The Sea of Matrimony: A Novel

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Chapter I

"Mere puppets, Winthrop, mere puppets, I say, in the hands of an unfathomable fate, force, what you will. One's life seems laid down for one, it unrolls itself like a manuscript, and we read it as we go along" whether we will or no. We laugh or cry, suffer agonies of anguish, physical or mental, or go along blindly, stupidly. We hurt others, sometimes our nearest and dearest, or we are hurt. We bring joy sometimes, or we receive it, and through it all how much control have we, even over our own feelings? And underneath it all we feel the tremendous possibilities of what might be ours if we only knew a little more, if we could control or guide our lives a little more. But, sooner or later, we awake to the knowledge that we have just missed it — whatever it may be — the thing that would have made life worth the living. For you, ambition unfulfilled; the knowledge that, with all your great genius and marvelous gifts (for the gods were good to you, dear), you have not gained what you wanted."

She laughed a bitter little laugh. "For me — well,

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I have everything, have I not? I surely have no cause to complain. If ever life gave a woman all its good gifts, it has given them to me."

She paused and looked at the man opposite her. He was fine to look at in every way, clear eyes, an earnest mouth, the face sensitive, mobile, full of power and thought. He looked at the woman in surprise.

"Why this mood, Elise?" he asked. "Surely, as you say, the gods have been good to you. Of all my friends I would say that you were the most fortunate, the most happily placed. What more do you ask of life than what you already have ? Health, good looks, brains, enough money for all necessary uses, a husband who adores you, and who is one of the best of men, two children who are strong, and clever, and handsome, devoted friends, among whom I count it my dearest privilege to be numbered, and yet you are not happy, not satisfied. What more do you ask?"'

Then suddenly he turned toward her again.

"If it were I of whom we were speaking, then truly I might tear my hair and rend my garments, as it were, for what have I to thank God for? A wife who hangs like a millstone about my neck, who cares for my work only for the money it brings. And for her — to support her and to support my children — I have crucified myself every day and every hour for the last fifteen years. I have worked until I am worn and weary at forty, and I have gotten — ^what ? Some little recognition, a little place in the world of men, and infinite heartache and weariness of spirit. You alone understand and know me and bring some joy into my life. If it had not been for you, I think that long ago I should have given up the struggle and laid down the burden." He paused — ^then: "But you, Elise, what in Heaven's name have you to rail about ? What is your quarrel with fate?"

She rose and walked across the room, with a certain grace and ease which characterized everything she did, and picked up a cigarette and lighted it.

"Yes, I know you hate to see me smoke, Winthrop, but you are hardly fair to keep it all to yourselves, you men. So you think I ought to be a happy woman, do you? Listen, till I tell you what I have never told to any living person, save one. Now I am going to tell it to you that you may judge for yourself how happy I am.

" Winthrop, do you know what love is ? Did you ever really love any one ? Oh, I know, you fancied yourself in love with your wife when you married her, but you know now that that was only a counterfeit. I don't believe that you know what love is. Well, I am going to tell you what it means to a woman, to some women at least, women like me. One day, suddenly, unexpectedly, she looks into a man's eyes, a man whom she hardly knows, a man whose path has crossed hers apparently by chance. She seems to know this man in a strange and familiar way. Something in him seems to attract her and draw her to him, and yet she scarcely knows him. All this has happened on a steamer when she is crossing for a European trip. There is an accident to the machinery in the night. There is a panic among the passengers. She stands aside waiting for something to happen, and this man stands beside her. Her hand is on the railing of the deck, and he covers it with his own, and says to her: *You are not afraid, sweetheart?' This man, who has never before said one word to her beyond the merest conventionalities. And she, my God ! she looks into his eyes and says : T am never afraid when I am with you, dear.' And then he takes her in his arms, not madly or passionately, but sadly, sternly almost, and then suddenly, Winthrop, she knows that never again in this world or hereafter will there be for her any hope of happiness unless she can be with this man. This strange man whom she does not know, yet whom she seems to have known forever. "The accident to the machinery proves not as serious as was feared, although there is still danger, but the passengers are persuaded to go back to their staterooms and wait until morning. For three days they lived in fear as to the consequences to the ship. It seemed many times as if nothing could save them from taking to the lifeboats. But, Winthrop, those three days were the only days in my whole life that were worth living. We were together, this man and I, for those three days, and facing what seemed

