第98章 XXI(1)

GALLOWAY accepted Norman's terms. He would probably have accepted terms far less easy. But Norman as yet knew with the thoroughness which must precede intelligent plan and action only the legal side of financial operations; he had been as indifferent to the commercial side as a pilot to the value of the cargo in the ship he engages to steer clear of shoals and rocks.

So with the prudence of the sagacious man's audacities he contented himself with a share of this first venture that would simply make a comfortable foundation for the fortune he purposed to build. As the venture could not fail outright, even should Galloway die, he rented a largish place at Hempstead, with the privilege of purchase, and installed his wife and himself with a dozen servants and a housekeeper.

"This housekeeper, this Mrs. Lowell," said he to Dorothy, "is a good enough person as housekeepers go. But you will have to look sharply after her."

Dorothy seemed to fade and shrink within herself, which was her way of confessing lack of courage and fitness to face a situation: "I don't know anything about those things," she confessed.

"I understand perfectly," said he. "But you learned something at the place in Jersey City--quite enough for the start. Really, all you need to know just now is whether the place is clean or not, and whether the food comes on the table in proper condition.

The rest you'll pick up gradually."

"I hope so," said she, looking doubtful and helpless; these new magnitudes were appalling, especially now that she was beginning to get a point of view upon life.

"At any rate, don't bother me for these few next months," said he. "I'm going to be very busy--shall leave early in the morning and not be back until near dinner time--if I come at all. No, you'll not be annoyed by me. You'll be absolute mistress of your time."

She tried to look as if this contented her. But he could not have failed to see how dissatisfied and disquieted she really was. He had the best of reasons for thinking that she was living under the same roof with him only because she preferred the roof he could provide to such a one as she could provide for herself whether by her own earnings or by marrying a man more to her liking personally. Yet here she was, piqued and depressed because of his indifference--because he was not thrusting upon her gallantries she would tolerate only through prudence!

"You will be lonely at times, I'm afraid," said he.

"But I can't provide friends or even acquaintances for you for several months--until my affairs are in better order and my sister and her husband come back from Europe."

"Oh, I shan't be lonely," cried she. "I've never cared for people."

"You've your books, and your music--and riding --and shopping trips to town--and the house and grounds to look after."

"Yes--and my dreams," said she hopefully, her eyes suggesting the dusky star depths.

"Oh--the dreams. You'll have little time for them," said he drily. "And little inclination, I imagine, as you wake up to the sense of how much there is to be learned. Dreaming is the pastime of people who haven't the intelligence or the energy to accomplish anything.

If you wish to please me--and you do--don't you?"

"Yes," she murmured. She forced her rebellious lips to the laconic assent. She drooped the lids over her rebellious eyes, lest he should detect her wounded feelings and her resentment.

"I assumed so," said he, with a secret smile.

"Well, if you wish to please me, you'll give your time to practical things--things that'll make you more interesting and make us both more comfortable. It was all very well to dream, while you had little to do and small opportunity. But now-- Try to cut it out."

It is painful to an American girl of any class to find that she has to earn her position as wife. The current theory, a tradition from an early and woman-revering day, is that the girl has done her share and more when she has consented to the suit of the ardent male and has intrusted her priceless charms to his exclusive keeping. According to that same theory, it is the husband who must earn his position--must continue to earn it. He is a humble creature, honored by the presence of a wonderful being, a cross between a queen and a goddess. He cannot do enough to show his gratitude. Perhaps--but only perhaps--had Norman married Josephine Burroughs, he might have assented, after a fashion, to this idea of the relations of the man and the woman. No doubt, had he remained under the spell of Dorothy's mystery and beauty, he would have felt and acted the slave he had made of himself at the outset. But in the circumstances he was looking at their prospective life together with sane eyes. And so she had, in addition to all her other reasons for heartache, a sense that she, the goddess-queen, the American woman, with the birthright of dominion over the male, was being cheated, humbled, degraded.