第95章 XX(3)

"Or dependent," she said, with one of those unexpected flashes of subtle intelligence that so complicated the study of her character. He had been talking to amuse himself rather than with any idea of her understanding. Her sudden bright color and her two words--"or dependent"--roused him to see that she thought he was deliberately giving her a savage lecture from the cover of general remarks. "With the vanity of the typical woman," he said to himself, "she always imagines SHE is the subject of everyone's thought and talk."

"Or dependent," said he to her, easily. "I wasn't thinking of you, but yours IS a case in point. Come, now--nothing to look blue about! Here's something to eat. No, it's for the next table."

"You won't let me explain," she protested, between the prudence of reproach and the candor of anger.

"There's nothing to explain," replied he. "Don't bother about the mistakes of yesterday. Remember them--yes. If one has a good memory, to forget is impossible--not to say unwise. But there ought to be no more heat or sting in the memory of past mistakes than in the memory of last year's mosquito bites."

The first course of the supper arrived. Her nervousness vanished, and he got far away from the neighborhood of the subjects that, even in remotest hint, could not but agitate her. And as the food and the wine asserted their pacific and beatific sway, she and he steadily moved into better and better humor with each other. Her beauty grew until it had him thinking that never, not in the most spiritual feminine conceptions of the classic painters, had he seen a loveliness more ethereal. Her skin was so exquisite, the coloring of her hair and eyes and of her lips was so delicately fine that it gave her the fragility of things bordering upon the supernal--of rare exotics, of sunset and moonbeam effects. No, he had been under no spell of illusion as to her beauty. It was a reality--the more fascinating because it waxed and waned not with regularity of period but capriciously.

He began to look round furtively, to see what effect this wife of his was producing on others. These last few months, through prudence as much as through pride, he had been cultivating the habit of ignoring his surroundings; he would not invite cold salutations or obvious avoidance of speaking. He now discovered many of his former associates--and his vanity dilated as he noted how intensely they were interested in his wife.

Some men of ability have that purest form of egotism which makes one profoundly content with himself, genuinely indifferent to the approval or the disapproval of others. Norman's vanity had a certain amount of alloy. He genuinely disdained his fellow-men--their timidity, their hypocrisy, their servility, their limited range of ideas. He was indifferent to the verge of insensibility as to their adverse criticism. But at the same time it was necessary to his happiness that he get from them evidences of their admiration and envy.

With that amusing hypocrisy which tinges all human nature, he concealed from himself the satisfaction, the joy even, he got out of the showy side of his position.

And no feature of his infatuation for Dorothy surprised him so much as the way it rode rough shod and reckless over his snobbishness.

With the fading of infatuation had come many reflections upon the practical aspects of what he had done. It pleased him with himself to find that, in this first test, he had not the least regret, but on the con-trary a genuine pride in the courageous independence he had shown--another and strong support to his conviction of his superiority to his fellow-men. He might be somewhat snobbish--who was not?--who else in his New York was less than supersaturated with snobbishness?

But snobbishness, the determining quality in the natures of all the women and most of the men he knew, had shown itself one of the incidental qualities in his own nature. After all, reflected he, it took a man, a good deal of a man, to do what he had done, and not to regret it, even in the hour of disillusionment. And it must be said for this egotistic self-approval of his that like all his judgments there was sound merit of truth in it. The vanity of the nincompoop is ridiculous.

The vanity of the man of ability is amusing and no doubt due to a defective point of view upon the proportions of the universe; but it is not without excuse, and those who laugh might do well to discriminate even as they guffaw.

Looking discreetly about, Norman was suddenly confronted by the face of Josephine Burroughs, only two tables away.

Until their eyes squarely met he did not know she was there, or even in America. Before he could make a beginning of glancing away, she gave him her sweetest smile and her friendliest bow. And Dorothy, looking to see to whom he was speaking, was astonished to receive the same radiance of cordiality. Norman was pleased at the way his wife dealt with the situation.

She returned both bow and smile in her own quiet, slightly reserved way of gentle dignity.

"Who was that, speaking?" asked she.

"Miss Burroughs. You must remember her."

He noted it as characteristic that she said, quite sincerely: "Oh, so it is. I didn't remember her. That is the girl you were engaged to."

"Yes--`the nice girl uptown,' " said he.

"I didn't like her," said Dorothy, with evident small interest in the subject. "She was vain."

"You mean you didn't like her way of being vain," suggested Norman. "Everyone is vain; so, if we disliked for vanity we should dislike everyone."

"Yes, it was her way. And just now she spoke to us both, as if she were doing us a favor."

"Gracious, it's called," said he. "What of it? It does us no harm and gives her about the only happiness she's got."