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almost certain death, and so we put away from us all thought of the world outside and rejoiced that we were together. He told me the story of his life, of his successful career, of his unhappy marriage, of his children, and I in turn told him of mine. Did I fear death ? I would have welcomed it gladly, for I knew that life could only mean separation for us, and death to me was preferable. I would choose hell with that man rather than heaven with another. Had he been a criminal, a murderer even, it would have made no difference to me. His soul and mine were mates. From the beginning of time we had been mates, and always would be. How do I know? How does any one know anything? How does one know what love is? If you know, you know, how I cannot tell.

"For three blessed days we lived, Winthrop, lived only for each other, days of such joy as mortals seldom know. People talk of pain as the positive force, as the thing that you feel more than the deepest joy. They do not know, for they have never felt joy such as we knew. Well, you know the sequel. The ship was saved and we landed at Liverpool, he to meet his wife and I to join my husband. ' We had agreed that we would not meet again if our lives were spared. We could not. Everything in life made it impossible. He had duties and ties that he could not break, and I, well, could I break my husband's heart, the heart that beats only for me, that never has wavered in its lifelong devotion, and could I leave my little children, my baby with his beautiful blue eyes and his little hands reaching out always to me? Could I have done it, Winthrop? You who know me well would have said:

" 'No, you could never have done such a cruel and wicked thing as that.'

"You do not know me, for I tell you that I could, and even now I sometimes think that I will some day. I could leave them all and forget them all in that man's arms. I have not seen him since the day we parted at Liverpool, and that is five years ago. Once a year he writes to me and I answer it. There is never any change or shadow of turning with either of us. There is never an hour in the day when he is not in my thoughts, never a night when he does not come to me in my dreams. They are not dreams, Winthrop. It is his spirit that comes.

"Yes, I was desperately ill for a time, you remember. They said it was the strain of those three days when we thought the ship would go down. My life goes on. I give my best service to my husband and children. Even you, dear heart, find comfort and help from me. My life seems peaceful and harmonious to the world. No one knows, Winthrop, no one knows that nothing counts with me any longer. Life is a thing to be endured. Time is something to be passed as best one can, and you look on and envy me. You say that my life is a blessed and a happy one, that I ought to do much for the world, that to me much has been given and it is right that I should give back to the world some measure of what I have received. But I do not care, I cannot forget. I would give up everything for the touch of that man's hand, for one kiss from his lips. People say of me, 'She is a fine woman; her head will always control her heart. She is not capable of great passion.'

**Winthrop, do you know that peculiar vivid flame, intense, blue, almost white, that sometimes leaps from an overcharged electric wire when there is a break? There are unseen forces that are more powerful than electricity, and I can hardly explain to you the curious feeling that I used to have, but it seemed to me when he touched me that I could feel and almost see the intense blue fire that came from the touch of his hand and mine. His touch could stop any pain, cure any physical ill that I might have, and I could do the same for him. Isn't love like that worth suffering for? It is like wireless telegraphy. The receiver and transmitter are so perfectly attuned that the slightest vibration from one is felt by the other. But we poor mortals are hedged in by our poor little senses. We only guess at the great forces that play about us, and catch just a

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glimpse now and then of the great unseen world about us. People call me ambitious, worldly. It is only because I am trying to make myself forget that I cannot have the real gold that belongs to me. Money! I would give up everything I own and live in a garret, and work night and day if by so doing I could have my love, and count it a joy if it were for him. I see women who sell themselves for money, for position, for power and place, and I laugh, Winthrop, for I know that all these things are as naught when weighed against love. I asked of Life but one thing, just one. I could give up all else. And Life laughed at me and said :

" ^Everything else you shall have, but love you must give up. You shall know it and understand it, but you must renounce it.'

