Should she have left him?

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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Chapter I. A Saratoga Evening

The number ended with a crash of horns and kettledrums. Trescotte, under the pretense of looping up a swaying branch of the creeping vine, threatening havoc to the coiffure of his bride of three months, leaned over her and said in a low tone :

“ I’ll lure Davis away with the bait of a cigar ; then shake him and come to you for a stroll in the park before retiring.”

Mrs. Trescotte, young and beautiful, with shining eyes lifted a beaming acquiescence.

For a fleeting moment Trescotte was tempted to defy the conventionalities and embrace his wife before the multitude. For a fleeting moment, too, Tracey Harte, leaning against a pillar in an adorable attitude, contemplated existence with such a woman apart from club, stable, and the English valet he had just achieved.

As Trescotte, followed by Davis, carefully threaded

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SHOULD SHE HAVE LEFT HIM?

his way among the women crowding the veranda, Mrs. Trescotte moved her chair so that she looked out upon the park within the three sides of the great building, to the disappointment of Tracey Harte, who had seen, in the absence of her husband, opportunity to put his own fascinations on dress parade.

Mrs. Trescotte was very happy. Life with Trescotte was all she had imagined it to be in the days of dreams and promise.

The orchestra began another number. This time a selection in accord with her mood — tenderly melodious, with a deep plaintive undertone of rest and peace. She surrendered herself to its enjoyment and gazed out upon the green lawn with its black shadows and the broad graveled paths, where the electric lights photographed in fantastic network the limbs and foliage of the trees through which they shone, dimly conscious that immediately beneath her were seated two men who smoked fragrant cigars and murmured a conversation the music did not interrupt.

She was very happy. At another time she would have resented this desecration of music, but now everything seemed to fit into her mood — the music, the lights, the soft languorous air, the swaying branches, their responsive shadows on the broad graveled paths, the murmuring voices beneath, even the fragrant smoke of the cigars — all seemed to be of the atmosphere of love.

Of course, I know this was very absurd in a young

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A SARA TOGA EVENING.

woman of fashion of the highest social rank, and who had been married all of three months — at vulgar Saratoga, too — but then, who of us have not had our aberrations.

The music died away — so softly indeed that Mrs. Trescotte was only made conscious of the end of the programme by the movement of the people on the veranda. In a moment more it was comparatively deserted. The musicians gathered up their instruments and flitted away. The uniformed hall boys moved back the music stands, and arranged the chairs into their customary platoons. Mrs. Trescotte, now a conspicuous figure in her solitariness, continued to look out upon the park with its delicate tracery of shadows upon lawn and broad graveled paths. The voices of the two men beneath came up distinct and audible.

“ A most extraordinary tale — such complications,” said one voice.

“ Isn’t it ? ” asked the other. “ No one will accuse me of inventing it, for it is beyond my powers.”

“ Simply extraordinary. Bronson Howard ought to get hold of it for his next comedy, by Jove ! ”

“ Its tragedy, my boy.”

“For the woman, yes. But think of the man’s position. Married innocently to two women and not knowing which is his wife. She’s my wife ; no, she isn’t ; yes, she is. Tragedy it maybe, but broad comedy as well.”

“ I can see nothing but the tragedy, the pathos, the wreck of lives.”

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SHOULD SHE HAVE LEFT HIM?

“ What will the new bride do ?”

“ Leave him of course, as a first step. Afterward, what? Have him indicted for bigamy? What good ? He was innocent of wrongdoing. She can do nothing. Her life is ruined. There is no place for her but in retirement.”

“ Will he go back to the other woman ? ”

“ I doubt it. It was a foolish marriage at best — when he was very young. They were separated in a few months.”

“ And neither knows the truth yet?”

“ None of the parties involved, except Adams.”

“ And you have come here to inform him — to break up his honeymoon.”

