MODERN WOMEN GUSTAV' KOBBE CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY BEQUEST OF George Jean Nathan Class of 1904 Cornell University Library PS 2197.K76 Modern women / 3 1924 022 155 471 The original of tliis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924022155471 MODERN WOMEN MODERN WOMEN BY GUSTAV KOBBE Author of "Signora," "Miriam," Etc. New York MOFFAT, YARD & COMPANY 1915 Copyright, 191S By GUSTAV KOBBE PRESS OF THE NEW ERA PRINTING COMPANY UNCASTER, PA. TO CLAUDIA CONTENTS I. Clothes i II. Speed lo III. News i6 IV. Love 22 V. Man 33 VI. Show 38 VII. Horse 51 VIII. Song 64 IX. Nerves 84 X. Art 89 XL Street 103 XII. End 127 Vll M I CLOTHES I RS. Graves at home?" "Yes, sir." " Any one with her?" " Mr. Benton, sir. They're upstairs in the library, sir." " Did Mr. Benton's brokers call up from the city? " "Yes, sir." "Did they get him?" " No, sir. He sent word from upstairs there was no hurry; — he would call up the office later himself." "Put some Scotch and carbonic on the table, and let Mrs. Graves know I'm here." He went into the drawing-room. With a Modern Women critical eye he regarded a tapestry panel over the door. Placing himself in a good position for light, he surveyed the paintings on the wall. Then he furrowed the rug with the point of his shoe, and watched the play of color in the soft, deep pile. He passed into the dining-room. The butler had put the Scotch and carbonic and a silver bowl with cracked ice on the table. But Graves first looked around here, as he had in the drawing-room. The paneling was English oak, intact from an Elizabethan mansion in one of the shires, with furniture and everything com- plete. The bowl and the rest of the silver on the serving table were of the same period. The room, like the one from which he had come, was in admirable taste. He was very deliberate. Pouring out his Scotch, he added a squirt from the siphon, and listened to the tinkle of the ice as it floated against the sides of the thin glass, before he drank. Through the large, oblong window, Clothes with its heavy yet clear pane, he saw his gar- age and, in front of it, the handsome limou- sine, in which he had just driven up from the station. The lawn, with its flower beds and trees, made a fine expanse, as it sloped down to the river, where his yacht lay at his private landing. Pausing again at the drawing-room door, for a final and apparently satisfied look at the apartment, he stepped into the hall and took the lift upstairs. II " How's Archie Graves — * the coming man of Wall Street'?" asked Benton, with the su- percilious drawl that was one of the things Graves hated about him. No two men could have offered a sharper contrast to each other than Graves and the man who was dawdling about his wife. Ben- ton was spare, tall and rather languid looking, an impression confirmed by his fair, longish 3 Modern Women hair, blue eyes and weak mouth ; whereas from every line of Graves' strongly marked features, as well as from his vigorous frame, spoke the determination of the man who goes ahead and doesn't bother about complications till he's gotten what he wants. "Well?" he asked in a comprehensive way that included them both, yet ignored Benton's effort. "We've been up the river in the yacht," said his wife. " After luncheon on the island, we shot at a target. I hit it twice ! " " I thought you hated shooting. You always said you were afraid of the noise." "Arthur — Mr. Benton, I mean — has a pis- tol with a silencer attachment. It's fine! You'd never know there was shooting going on. It isn't any louder than the snap of a whip." " Yes," said Graves with a dry laugh, " that's it — the snap of a whip! You can blow out 4 Clothes your own brains, or some one else's, without being heard." Benton looked up. "I've never known you to talk like that, Graves." "Oh. I've had a strenuous day. — By the way, haven't you had any word from your brokers?" " I'd forgotten all about it," drawled Ben- ton. "Chalmers called up. I was reading poetry to Mrs. Graves. Meant to get Chal- mers on the 'phone, when I'd finished. It went clean out of my mind." " Better get him right away. There's been something like a panic in the street :-^a break in a whole lot of stocks." Benton rose rather reluctantly. "I had the usual margin with*Chalmers. What's the use of a broker, if he can't look after your busipess without bothering you?" He said this petulantly, as he left the room. " I hope nothing has happened to his * Si- 5 Modern Women lencer' stock," said the woman. "He's aw- fully proud of his invention. Says England wants it for the army. He's going to give you a look-in on it." "His invention?" Graves said this with a sneer. " He must have gotten that out of the poetry-book he's been reading to you. His father bought the Silencer patent from the in- ventor and organized the company." "Well you know I don't understand any- thing about business," she said in rather a bored tone. "Perhaps you can understand, when I tell you that I've come home worth half again as many millions as I was, when I said goodbye to you this morning." There was nothing bored about her expres- sion now. ' She was thinking of how much more money he would give her to spend on herself, and that made her look softer and pret- tier than ever. She smiled as she looked up at him. 6 Clothes " I thought that would fetch you," he said. " You're a wonder, Archie. How did you do it?" " Broke the market on * Silencer.' Watched it tumble till it dropped far enough to suit me. Then grabbed up the whole lot — mine and his. While he was reading poetry to you, I was