"Love — how many women are there who know what it means — ^who are capable of learning the a b c even of love? But I know, and I thank God that I do know, for one who has known could never give up the knowledge even to get back happiness. Love like mine is never happy in this world, I think. All the world's great love stories are unhappy stories, you know, and so, Winthrop, dear, I will keep my heartbreak and be thankful for the memory of it all."

She paused, the lighted cigarette still in her fingers. There had been no break in her voice as

lO she told her story quietly, her suppressed feelings showing in the color of her face alone. She looked at her cousin with a half-smile on her face and a questioning look in her eyes.

Winthrop Raymond did not speak for a few moments. He was stunned, dazed almost, by this strange story that Elise had poured out to him. I cannot understand it, Elise," he said at last. I thought I knew your thoughts almost, your whole life from the time we played together as babies. I thought I knew you in every phase, but this is not you, and I have just told you that your one defect was that you were incapable of great passion, of intense feeling."

"Yes," she answered, "that is why I told you this story, to convince you, to show you my real self, and also because it is a relief to me to tell the story to some one after all these years of silence."

It is always a stunning blow to suddenly awaken to the fact that a friend whose life has been closely united with one's own has developed absolutely unsuspected qualities. It is so disconcerting that the instinctive impulse is usually one of condemnation. It seems a personal affront that one's close and beloved comrade should have concealed so much of his inner self, and it takes time to readjust oneself to the new viewpoint. Fortunately Winthrop was a

man of broad, deep, sympathetic comprehension and

II he loved Elise with the unselfish devotion of real friendship. But this story that she had just poured out to him was so at variance with the idea he had always had of her temperament that he could hardly believe his own ears.

Elise went on talking, as Winthrop seemed unable to gather himself together to make any reply.

"You thought you knew me through and through, did you not?" she questioned, "and now you suddenly find that there has been one whole side of my nature that you have never seen. You knew the immature girl, and the woman whose soul had not awakened; that was the real me as far as it went. I did not know myself until this man came into my life that I was capable of this depth of feeling. You have often said that it was the one great defect of my temperament that I was so poised and

tranquil that the heights and depths of feeling were beyond my comprehension. Now, perhaps, you

will believe that I have the capacity for a great passion.

"Do you know why it is that we sometimes tell our deepest experiences to comparative strangers and not to our own people ? It is because the stranger has no preconceived opinion of us, no memories of our past acts. He takes us as we are at that moment, and if he has an understanding soul, he comprehends. But one's own family or one's old friend can seldom dissociate us from our past. His idea of us is made up of the sum of all that he knows of us, and it is hard for him to get an entirely unprejudiced view.

"When I go back to the old town where we spent our childhood, my old friends still hold the idea of me that they had when I was a schoolgirl. They still remember the disagreeable qualities which were the inevitable part of my early attempt to express a decided personality. Probably you have observed that the children who are always well spoken of are seldom those who develop well in later life. Their pliability and obedience make them very little care or trouble to their elders, but those are not the qualities that make for success in later life. So among those narrow Puritanical village people with whom I spent my early days there remains a memory of a willful, independent girl who was not especially kind to or considerate of her elders, and, although I rather flatter myself that I have developed into a fairly decent sort of a person, with a decided bump of altruism and of love of humanity, many of those people will never believe that I am anything but proud and selfish and conceited. But even you, my closest and dearest comrade, even you have never fully known or understood me."