“ That’s the melancholy truth of it. As soon as I reached New York I consulted Strateweighs — the head of our firm, you know. He was very clear about it. It was my duty as his counsel, Strateweighs said. They must know the truth. Good Heavens ! why couldn’t I have learned the truth four months ago? Here I’ve been traveling with this man for six months, and only as we are about to part did he consult me as to his own position, so revealing the whole story.”

“ I feel as if I had been spending an evening at the theater. Either your story has dramatic interest, or your recital has.”

“ You know the dramatis persona .”

Mrs. Trescotte arose, nervously anxious to get away from the sad story. As she turned from the railing her husband came to her.

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A SARA TOGA EVENING.

“ I have shunted Davis on. to Parkinson,’' he laughed. “ Another numismatologist. They are worrying each other already and good for the whole night.”

His tone changed quickly to one of apprehension, as he looked at her.

“What is the matter? What has occurred?”

As she handed him her wrap she smiled sadly. He saw she was struggling to keep back her tears.

“ Little that I know,” she replied, as she prepared to receive the wrap about her shoulders. “ I have been hearing the fragment of a very sad story.”

Then she took his arm, leaned heavily upon it ; as she looked up into his eyes, her own filled with love.

“ O Harry, a lawyer has come here to-night to tell a bride, only married as long as we have been, that she is not married to her husband — that he is really married to another woman, and he is innocent of any wrongdoing.”

“He is ignorant of wrongdoing?” asked Trescotte, quickly sympathetic.

“He is ignorant and innocent,” she replied. “ God help and pity her if she loves him as I do you ! ”

Trescotte drew her closer to him, and, looking down upon her said tenderly :

“ God help and pity him, if he loves her as I do you ! ”

Then perceiving the teardrops trembling in her eyes, he led his fair young bride down the steps to

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SHOULD SHE HAVE LEFT HIM?

the broad, graveled paths where the delicate, fantastic shadow tracery was.

Surely this young woman had gotten into the wrong century. She, of aristocratic training, from that world where marriages are made from considerations of

u Well, I shan’t tell them to-night, anyhow. Come, let us get a cooling drink, and then I’m off to bed. I haven’t been out of a car berth for twelve nights.”

Two men came out of a by-path and went off in the direction of the shining lights.

Mr. and Mrs. Trescotte went up into the shadows.

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Chapter II. Dorothy’s Idyl

Mrs. Trescotte was very happy. She had married the man of her choice.

The opposition to Trescotte, because he lacked the wealth Mrs. Courtenay deemed necessary to the place her daughter should occupy in the exclusive world in which they moved, had been dispelled, happily, a few months before the wedding.

Trescotte had grown to manhood, and lived the life thereafter of one having the assurance of a large inheritance, trained to no pursuit or profession. When, however, the elder Trescotte died it was discovered that he had devoted the last decade of his life to turning valuable New York real estate into questionable securities, with the result of nearly dissipating a fine property. At the end of some months of vexatious and confusing labor the young man found himself in possession of a property of only eight thousand a year — an amount which Mrs. Courtenay said some time later, when his income became a matter of concern to her, any clerk could earn in a twelve-month, and which was but half the amount young Waldemar, son of the great German banker, spent each year on his horses alone.

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SHOULD SHE HAVE LEFT HIM?

Waldemar had been selected as a son-in-law by Mrs. Courtenay because of his wealth and aristocratic connections abroad.

Trescotte’s income was small compared with that which the world expected him to possess. When its figures were known he was immediately reduced from that enviable position — a marriageable quantity. It certainly was reprehensible in Trescotte, having ceased to be a desirable parti , to continue to frequent the halls of society — to bring that charming personality, that winning face, that graceful tongue, both wise and witty, to functions where young and sometimes incautious girls came to find husbands. Moreover, it was embarrassing to the matron mothers. To drop him rudely from their invitation lists was impossible, for many of them dated their social success from the day when their own names were entered upon that list of his mother’s. Besides, he was widely and closely connected with the most exclusive of the nice people. Having committed the unforgivable crime of disappointing the world in his financial realizations, he should have had the grace to withdraw himself, with his charming personality, his polished manners, and his diminished income. But he didn’t. He went about just as he had done when all the world supposed he would have the income of a millionaire. It was stupid of him, I confess, but really he was unconscious of the crime he had committed.

