A CHEMISTRY OF SCANDAL

Beth had seen Andrew Bedient almost daily for three weeks. Many wonderful moments had been passed together; indeed, there were moments when he reached in her mind that height he had gained at once in the ideals of Vina Nettleton. But he was sustained in Vina’s mind, while Beth encountered reactions.... “I believe he is beyond sex or fast going beyond though he may not know it,” Vina had said in effect.... On the contrary, the Shadowy Sister had sensed a lover in the room. Beth had perceived what Vina meant the mystic who worshipped woman as an abstraction but it had also come to her, that he could love one.

Beth would not trust the Shadowy Sister, but was determined to judge Bedient according to world standards. Plainly she attracted him, but could not be sure that her attraction was unique, though she always remembered that he had told of his mother only to her. He had a different mood, a different voice almost, for each of the other women of their acquaintance. His liking for the Grey One mystified Beth; Vina Nettleton had charmed him, brought forth in a single afternoon many intimate things from his depths. He spoke pleasantly of Mrs. Wordling.

The Shadowy Sister was bewitched. To her a great lover had come a lover who had added to a boy’s delicacy and beauty of ideal, a man’s certainty and power. This was the trusting, visionary part of Beth, that had not entered at all into the other romance. Beth refused now to be ruled by it. The world had hurt her. The fault was not hers, but the world’s. The only profit she could see to be drawn from her miseries of the past was to use her head to prevent repetition. Hearts were condemned.

And yet, the contrasting conduct of the Shadowy Sister in this and that other romance, was one of the most astonishing things in Beth’s experience. (Sailor-man had but to enter and speak, for Shadowy Sister to appear in kneeling adoration.)

Often Bedient was allowed to stay while she worked at other things. His own portrait prospered slowly, a fact in which the world might have found humor. And often they talked together long after the slanting light had made work impossible; their faces altered in the dim place; their voices low.... There were moments when the woman’s heart stirred to break its silence; when the man before her seemed bravely a man, and the confines of his nature to hold magnificent distances. If she could creep within those confines, would it not mean truly to live?... But the years would sweep through her mind grim, gray, implacable chariots and in their dusty train, the specific memories of fleshly limitation and untruth. To survive, she had been forced to lock her heart; to hold every hope in the cold white fingers of fear; cruelly to curb the sweep of feminine outpouring, lest its object soften into chaos; and roused womanhood, returning empty overwhelm. This is the sorriest instinct of self-preservation.

She would have said at this time that Andrew Bedient had not aroused the woman in her as the Other had done. Indeed, she paled at the thought that the Other had exhausted a trifle, her great force of heart-giving. There had been beauty in such a bestowal pain and passion but beauty, too.... Another strange circumstance: Bedient had made her think of the Other so differently. She had half put away her pride; she might have been too insistent for her rights. The Other really had improved miraculously from the poor boy who had come to their house. And to the artist’s eye, he was commandingly masculine, a veritable ideal.... Bedient was different every day.

The visit to the gallery, too, had given Beth much to think over. What he had said about the pictures, especially before the one he had called The Race Mother, had revealed his processes of mind, and made her feel very small for a while. She saw that all her own talk had not lifted from herself, from her own troubles, and certain hateful aspects of the world; while his thoughts had concerned the sufferings of all women, and the fruitage that was to come from them. She had talked for herself; he for the race. But he had merely observed the life of women, while she had lived that life.

Why did Andrew Bedient continue to show her seemingly inexhaustible sources of fineness, ways so delicate and wise that the Shadowy Sister was conquered daily, and was difficult to live with? It is true that Bedient asked nothing. But if the hour of asking struck, what should she say to him? (Here Shadowy Sister was firmly commanded to begone.) Beth had not been able to answer alone.... Could Vina Nettleton be right? Was her studio honored by a man who was beyond the completing of any woman? If so, why did Shadowy Sister so delight in him? Or was this proof that he was not designed to be the human mate of woman? These were mighty quandaries. Beth determined to talk about prophets when he came again.... Her friends told her she hadn’t looked so well in years.

Beth drew forth at length a picture of the Other Man, that she had painted recently from a number of kodak prints. The work of a miniature had been put upon it. A laughing face, a reckless face, but huge and handsome. Before her, was the contrasting work of the new portrait. The two pictures interested her together.... Bedient was at the door. It was his hour. Beth placed the smaller picture upon the mantle, instead of in its hidden niche and admitted the Shadowy Sister’s Knight....

“I saw Vina yesterday,” she observed, after work was begun. “She was still talking about prophets and those other things you said

“What a real interest she has,” Bedient answered. “She has asked me for a Credo in two or three hundred words to embody the main outline of the talk that day. Perhaps it can be done. I’m trying.”

“How interesting!”