She paused a moment and then laughed. "That sounds as though I considered myself one of the poor misunderstood souls who go through life with a morbid pity for themselves, doesn't it? Well, you know I am not like that anyway — and you also know that I neither expect nor desire to be understood by the world in general ; but I did want you to know, and so I have told you this story, this curious undercurrent which runs through my whole life, which colors every act and which has developed and modified my whole character.'*

"What blind and stupid bats most of us are !" exclaimed Winthrop, "so absorbed in ourselves and our own pursuits that we cannot see what is as plain as daylight. Sub-consciously I must have been realizing all these years that you were changing from a woman whose intellect was the dominant note to one who responded more and more to the emotional appeal. In other words, you have been developing the power to feel with and for other people, instead of merely knowing through your brain that the facts of life were thus and so. I have accused you of being cold, but haven't I always brought my troubles and my joys to you ; haven't I run to you as a child runs to its mother, because I instinctively felt that you were big enough and loving enough to enter into my state of consciousness? And yet I, too, have been blind like those old friends. I, too, have said, 'Yes, Elise is honest and fine and generous and all the rest of it, but she has not yet lived. She has never suffered, she does not know life as I know it.' And all this time you have been quietly, patiently, battling with a feeling that has often proved too strong to be resisted by others.'*

"Winthrop, I wonder why it is that the particular problem that we are called upon to solve almost always seems the most difficult one in the book? I have had such a keen desire to live in every sense, to experience all that life can give, to know, to learn, to suffer and to enjoy, if by so doing I could gain wisdom, that I have often felt that I could gladly welcome any experience that increased my world knowledge. That is the meaning of life to me, it is what we are here for, and I believe I could face poverty, or illness, or death, or even disgrace, and have sufficient strength to carry myself through it.

"But when my heart was touched, when I awakened to the knowledge of what life would mean with the man I loved — that seemed to strike at the very source of my vitality and energy. It killed all desire, it made me dead, I could no longer feel anything. It was a sort of mental paralysis. I have fought against it night and day for five years. I have forced an interest in the affairs of the world. I have persistently done whatever seemed to me

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right; but I cannot bring back the old zest, the old love of life. I cannot make myself care really for anything. It is all the same to me. And I realize as well as you the folly and insanity of it. I don't believe in feeling this way. I believe in enjoying every day and every hour. I believe in the joy of creative work, in helping other people, in getting outside yourself and into the larger work of the world. All this I have done outwardly and it has helped. But it has not cured — it is only a palliative.

"You are not like that, Winthrop, in spite of the fact that you have much harder conditions in your daily life. You get discouraged and out of temper and you kick and complain bitterly, but underneath it all your desire for success, for fame, your love of living is as keen as ever. Your unhappy marriage has been only an unpleasant incident in your life. It has not entered your soul, nor sickened you of life. Ten years ago I would have scorned the idea that 'love was woman's whole existence,' — but I am almost forced to believe in the truth of the old saying. It is dead against my whole philosophy of life, as you well know ; but philosophy and facts do not always agree, I find."

"You are right, Elise," answered Winthrop; "nothing has yet destroyed my ambition and desire. Like you I want to know all, to feel all, to experi-

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ence. I wish to be 'master of my fate.' Wasn*t it Goethe who said that? Who said, 'I will dare to live — I will welcome all experience — the heights of joy, the depths of pain, and so forth, in order to know heroic living?'

"There is work for you in the world, my dear one, work for us both — and work that you could never have done without this experience. A great love is not given to many, it is only a great soul that can know it in all its fullness. If you had been able to give your life to it, I believe you would never have done anything. It is not the happy people who accomplish the most in this world. Thank God that you have had this in your life, to illumine and glorify it. You are not alone in your experience of the deadening and stupefying power of a great sorrow. It is like a physical blow, and nature demands time to get the organism back into working order. But you are a strong woman, Elise, a woman of unusual power and force. I have always felt that you were destined to do a great work of some kind and I believe you will yet. You have been through your novitiate of pain, and I believe it has been a training for something higher and greater than anything you have yet done. I don't believe that you and I are going always to live the ordinary, humdrum life of ordinary people; there is force and power in both of us that will some day make itself felt. Sometimes I dream, Elise —

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strange dreams which may never materialize; but nevertheless I believe there is something in them. We lack faith — ^both of us. If we had more we could do more, for the possibilities are within us." As Winthrop talked, his face lighted with his enthusiasm, and Elise herself felt the inspiration and the uplift from his words. It lightened her load of depression and she began to feel the old stir of ambition which had been dormant for so long.