Mrs. Trevor-Alien, that incomprehensible young wife of a very old man, won doubting applause

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from the matrons, by the remark that Trescotte was without redeeming vices, and would not be so dangerous if he would but devote himself to the young married women instead of the young girls.

Trescotte was yet a subject of discussion when he relieved the anxiety of all the matron mothers, save one, by devoting himself ardently to Dorothy Courtenay. Mrs. Courtenay’s anguish was not allayed by the further discovery that these attentions were not disagreeable to her daughter.

Dorothy had always given her mother a great deal of trouble. Thinking for herself, her conclusions were alarming, because in Mrs. Courtenay’s opinion they were radical, not to say anarchical. She had been heard to express the belief that all of life’s happiness was not to be found in the exclusive world in which her mother lived, and for which she had been trained. On another occasion she had ruined her father’s breakfast by the remark that wealth was not essential to a useful life. But when she gave expression to the heresy that she would prefer as a husband a man whom she could respect for his ability, attainments, and correct life — even if of moderate means — to the average man of her acquaintance, however rich, it was voted in the family that Dorothy was cursed with opinions, fairly incendiary, and Mrs. Courtenay at once took her in hand.

“You spring from two of the great families of this country,” she said, “and your life must be controlled and directed by that fact. God has placed

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SHOULD SHE HAVE LEFT HIM?

you in this station of life, the highest in the land, and you have duties and obligations in consequence. It is only within the present generation that we have received that recognition from abroad which is our due. Now, we are received by the nobility of other countries upon equal ground. This recogni tion has only been obtained by great caution, intermarriage, and the observance of well fixed rules — principally the latter. Entrance to our circle has been made difficult, and only after the right to enter has been fully established. The most frequent effort has been made through marriage, so the rule was made that the members of the older families should marry among themselves; this has kept the blood pure. Then it has been made a rule that wealth should marry wealth. In England they not only have the advantage of us in titles which distinctly place the rank, but they have also the law of primogenitureship by which fortunes are kept intact. Here the whole tendency is to division of wealth. And so, in order to keep fortunes together, we have been compelled to concentration by marriage. An aristocracy is necessary to the making of good society; and an aristocracy cannot be maintained without wealth. We, of the aristocracy, must do our duty to the station of life in which we find ourselves, for in society properly constituted there must always be a standard of morals, culture, and refinement, and that standard can only be maintained by the best people. And, therefore, the best people must seek only those matrimonial

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1 1 alliances which make for the common good of our caste — among themselves, where wealth is.”

“ And yet,” replied Dorothy, and I regret to say, disputatiously, “ Mr. Waldemar is welcomed to matrimonial alliances, though he is far enough removed from our American families.”

“You forget,” returned her mother in her most stately manner, “that Mr. Waldemar is allied to the nobility of his native country ; that on taking residence here he enters our circle by right of birth thus drawing the bonds between the best people of two countries closer together, while he contributes large wealth to the common stock.”

“Mr. Trescotte,” suggested the daughter, “ is a descendant of one of the oldest of the American families.”

“ Mr. Trescotte,” promptly returned the mother with much severity, “ has forfeited his rights by permitting the means by which he could maintain the traditions of his family and his place in our order to be wasted.”

“ Why, mamma,” exclaimed the girl with that ridiculous adherence to exact truth which always so disconcert^ Mrs. Courtenay, “ it was his father who ruined the property.”