wiping up the street with him. Couldn't go to the 'phone, eh? He's there now all right, hearing that he hasn't a dollar to his name, — and to whom he's indebted for his haircut." She didn't seem to grasp the full meaning of what he said. She was still smiling up at him, and looking her prettiest, when, from the hall below, there came a sound that resem- bled nothing so much as the snap of a whip. The smile vanished. Her expression was that of a person who does not yet grasp the full significance of a sudden thing that has hap- pened. She started to rise. Her husband closed the door and turned toward her. " You can't go downstairs," he said. " In 2 7 Modern Women a few moments the hall will be full of serv- ants. A scene before them would be fatal." In a dull, hopeless way, she pulled at a tas- sel that hung from an arm of the chair. "The butler," he continued, "being Eng- lish, and the best trained specimen of his kind that has come under my observation, will be here shortly to tell me, quietly, what has hap- pened. I'll step out into the hall, so that you won't have to hear any disagreeable details, if there are any." Ill When he came back, she was crying softly. He pretended not to notice it. " Before I left town this afternoon, the Du- veens called up. I suppose they'd already heard of the killing I'd made on the street. (Wonderful, how they keep track of things, isn't it?) Anyhow, they wanted to tell me that the war has thrown the Thorpe Manor tap- estries on the market, and there is a Reynolds 8 Clothes they want me to see. The tapestries will go perfectly with everything in the drawing room, and we really need an English old master over the dining room mantel. Some day next week we'll go in to see the picture and talk over the tapestries. After that, you might as well get your clothes for the summer — carte blanche — anything and everything you want." The little hand, so delicate, so slender, that he held in his, while with his other he stroked her hair, still trembled. Every now and then, her tears came in a flood, but he could feel that she was gradually quieting down. "Couldn't I — get the — clothes — sooner?" She still spoke between sobs. But when he said, " Sure, little girl," he felt her creeping into his arms to be petted. II SPEED " A ND now, Mrs. Harry," said the man, •*• ^ who had driven up to the door in a high-powered machine, " are you ready? " ** For a fight, or a frolic?" she asked. "Why, a fight?" " I got my divorce a month ago, and you haven't married me yet. Harry was slow. That's why I chucked him for you. Now you think you have me for sure, you're slowing up too. I want things in a hurry. Casually men- tion the play, and find yourself in the best seat in the house. — Refer to matrimony, and ob- serve the man fumbling in his pocket for the ring. — Say you want to go 'scamping,' and discover yourself in a motor with the scenery lO Speed whizzing past you at the rate of sixty miles an hour. That's me. That used to be you." " Still is." " It's been a month." "Won't be another; nor even a week. — Meanwhile, what about saying 'supper' and finding it ready for us at the Beau Sejour? — Sixty miles by the shore road, and there in an hourl" II While she was getting into her motor togs, he called up the road-house. When he rang off and went out, she was already ensconced in the car, waiting for him. Impatient though he knew her to be, he paused to look at her, she was so handsome. She looked up at him and smiled. His expression told her why he had paused, and no woman is in too much of a hurry to be admired. He, however, remem- bering that " Harry was slow," and the conse- quences, got in beside her, turned on the self- starter, and they were off. II Modern Women Her look of expectant exhiliration became the thing itself, as he let out link after link of speed, and she felt the increasing rush of air against her face. They would see a car ahead of them and the next moment shoot past it. Once or twice she glanced back with a satis- fied smile. Every machine they passed looked as if it were standing still in comparison with the speed at which they were dropping it be- hind them. Further along, she settled herself a little lower in the seat, rested the back of her head against the upper edge of the cushion, and let the wind scour her face. "Top speed?" she asked. "Almost." "Then — we could go faster?" "Yes — in an emergency." " I'm one." Without comment, he pressed down the ac- celerator. "Wide open?" He nodded affirmatively. 12 Speed The car seemed to strain forward, and draw away from under them. They were scooping up distance and throwing it behind them. jFar down the road she saw an automobile and wondered, at the rate at which they were tearing along, how soon they would overhaul and whizz past it. As they did so, she looked curiously amused. When they had dropped the car well behind them she gave a quick, loud laugh. He turned toward her enquir- ingly. "That was Harry's outfit. — Creeps along like a turtle, doesn't it? — ^^He's got Maude with him. Kindred souls; — equally slow! I sup- pose they'll marry, if they live long enough to make up their minds." "Did they see you?" She shook her head in the negative. " We were out of sight, before they even knew we'd passed them. — Look out!" Listening to her, and cynically amused by what she had been saying about the man from 13 Modern Women whom he had taken her away, he had for a moment relaxed his tense watch of the road. They were at a sharp turn. Ill It was about twenty minutes later, when an automobile, carefully. rounding this turn, came to a quick stop. