moved toward the cigarette box with a curious tensing of the muscles that seemed to rob it subtly of its likeness to flesh. Nothing escaped Miss Dwight's observing eye, and she replied casually: "Oh, Europe isn't worth the effort, dear Madame Zattiany. It's too far gone. The future of the world lies here in the United States. New York is the brain and soul of the United States. Moreover, if you want to help Europe, you can write about it here, be the one to give us all a clearer understanding of that miserable chaos."

"But I detest writing," said Madame Zattiany, who was lying back and watching her smoke rings. "I like the activity of doing, and I have had an experience that particularly fits me for political intrigue. If this were Was.h.i.+ngton, now----"

"Oh, Was.h.i.+ngton! Was.h.i.+ngton is merely one of the islands outside of New York. So is Chicago, Boston, the rest of them... . And don't imagine you would not become fascinated with writing as soon as you were in your stride. Here is a simple recipe to begin with. Get up every morning with the set intention of writing and go to your desk and sit there for three hours, whether you accomplish anything or not.

Before long you will find that you are writing madly, not waiting for inspiration. And you will have Clavey to criticize you. The rest is only stern self-discipline. Here is another suggestion: when you have brain f.a.g go to bed for two days and starve. The result is miraculous."

"So, that is the way American writers are made. There are so many of them--I had often wondered----"

"Oh, not at all!" Miss Dwight rushed to the defence of native American genius. "But all writers, no matter what their gifts, often go through a period of torture while forming habits of regular work."

"It sounds like torture!" She gave Gora a glance of lazy amus.e.m.e.nt.

"Really, Miss Dwight! Are you trying to frighten me off?"

But Gora did not blush. If she chose to concentrate her agile mind on acting, the accomplished actress opposite could give her few points.

She replied with convincing emphasis: "Certainly not. What an odd idea. I have the most enormous respect for your abilities, and you should be famous for something besides beauty--and I should like to see you live down mere notoriety."

"I've loved the notoriety, and rather regret that it seems to have lost flavor with time. But I'll never make a writer, Miss Dwight, and have not the least intention of trying."

"But surely you'll not be content to be just Lee's wife? Why, practically every woman in our crowd does something. There used to be a superst.i.tion that two brain-workers could not live comfortably under the same roof, but as a matter of fact we've proved that a woman keeps her husband far longer if her brain is as productive as his. Each inspires and interests the other. Another old _cliche_ gone to the dust bin. Our sort of men want something more from a woman than good housekeeping. Not that men no longer want to be comfortable, but the clever women of today have learned to combine both."

"Marvellous age and marvellous America! Don't you think I could keep Lee interested without grinding away at my desk for three hours every morning and lying in hungry misery for days at a time?"

"You could keep any man interested. I wasn't thinking of him, but of you. He has more than a man's ent.i.tled to already. Men are selfish brutes, and I waste no sympathy on them. It's women who have the rotten deal in this world, the best of them. And men are as vain as they are selfish. It's an enormous advantage for a woman to have her own reputation and her own separate life. No man should be able to feel that he possesses a woman wholly. He simply can't stand it."

"Quite right. Discarding modesty, I may add that I am an old hand at that game."

Gora regarded her with frank admiration, wholly una.s.sumed. "Oh, you couldn't lose Clavey if you tried. He is mad about you. We can all see that, and I knew it before he did himself. It's only--really--that I'm afraid you'll be bored to death with so much shop if you don't set up one for yourself."

"Oh, I never intend to be bored again as long as I live." Mary Zattiany was a very shrewd woman and she determined on a bold stroke.

Her suspicion lingered but had lost its edge. Gora Dwight was deep and subtle but there was no doubt that she was honorable. "I shall tell you something," she said, "but you must give me your word that you will not betray me--not even to Lee."

Miss Dwight's mind, not her body, gave a slight stir of uneasiness.

But she answered warmly: "Of course I promise."