Chapter II

Elise Sinclair and Winthrop Raymond were cousins, and had been from childhood the closest and dearest of friends. It had been generally agreed among their intimates that they would eventually marry each other, but there had never been any lovemaking between them. They were good comrades, too truly. Each understood almost every word and thought of the other, but they were too much alike to fall in love with each other. Elise, moreover, was the stronger personality. She was never dominated by her cousin, but more often led and influenced him. She was the daughter of a French mother and an American father. Her father was a famous scientist, known the world over for his original researches. A man of inherited wealth, he had traveled constantly, and Elise

i8 from her earliest childhood had been his companion and friend. Her mother had died when Elise was eight years old, so she only remembered her mother as a beautiful, brilliant vision, a dream mother almost, who used to hold her and tell her wonderful stories, and then one day she went away and Elise never saw her again. She had gone to Italy with her husband on orie of his scientific tours, had contracted a fever and lived only a few days. Elise's father never recovered from the loss of his wife, and from that time he devoted himself more and more to his own work, but he spent all his leisure time with his daughter.

Elise herself was a composite of the best qualities of both races, the French and the American. From her father she inherited her splendid body and brain. She was more than beautiful; indeed, strictly speaking, she was not beautiful at all. She was tall, large, her hair and eyes were dark, her coloring brilliant, and there was about her a magnetic quality which seemed to come from her great vitality. Her brain was like a man's and had been trained like a man's. The best that Europe and America could give in the way of education had been hers, and she had been of great assistance to her father in some of his scientific researches. From her mother she had inherited the wit, the dash, the brilliancy for which the French are famous, and also that curious, subtle, half-unconscious vein of sensuousness which belongs almost always to the Latin temperament. It was in her voice, in her walk, it was the sex-quaHty almost unknown even to herself, which had made men lose their heads and their hearts for her, although she did not recognize it herself. It was probably this very quality that had been the underlying reason for her marriage with Robert Sinclair. She had been visiting his sister the year that she took her degree at Vassar, and he, too, had just finished his work at Yale. His work, one must acknowledge, had been mainly in the line of athletics, and he had been petted and made much of by all the girls who adored muscle. Elise had been living in an exclusively feminine atmosphere for some time, and all her life had been spent among people who counted brain first and brawn second.

So this big, splendid boy, with his six feet of health and strength, his kindly nature and daredevil disposition, happened to appeal to her own dormant desire for a fuller physical expression and understanding of life. From the first Bob worshipped her, and he was so accustomed to having his own way with girls that he simply appropriated her without a question, and the very force and dash of his wooing carried her off her feet with its impetuosity. He was rich, having inherited a fortune from his mother, and would not listen to a delay of their marriage. She tried to persuade him to enter some business, to take up some work, to prove that he could earn an honest living if it were necessary, but he laughed at her and said it was folly to postpone their happiness, and that he would settle down to work later after their honeymoon was over.

And so they were married after an acquaintance of three months, and they sailed away for a long European trip before making any plans for the future. For a time they were really happy. Bob, with his fund of unfailing good nature, his great love for her, and his careless happy-go-lucky way of enjoying life, proved a delightful companion. He was physically attractive to her always, and like many another woman she mistook physical passion for love, for it seems to be in the nature of all really virtuous women to accept as a matter of course the fact that they must love the man to whom they have given themselves.

Women are truly monogamous creatures, and it is this quality which makes so many of them oppose divorce and especially remarriage. The sex relation is to most of them a permanent one, and few women fortunately have the polygamous tendency which seems so natural to most men.

As for Robert, from the day that he first loved Elise he never wavered in the depth and intensity of his feeling for her. He was a man whose life could be made or marred by the woman he married. Responding easily to feminine attractions, had he married a woman who could not have held him, his path would have taken the common course of many of his set — numerous love affairs and more or less riotous living. But Elise satisfied every instinct of his nature and no other woman ever tempted him. Her beauty, her character, her brilHant brain offered him so much more than he found in any other woman that he was more than content to stay away from his old companions and turn to his wife.