“ His misfortune then ; and misfortunes of the kind are little less than crimes.” And then the good lady, losing her temper, lost her case by adding: “It is not becoming in you to dispute me. You must give heed to my words and obey me. Mr. Waldemar is disposed to be attentive to you,

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and I demand that proper respect be shown him.”

“ Mr. Waldemar should first respect himself,” replied Dorothy rebelliously. “ His life does not commend him to a young woman as a good husband.”

“Now for Heaven’s sake,” cried Mrs. Courtenay, actually growing vulgar, as she grew angrier, “ have you been bitten by the new craze ? ”

“ What craze, mamma ? ”

“ That idea ill-bred people are so indecently urging, that woman should demand the same purity in man, man demands in woman.”

“ Is there such a craze ? I did not know it ; but it seems to me to be very proper.”

“ I have no patience with you, Dorothy. You are wholly unlike your sisters. Where you, who have been brought up so conservatively, can have picked up your radical notions, I cannot comprehend. But listen to me. You must cease your encouragement of Mr. Trescotte. If you do not, I shall be compelled to deny him the house.”

Mrs. Courtenay ended the discussion by leaving the room, having made, true to her sex, the point, which was her sole object in the conversation, in her last remark.

In truth, Mrs. Courtenay fled from the discussion. She stood in awe of her daughter, deny it to herself as she might. Dorothy possessed the vexatious faculty of making her mother appear as if she were uttering false morals in these discussions, by the it fcti, 1 4

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r 3 simple process of presenting ideas, very well when applied to grocers and other laboring people, but absurd applied to people of rank and wealth, with their complex obligations.

Mrs. Courtenay’s lecture did not make the intended impression on Dorothy. In fact Dorothy dismissed it as nonsensical. She resented, of course, the charge that she was encouraging Mr. Trescotte in his attentions ; she knew it to be false. A rapid review assured her that there had been nothing loverlike in Trescotte’s attentions, or in her reception of them. She had been pleased with him from their first meeting. Intuitively appreciating his worth early in their acquaintance, she had come to learn that he was a man who, for his amusements, sought art rather than horses, and literature rather than gossip ; and, for occupation, scientific experiment rather than the stock ticker. Who, for companions, preferred men who could bring to their intercourse something more than the last quotation from the Board and the weights for the next handicap, even if all of them did not frequent the houses of Mrs. Courtenay’s world. Such was the singular perversity of Dorothy’s nature, that this appreciation of the man had operated to a prejudice in his favor.

The real effect of her mother’s ill-tempered words was to open her eyes to possibilities which until then had not occurred to her, but which, being revealed, were the reverse of unpleasant. She sat a long time pondering on this revelation — so long,

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- indeed, that when she emerged from her abstraction, her head ached, but, she had reached a conclusion as to what she should do in the event of a certain great big IF.

The next time Trescotte called, Dorothy told him she would be his wife. But not, of course, until after he had asked.

He lingered at the door a moment as he was taking his leave, on this momentous occasion, and, after a little hesitation, said :

“ I shall go at once to your father. There is a certain episode in my life of which I must speak before I can take his consent. It is not a bar, only an unpleasant remembrance. The knowledge shall be yours, should I be fortunate enough to obtain your father’s approval.”

A young man of prompt execution, he went straightway to Mr. Countenay and placed that gentleman in a very embarrassing position.

Mr. Courtenay knew that his wife destined Dorothy for Waldemar. In such matters Mr. Courtenay deferred to his wife as much the easier way ; but there was another side to this situation. He passed in the world for a man of strict probity and upright dealing ; yet, in his heart of hearts, he knew that he had largely contributed to the diminution of the property of the elder Trescotte, by inducing that old gentleman to exchange excellent Broadway property for certain railroad bonds which had rapidly lessened in value until they were worth comparatively nothing, while the real estate, in the

