第103章 XXII(1)

THE baby grew and thrived, as the habit is with healthy children well taken care of. Mrs. Norman soon got back her strength, her figure, and perhaps more than her former beauty--as the habit is with healthy women well taken care of. Norman's career continued to prosper, likewise according to the habit of all healthy things well taken care of. In a world where nothing happens by chance, mischance, to be serious, must have some grave fault as its hidden cause. We mortals, who love to live at haphazard and to blame God or destiny or "bad luck" for our calamities, hate to take this modern and scientific view of the world and life. But, whether we like it or not, it is the truth--and, as we can't get round it, why not accept it cheerfully and, so appear a little less ignorant and ridiculous?

During their first year at the Hempstead place the results in luxury and comfort had at no time accounted for the money it cost and the servants it employed--that is to say, paid. But Norman was neither unreasonable nor impatient. Also, in his years of experience with his sister's housekeeping, and of observation of the other women, he had grown exceedingly moderate in his estimate of the ability of women and in his expectations from them. He had reached the conclusion that the women who were sheltered and pampered by the men of the successful classes were proficient only in those things that call for no skill or effort beyond the wagging of the tongue. He saw that Dorothy was making honest endeavor to learn her business, and he knew that learning takes time--much time.

He believed that in the end she would do better than any other wife of his acquaintance, at the business of wife and mother.

Before the baby was two years old, his belief was rewarded. Things began to run better--began to run well, even. Dorothy--a serious person, unhampered of a keen sense of humor, had taught herself the duties of her new position in much the same slow plodding way in which she had formerly made of herself a fair stenographer and a tolerable typewriter. Mrs. Lowell had helped--and Ursula, too--and Norman not a little.

But Dorothy, her husband discovered, was one of those who thoroughly assimilate what they take in--who make it over into part of themselves. So, her manner of keeping house, of arranging the gardens, of bringing up the baby, of dressing herself, was peculiarly her own. It was not by any means the best imaginable way. It was even what many energetic, systematic and highly competent persons would speak contemptuously of. But it satisfied Norman--and that was all Dorothy had in mind.

If those who have had any considerable opportunity to observe married life will forget what they have read in novels and will fix their minds on what they have observed at first hand, they will recognize the Norman marriage, with the husband and wife living together yet apart as not peculiar but of a rather common type.

Neither Fred nor Dorothy had any especial reason on any given day to try to alter their relations; so the law of inertia asserted itself and matters continued as they had begun. It was, perhaps, a chance remark of Tetlow's that was the remote but efficient cause of a change, as the single small stone slipping high up on the mountain side results in a vast landslide into the valley miles below. Tetlow said one day, in connection with some estate they were settling:

"I've always pitied the only child. It must be miserably lonesome."

No sooner were the words out of his mouth than he colored violently; for, he remembered that the Normans had but one child and he knew the probable reason for it. Norman seemed not to have heard or seen.

Tetlow hoped he hadn't, but, knowing the man, feared otherwise. And he was right.

In the press of other matters Norman forgot Tetlow's remark--remembered it again a few days later when he was taking the baby out for an airing in the motor--forgot it again--finally, when he took a several days' rest at home, remembered it and kept it in mind.

He began to think of Dorothy once more in a definite, personal way, began to observe her as his wife, instead of as mere part of his establishment. An intellectual person she certainly was not. She had a quaint individual way of speaking and of acting. She had the marvelous changeable beauty that had once caused him to take the bit in his teeth and run wild. But he would no more think of talking with her about the affairs that really interested him than--well, than the other men of large career in his acquaintance would think of talking those matters to their wives.

But-- He was astonished to discover that he liked this slim, quiet, unobtrusive little wife of his better than he liked anyone else in the world, that he eagerly turned away from the clever and amusing companionship he might have at his clubs to come down to the country and be with her and the baby--not the baby alone, but her also. Why? He could not find a satisfactory reason.

He saw that she created at that Hempstead place an atmosphere of rest, of tranquility. But this merely thrust the mystery one step back. HOW did she create this atmosphere--and for a man of his varied and discriminating tastes? To that question he could work out no answer. She had for him now a charm as different from the infatuation of former days as calm sea is from tempest-racked sea--utterly different, yet fully as potent. As he observed her and wondered at these discoveries of his, the ghost of a delight he had thought forever dead stirred in his heart, in his fancy. Yes, it was a pleasure, a thrilling pleasure to watch her.