"Very well, then. It is this. I shall never return to America. I sail in a fortnight. Lee follows soon after, and we shall be married in Austria."

"But--but--his play!" Miss Dwight was too startled to act. "He must be here for rehearsals. Some one has said that plays are not written, they're rewritten, and it's pretty close to the truth."

"I shall consent to his returning in time for rehearsals. Prolonged honeymoons are indiscreet. It is better to divide them into a series.

I fancy the series might hold out indefinitely if adroitly s.p.a.ced.

Moreover, being a modern myself, I like new methods. And he will be too busy to miss me. I shall be equally busy in Vienna."

"But will he consent? Lee? He's not used to having his plans made for him. He's about the most dominating male I know."

"I feel sure he will when the time comes. It is woman's peculiar gift, you know, to convince the dominating male that he wants what she wants."

Gora laughed. But she also could turn mental somersaults. "I think it a splendid arrangement. Then we should not lose Lee altogether, for we really are devoted to him. He is an adorable creature for all his absurdities. But I can't endure the thought of losing you."

"You must pay me a long visit in Vienna. Many visits. I can a.s.sure you that you will find material there, under my guidance, for a really great novel."

Gora's eyes sparkled. She was all artist at once. "I should like that! How kind of you. And what a setting!"

"Yes, Austria is the most interesting country in Europe, and the most beautiful to look at--and describe."

"It will be heavenly." Gora made up her mind at once that she would waste no more ingenuity to stop this marriage. Its modernity appealed to her, and she foresaw new impulses to creation. "The American Scene," conceivably, might grow monotonous with time; and with these daily recruits bent upon describing its minutiae with the relentless efficiency of the camera. And with all her soul she loved beauty.

With the possible exception of Bavaria she knew Austria to be the darling of nature.

Once more she chose to believe this woman would manage Clavering to his own good, and to the satisfaction of his friends, who, as she well knew, were alarmed and alert. They were too polite to show it, but much of their enthusiasm for Madame Zattiany had dimmed with the knowledge that she was a scientific phenomenon. Fundamentally the brilliant creative mind is quite as conservative as the worldly, or the inarticulate millions between, for they have common ancestors and common traditions. They feared not only to lose him, moreover, but had begun to ask one another if his career would not be wrecked.

Miss Dwight concluded that such an uncommon and romantic marriage might be a spur to Clavering's genius, which might weaken in a conventional marital drama set in the city of New York.

She rose and for the first time kissed Madame Zattiany. "It will be too perfect!" she said. "Let me visit you in summer when he is rehearsing. He can arrange to have his first-nights in September, and then write his next play in Austria, filling his time while you are absorbed in politics. Heavens, what a theme! Some day I'll use it.

Perfectly disguised, of course."

"And I'll give you points," said Mary, laughing. She returned the other's embrace; but when she was alone she sighed and sank back in her chair, without picking up her book. Miss Gora Dwight had given her something to think of! The last thing she wanted was a serial honeymoon. She wanted this man's companions.h.i.+p and his help. But she had slowly been forced to the conclusion that Clavering's was a mind whose enthusiasms could only be inspired by some form of creative art; politics would never appeal to it. In her comparative ignorance of the denaturalized brain, she had believed that a brilliant gifted mind could concentrate itself upon any object with equal fertility and power, but she had seen too much of the Sophisticates of late, and studied Clavering in too many of his moods to cherish the illusion any longer. Playwrighting seemed to her a contemptible pastime compared with the hideous facts of Life as exemplified in Europe, and she had restrained herself from an angry outburst more than once. But she was too philosophical, possibly too fatalistic, not to have dismissed this att.i.tude eventually. Clavering could not be changed, but neither could she. There would be the usual compromises. After all, of what was life made up but of compromise? But the early glow of the wondrous dream had faded. The mistress was evidently the role nature had cast her to play. The vision of home, the complete matehood, had gone the way of all dreams.