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same time, had more than doubled. At the time of the exchange, and indeed for some time thereafter, the bonds were quoted at a premium. This was a fact not to be denied. No one, much less the elder Trescotte, had ever charged Mr. Courtfcnay with having unloaded unprofitable holdings upon a friend. It was all ascribed to his good luck and to Mr. Trescotte’s bad luck that the smash should have come when it did. But the fact was, that Mr. Courtenay had possessed knowledge of certain events about to occur, which in the nature of things would practically wipe out the bonds, and he had hastened to get rid of them before the knowledge became general. So when this young Trescotte, with his charming manners and correct habits, came to ask for his daughter Dorothy, all the objection he could raise was what Mrs. Courtenay had made — Trescotte’s lack of wealth, and he, Courtenay, had largely helped to that lack.

If Trescotte regarded Dorothy as a possession beyond fine gold, as I must confess I believe he was impracticable enough to do, he would have blessed that exchange which took so much wealth from him, for having decided to give his daughter to Trescotte, under an impulse of regret for having treated the elder Trescotte so shabbily, Mr. Courtenay put forth a restraining hand against Mrs. Courtenay when she was disposed to make it unpleasant for the young people who had become engaged at the very time she was laying deep plans to separate them.

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Mr. Courtenay made so light of the episode Trescotte had spoken of that he did not even mention it to his wife. Mrs. Courtenay, on her side, had her compensation, by achieving that which is so dear to woman heart — a grievance, which was tenderly nursed, not only by her, but by her dear friends, the matron mothers, who could afford to expend large sympathy, since their own ewe lambs were safe from the fascinations of this very dangerous young man.

The engagement took up its place in the Courtenay household, where it was tolerated only by all save Dorothy, who, having made it her religion, worked herself into a sort of exaltation in the contemplation that nothing sordid entered into her romance.

A sensation of an extraordinary character, however, marked the course of this romance.

Two railroad companies, one nearly moribund, a goodly portion of the worthless stock and bonds of which were held by Trescotte and retained because he could not sell them, began a fight over a tract of land which someone had discovered contained lead, or iron, or coal, or something else equally dear to the railroad heart, the title deeds of which, curiously enough, were also held by Trescotte, as evidences of his father’s foolish financial schemes.

The young man was drawn into the very vortex of the fight, from which, after a laborious and bewildering period of two months, he emerged shorn of his stocks and bonds and title deeds, but

DOROTHY'S IDYL.

with two millions or more to his credit in the bank, awaiting investment.

Virtuous actions have their rewards. Mr. Courtenay was credited with being a very shrewd old fellow who had seen the possibility from the first, and Mrs. Courtenay found compensation in the rapid change of her dear matron mother friends from self satisfied sympathy to mortified envy.

There is a vast difference between an income of eight thousand and eighty thousand a year, and that is the reason why the prospective son-in-law, who had leaped from one to the other, appreciated a sudden change in the atmosphere in and about the Courtenay mansion — it was more balmy and genial. I am compelled to admit, however, that I saw traces of a littleness of spirit upon the part of Dorothy, in that she seemed to show regret over this change in the fortunes of her lover. I am really afraid that the notion crept into her silly, romantic head, that a sweet something, akin to a sacrifice, had been taken out of their idyl.

So, in due course of time, they were married, and by the Bishop, too, for Mrs. Courtenay insisted on that, and the world came to the wedding, bringing those valuable presents it never would have brought to the wedding of an eight thousand dollar man. The bride and groom went on their travels, and at the end of three months brought up at Saratoga, where we found them in the first chapter.

Chapter III. Wifed, Not Wedded

Mr. and Mrs. Trescotte breakfasted late on the morning following the evening Dorothy had heard the fragment of the sad story she told her husband.

They were hardly seated at the table when Mr. Magrane, the lawyer who had piloted Trescotte through the sea of legal complications and finally landed him in the port of a millionaire, came to them.

