A trivial circumstance finally enlightened her as to the length and breadth of the distance between them. One morning at the breakfast table Cutter looked at his wife appraisingly. They had been married eleven years. She was still pretty, but it was a beauty maturing into a sort of serenity, no vivacity. She had, in fact, a noble look. Stupid women do frequently get it. He had long since made up his mind that Helen was, to say the least of it, mentally prismatic. She had no elasticity of charm. Still he resolved to risk her.
“Helen, Shippen gets in from New York this afternoon. I want to bring him out here for dinner. Do you think you can manage it?” he asked.
“The dinner? Why, yes, of course, George,” she replied, having no doubt about being able to manage a dinner. This Mr. Shippen could not possibly be more exacting than George was himself.
[129]“He is coming down to look at that pyrites mine I want to sell. We are going to get into this war, and the Government is bound to need pyrites. Shippen is tremendously rich, something of a sport, I imagine. He was rather nice to me when I was in New York last month, introduced me to a lot of men I need to know,” he explained. “So you must help me out by doing your best,” he added significantly.
“I will, dear,” she assured him, still unperturbed.
This serene confidence disturbed him. He doubted if she could put across the simplest meal in a correct manner. During the lifetime of his mother, his father had entertained such out-of-town guests; but these excellent parents had been dead for years. He was obliged to fall back on Helen.
“You must do your best and look your best. You are lovely, you know.”
“Am I?” she asked, not coquettishly, but as if this was an opportunity to assure herself about something which was causing her anxiety.
“Yes, of course, you are,” he returned in a matter-of-fact tone. This was no time to get personal with his wife. He wanted her to do something and do it well.
[130]“Wear that gown I bought you from Madame Lily’s,” he suggested.
“Oh! must I?” she exclaimed as if she asked, Would it be as bad as that?
“The very thing, and wear the necklace.”
She said she would, but what she thought was that if she must dress like this she could not stay in the kitchen and help Maria with the dinner, and Maria was not to be trusted. She was “heavy handed” when it came to salt, for example. Her chief concern was for the dinner, not herself. She always missed her cue.
Nevertheless, Shippen had the shock of his swift life when he was presented to Mrs. Cutter that evening.
The weather was very cold. A bright fire burned in the grate. A chandelier of four lights overhead left scarcely a shadow in this cheap little parlor. Everything in it glared. The white walls stared you out of countenance. The golden-oak piano turned a broadside of yellow brilliance across the flowered rug. The whatnot showed off. The spindle-back sofa fairly twinkled varnish. Inanimate things can sometimes produce the impression of tittering excitement. The furniture in this pop-eyed room seemed to be expecting company. Only the two mahogany armchairs on[131] either side of the fireplace preserved their gravity and indifference, as if they had been born and bred to be sat in by the best people.
Shippen saw all this at a glance; at least he felt it without knowing what ailed him. Later he was to quail in a sort of artistic anguish beneath the cold, calm, crayon gaze of that excellent carpenter, the late Sam Adams, whose portrait still hung above the mantel. And he was to feel the colder, grimmer crayon eyes of the late Mrs. Mary Adams piercing him between the shoulder blades from the opposite wall. But that which riveted his attention this first moment when he entered the room with Cutter was Mrs. Cutter.
She stood on the rug before the fire, a slim figure, but not tall. She was wearing a cloth gown of the palest rose lavender, the bodice cut low, fitting close to her white shoulders, lace on it somewhere like a mist, a wildly disheveled bow of twisted black velvet that seemed to strike at him, it was so vivid by contrast with all this gem paleness of color. A necklace of opals, very small and bound together by the thinnest thread of gold, with a pendant lay upon her breast. Her pale blond hair was dressed simply, bound about her head like piety, not a crown. No color in her skin, only the soft pink lips, sweetened somehow[132] by that pointed flute in the upper lip, long sweeping brows, darker than her hair, spread like slender wings above the wide open blue eyes, seeing all things gravely, neither asking nor giving confidences.
“This is Mr. Shippen, Helen. My wife, Shippen,” George finished cheerfully.
He had made a hasty survey of Helen. She would do, he decided, if only she would go, move off, say the right thing.
Helen offered her hand. She was glad to meet Mr. Shippen.
He bowed over this hand, very glad, and so forth and so on.
She said something about the weather; he did not notice what she said nor what he answered; something about the same weather of course. But whatever he said had not released him from her gaze. She kept him covered. Cutter had joined in with his feelings and opinion on the weather. What was said made no difference. Shippen had to keep his eyes down or running along the floor, not on Mrs. Cutter. Men do that when they are startled or ill at ease with a woman, if they are uncertain about where to place her in the category of her sex. Shippen was very uncertain on this point. He had seen many a woman better[133] gowned, more beautiful, but never had he seen one with this winged look.
“Are we late?” Cutter asked, addressing his wife.
“No,” she answered briefly, as if words were an item with her.
“Well, anyhow we are hungry,” he laughed. “Took Shippen out for a little winter golf. Links rotten after all this rain. No game. All we got was an appetite.”
Shippen glanced at Cutter. For the first time he recognized Cutter. Smart fellow, pipping his village shell. But, good heaven, this room! Might have got further than this in his scenery.
He went on catching impressions. He felt very keen. It occurred to him suddenly that Cutter’s wife was responsible for the room. This fellow who could fly like a kite in the markets couldn’t fly here or move or change anything. Odd situation. If this was her taste in house furnishing, who chose her frock for her? She was dressed like a fashionable woman, and she looked like a madonna; not virginal, but awfully still like the image of something immortally removed. She gave him a queer feeling. Still it was distinctly a sensation; he handed it to her for that.
All this time Cutter was talking like a man[134] covering some kind of breach, laughing at the end of every sentence. He heard himself making replies, also laughing. Nothing from Mrs. Cutter. He looked across at her seated in the other mahogany chair, and dropped his eyes. Her gaze was still fixed on him, no shadow of a smile on her face. He understood why instantly. This was not mirth, this was laughter he and Cutter were executing as people do when they make conversation. He was amazed at this woman’s independence. She had nothing to say and said it in silence. She heard nothing amusing, therefore she was not smiling. She was not even embarrassed.
It all depends upon your experience and angle of vision what you see in another person. This is why your husband may discover that some other woman understands him better than you do. She knows him better than you do because she knows more about men than you do. And if there is anything that weakens the moral knees of a man quicker even than strong drink, it is to feel the soothing flattery of being better understood by another woman.
Precisely in this way Shippen understood Helen, and knew perfectly that Cutter was not the man who could do it. She was invincible, he[135] saw that; stupid, he saw that. And he was enough of a connoisseur in this matter to realize that intelligence would sully this lovely thing. Merriment would be a facial transgression. She was that rare and most mysterious of all creatures, a simply good woman without the self-consciousness they usually feel in their virtues.
He kept on with these reflections during dinner, which was served presently. He had no idea what kind of dinner it was. He was assembling plans for a speculation. He had been successful in many lines besides those involving money.
“You come to New York occasionally, don’t you, Mrs. Cutter?” he asked, endeavoring to engage her in conversation.
“Not that often. I have been there only once,” she told him with a faint smile. She had referred to her wedding journey without naming it. At that time she and George had spent a week in New York.
“You liked it, of course?” Shippen went on.
“It is like a book with too many pages, too m............