“If one could put all his thinking into a few pages, that would be big work."...

After a pause, Beth said:

“Don’t think I’m flippant if I ask: How do these men who, in their maturity, become great spiritual forces, escape being caught young by some perceiving woman?”

“I’m not so sure the question could be put better,” Bedient said. “There is often a time in the youth of men, to whom illumination comes later, when they hang divided between the need of woman and some inner austerity that commands them to go alone.”

“If they disobey, does the light fail to come?” Beth asked.

“It is less likely to come. But then, often the youth of such men is spent in some great passion for an unattainable woman, a distant star for the groping years. In other cases, women have divined the mystic quality, and instead of giving themselves, have held the young visionaries pure. Again, poverty, that grim stepmother of the elect, often intervenes. And to common women such lovers are absurd, beyond comprehension. That helps.... Illumination comes between the age of thirty and forty. After that, the way is clear. They do not grope, they see; they do not believe, they feel and know.”

Beth found these things absorbing, though she accepted them only tentatively. She saw they were real to him as bread and wool and paint.

“There is an impulse, too, among serious young men to live the life of asceticism and restraint,” Bedient added. “It comes out of their very strength. This is the hasty conclusion of monasteries

“Hasty?”

“Well unfledged saints fall.... Their growth becomes self-centred. The intellect expands at the expense of soul, a treacherous way that leads to the dark.... And then a man must father his own children beautifully before he can father his race.”

“That sounds unerring to me,” Beth said.

“Why, it’s all the Holy Spirit driving the race!” Bedient exclaimed suddenly. “You can perceive the measure of it in every man. Look at the multitude. The sexes devour each other; marriage is the vulgarest proposition of chance. Men and women want each other that is all they know. They have no exquisite sense of selection. In them this glorious driving Energy finds no beautiful surfaces to work upon, just the passions, the meat-fed passions. Here is quantity. Nature is always ruthless with quantity, as cities are ruthless with the crowds. Here is the great waste, the tearing-down, and all that is ghastly among the masses; yet here and there from some pitiful tortured mother emerges a faltering artist her dream.”

“You never forget her, do you, that figure which sustains through the darkness and horror?”

“I cannot,” he smiled. “No race would outlast a millénium without her. Such women are saviors always giving themselves to men silently falling with men.”

“But about the artist?” Beth asked. “What is his measure of the driving Energy? How does it work upon him?”

“He has risen from the common,” Bedient replied. “He feels the furious need of completion, some one to ignite his powers and perfect his expression. It is a woman, but he has an ideal about her. He rushes madly from one to another, as a bee to different blooms. The flesh and the devil pull at him, too; surface beauty blinds him, and the world he has come from, hates him for emerging. It is a fight, but he has not lost, who fails once. The women who know him are not the same again. The poor singer destroys his life, but leaves a song, a bit of fastidiousness. The world remembers the song, links it with the destroyed life, and loves both.

“But look at the mother-given prophets standing alone, militant but tender, the real producers! The spirit that sparks fitfully in the artist is a steady flame now. Their giving is to all, not to one. What they take of the world is very little, but through them to the world is given direct the Holy Spirit. Saint Paul and the Forerunner are the highest types, and in perspective. Their way is the way of the Christ, Who showed the world that unto the completed union of Mystic Womanhood and militant manhood, is added Godhood.

“There are immediate examples of men maturing in prophecy,” Bedient concluded. “Men in our own lives almost Whitman, Lincoln, Thoreau, Emerson, Carlyle, Wordsworth. See the poise and the service which came from their greater gifts. Contrast them with the beautiful boys who searched so madly, so vainly, among the senses Burns, Byron, Shelley, Keats, Poe. What noble elder brothers they are! More content, they have, more soul-age, more of the visioning feminine principle.... And see how flesh destroys! In the small matter of years they lived, the prophets more than doubled the age of the singers. Their greatest work was done in the years which the lyric-makers did not reach.... The great masses of the world have not yet the spark which shows itself in the singing poetic consciousness. Such men are mere males, leaning upon matter, soldiers and money-makers, pitifully unlit, chance children, without fastidiousness, but all on the road.”

“There will be plenty, yes, more than plenty,” said Beth, “to take the places of those, who confine their parenthood to the race.”

Bedient was gone, and though his incorruptible optimism was working more than ever in her heart, that which she had sought to learn, had not come. Prophet or not, his smile at the door had left something volatile within her, something like girlhood in her heart. He had not overlooked the picture upon the mantel. Twice she had looked up, and found him regarding it.... It was the late still time of afternoon. Beth felt emotional. She ran over several songs on the piano, while the dusk thickened in the studio. One was about an Indian maiden who yearned for the sky-blue water; another about an Irish Kathleen who gave her lover to strike a blow for the Green; and still another concerned a girl who would rather lie in the dust of her lord’s chariot than be the ecstasy of lesser man. Beth Truba’s face was upturned to the light to the last pallor of day. She was like a wraith singing and communing with the tuneful tragedies of women world-wide. But there was gaiety in her heart.... Then the knocker, the scurrying of dreams away, and the voice of Marguerite Grey in the dark.