Mr. Magrane had never met Mrs. Trescotte, and so was presented by her happy possessor. As he told them he was just returned from the Pacific Coast, whither he had been for six months straightening out the troubles of the ownership of a gold mine, he regarded Mrs. Trescotte with so singular, and indeed curious, an interest that Dorothy was quite offended. And yet he made a marked effort to be agreeable, so apparent that she, keenly observant and somewhat suspicious, concluded that there was ulterior purpose in the effort. Besides he puzzled her, for though she had not even heard of him before he presented himself, handsome, selfpoised, polished in manner, there was about him w

WIPED , NOT WEDDED .

something strangely familiar. She could not divest herself of the fancy that this man, so agreeable and debonair, boded her no good. It was all very absurd and unjust, she knew. Her husband evidently respected and trusteed the man. Their brief conversation revealed to her that Mr. Magrane was the lawyer whose ability and honorable dealing in Trescotte’s rise to wealth she had heard her husband so highly praise, yet when, moving away, the lawyer requested half an hour’s conversation with her husband on business after breakfast, her impulse was to warn her husband. Against what ? That was the trouble. She had nothing but her intuitions, and she knew that man laughed at the intuitions of woman. So Dorothy held her tongue. They breakfasted leisurely, Dorothy not a little depressed and making an effort to appear cheerful and happy.

When Trescotte had taken her to their apartments he went in search of Magrane. The lawyer was found on the veranda just outside the doors of the great office, his morning paper lying unread on his knees, in a brown study, oblivious to the whirl and flash of the butterflies of fashion about hfm.

He arose promptly when Trescotte spoke to him, and rather nervously said :

“ Let us go into Congress Park. I want to consult you on a matter of great concern. We can be entirely alone there.”

They sauntered down Broadway, chatting on trivial matters, and turned into the Park, to a remote corner of which Magrane led Trescotte.

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It was apparent that the lawyer was not eager to begin the consultation to which he had invited Trescotte. Indeed, it was with an effort that he began to speak :

“ I am in Saratoga for no other purpose than to see you. Certain statements have been made to me that deeply concern you.”

Trescotte took out his case and offered Magrane a cigar. The lawyer declined and his client, selecting one for himself, wondered humorously if this were a prelude to the achievement of another million.

“ I want to ask you some questions — questions you may think impertinent,” the lawyer went on.

“ Why, Magrane,” replied Trescotte, striking a match and lighting his cigar, “ your questions could not be impertinent. Our relations are too close.”

“ I suppose so,” said the lawyer, picking from the ground a green twig, and trying to tie it into a knot. He devoted himself so moodily to this occupation, that Trescotte, expectant, began to feel bored. The lawyer broke out abruptly :

“ Trescotte,” he said as he threw the twig from him, having broken it, “ you were married to Miss Dorothy Courtenay three months ago. Does she know that once before you had gone through the marriage ceremony ? ”

The abruptness of the lawyer, the unexpected question, and the wonder how Magrane obtained the knowledge, perplexed and startled Trescotte. There was anger, both in his eyes and tones, as he replied :

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“ You are treading nearer to impertinence than I thought was possible, Magrane.”

“ I know it/’ answered the lawyer calmly, for since he had made the plunge he so dreaded he was in possession of himself, and the lawyer again, rather than the friend. “ I ask the question as your counsel and legal adviser. Answer, please.”

Magrane’s manner disposed of Trescotte’s anger summarily :

“ Yes,” he replied; “and at the very beginning of our engagement.”

“ Good ! ” cried Magrane ; “ that is far better than I expected.”

“ I don’t know what you are getting at,” said Trescotte, quite astonished at the lawyer’s evident satisfaction, “ but when I went to her father for his consent to our engagement, I did not receive it until I had told him the story in all its details. His approval was given after he knew everything I had to tell.”

“ Still better,” broke in Magrane, rubbing his hands delightedly ; “ it is in very good shape for you on that side.”

Trescotte was yet more perplexed by the lawyer’s manner, but he finished by saying :