“Most romantic song, hour and all,” she said, while Beth turned on the lamps.

“Beth Truba is naturally so romantic

“Possibly the piano could tell tales; I know my ’cello could,” said the Grey One. “Beth, dear, I am touching wood, and praying to preserve ’an humble and a contrite heart,’ but reeking with commerce. Sold three pictures real pictures. The one that was hanging at Torvin’s so long was sold four days ago, and Torvin immediately took two more

“Margie Grey, there are few things you could tell to make me happier,” Beth exclaimed, coming forward with both hands out.

“I know it. That’s why I came.”

“With Torvin interested, anything is liable to happen. He’s one of the few in New York who know, and those who buy carefully know he knows. Really we should celebrate.... Let’s get Vina to go with us, and we three set out in search of an absurd supper

Beth phoned at once. Her part was utterly disconnected. She put up the receiver, smiling.

“What have you to say about those two going out to dinner?”

“Vina and David Cairns?”

“Exactly.”

A long, low talk followed, but Beth did not tell that she had spurred David to look deeply into Vina’s case, through a remark made by Andrew Bedient.... The Grey One was emancipated, restless. She bloomed like a lily as she moved about the studio, above the shaded reading-lamps. Beth felt her happiness, the intensity of it, and rejoiced with her. Bedient came in for discussion presently, and the park episode. Beth, who had not heard, grew cold, and remembered her own call at Mrs. Wordling’s apartment, with the poster.... The Grey One was speaking as if Beth had heard about the later park affair:

“... Sometimes that woman seems so obvious, and again so deep.”

“I have failed to see the deep part,” Beth ventured, turning her face from the light.

“Evidently she interests Mr. Bedient.”

“I wonder if she really does?” Beth said idly. The Grey One was not a tale-bearer. She would not have spoken at all, except granting Beth’s knowledge.

“I don’t like to see him lose caste that way,” the Grey One went on. “He’s too splendid, and yet she’s the sort that twirls men. She knows he has interested all of us, and doubtless wants to show her strength. Possibly he hasn’t thought twice about it. That’s what Vina says. And then Mrs. Wordling was one of those first asked to meet him. I wish David Cairns hadn’t done that

“David’s idea was all right,” Beth said slowly. “He thought one of her kind would set us all off to advantage. Then, I was painting her poster

“It would have been only a little joke in a man’s club, but the Smilax took to it as something looked and yearned for long.... Two things appear funny to me. Mrs. Wordling has lived at the Club part of the year for three years, and yet didn’t know the Park was locked at midnight. And she, who has done all the crying about consequences, was the one who told me

Beth was beginning to understand. Here was an opening such as she had awaited: “What is her story?” she asked.

“Why, they met between eleven and twelve coming into the Club one of those perfect nights. Wordling dismissed her carriage and talked a little while before going in. The Park looked inviting for a stroll full moon, you know. They crossed. Wordling didn’t know or had forgotten about midnight locking. ‘His talk was so interesting,’ she said.... It was after one, when Mr. Bedient hailed a page at the Club entrance.”

“From inside the bars, across the street?” Beth asked.

“Of course. The boy came over with the keys.”

“How clumsy and uninteresting, even innocence of that sort can be!” Beth remarked. “And Mrs. Wordling was so zealous for you to hear that she told you herself?”

“That is rather humorous, isn’t it?” the Grey One agreed. “Of course she supposed I had heard, and wanted to be sure the truth came to me. I think, too, she wanted me to know that Mr. Bedient had invited her to go to the shore for a few days later. She asked if I thought she had better go

“And you told her?” Beth managed to say.

“Just as you would, that she was an adult and must use her own judgment.”

“Exactly,” said Beth, and then a sentence got away from her, though she contrived to garb it in a laugh. “He won’t go to the shore with Mrs. Wordling!... Wait until I get my hat.”

In the little room alone, she saw that the long dark road must be traversed again; the chains had fallen upon her anew their former wounds yet unhealed.... The old lies and acting; the old hateful garment for the world to see; suffering beneath a smile. She must hear the voice of Beth Truba lightly observing and answering, while she the heart of her was deathly ill.

Her throat tightened; it seemed her breast must burst with old and new agonies. Once more she had given her full faith. This was clear now. She had been a weakling again, and tumultuously, in spite of an ugly warning! Had she not called at Wordling’s apartment with the poster? Had she not heard the whispers, the overturned chair and scornfully fathomed the delayed answering of the door?... And to think she had almost succeeded in putting that rankling incident away, though he had not been in New York a month. And the shame of it, the recent hours she had spent, with this visionary thing; that he was beyond mating with a woman of flesh beyond her best a forerunner with glad tidings for all women!... Forerunner, indeed, and twice caught in a second-rate woman’s net of beguilings! Twice caught, and how many times uncaught?... And she had thought herself hard and sceptical in his presence.

The old romance looked clean and fair compared to this the old lover, boyish and forgivable. He had not won by preaching.... Where was the Shadowy Sister now?

There was no quarter for Beth. She was a modern product, a twentieth century woman, an angry, solitary, world-trained woman, who could not make a concession to imperfect manhood. This was the key to all her agonies. She had asked manhood of mind, and could not accept less. The awful part was that she must do over again all the hateful strategies, all the concealing and worldliness her body, mind and soul sorely crippled from before. That she must thus use her womanhood, her precious prime of strength. One experience had not hardened her enough. With what corrosion of self-hatred did she turn upon herself that moment!

Her intellect had faltered; the Shadowy Sister had betrayed; David Cairns had been consummately stupid; Vina Nettleton was soft with dreams, and not to be reckoned with in the world; Vina could tell her woes, but she, Beth Truba, must not scream nor fall. She must face the woman in the other room, sit across a lighted table for an hour, and talk and laugh. Her heart cried out against this, but pride uprose to whip Beth’s iron pride finished under the world’s mastery. Slowly, rhythmically, the blows fell. Beth could not run away.

She stretched out her fingers, which were biting into her palms, drenched her face with cold water, breathed for a minute by the open window like a doe in covert.... There was ammonia, and she inhaled the potent fumes....

“Pale hands I loved
Beside the Shalimar

hummed the Grey One, from the open sheet on the piano.

Beth faltered at the door, for the song hurled her back to an hour ago with bruising force. She re-entered the little room to fix her hat....

“You weren’t long, Beth,” the Grey One said.

“No?... I’m glad of that, but speaking of glad things, let us not forget Torvin.”

Beth was already turning out the lights.

“You look a little tired, dear,” the Grey One said in the elevator.

“It’s the time of day,” Beth responded readily. After being in all day, and suddenly deciding to go out, haven’t you felt a tension come over you as if you could hardly wait a minute?”

“Many times, dear, as if one must snatch hat and gloves and get into the street at any cost.”

Beth came in alone about ten, sighed as the latch clicked, and sat down in the dark. But she rose again in a moment, for she didn’t like the dark. She was worn out, even physically; and yet it was different now from the first reaction. Bedient had not continued to fit so readily to commonness, as in those first implacable moments in the little room. He had never judged anyone in her presence; had spoken well of everyone, even of Mrs. Wordling. He was no intimidated New Yorker, who felt he must conduct himself for the eyes of others.

Mrs. Wordling had not shown the quality to hold the fancy position she aspired to, in the little circle of artists at the Club; and retaliated by showing her power over the lion of this circle. She had challenged him to cross the street, knowing they would be locked in and that the Club would hear. She had desired this, having nothing to lose. For fear the Grey One had not heard, she had told the story. The recent agony in the little room was great, above the Wordling’s expectations.... And now Beth faltered. Had Andrew Bedient asked her to join him somewhere on the shore? She could not see him asking this; and yet, regarded as a fiction plunge, it seemed bigger and more formidable than Wordling could devise.

This must wait. This must prove. If he went away enough! She had been hasty and implacable once this time she would wait.

Beth would have liked to talk with David Cairns, but she could not bring up such a subject. This was not her sort of talk-material with him. Plainly he would not mention it, in the hope that her ears had missed it entirely.

She had even felt a rage against the Grey One for bringing the news. This helped to show how maddened and unjust she was, in those first terrible moments. Piece by piece she had drawn the odious thing from her caller, who was by no means inclined to spread and thicken the shadow of an evil tale. Marguerite Grey was not a weigher of motives, nor penetrative in the chemistry of scandal. So many testimonies had come to her of the world’s commonness that she had become flexible in judgment. What had been so terrible at first was to identify Andrew Bedient with these sordid things, so obvious and shallow. But was he identified with them? Rather, did he not feel himself sufficiently an entity to be safe in any company? Did he not trust her, and worth-while people, to grant him this much?... This was the highest point in the upsweep of her thoughts.

So the story extracted from the Grey One was held free from its fatal aspect, until time should dissolve the matter of the shore.... After all, the lamplight, usually soft and mellow in the gold-brown room, held an alien, unearthly glitter for Beth’s strained eyes.... Was it that which kept the Shadowy Sister afar, as the light from the colored pane in the hall of his boyhood had frightened him?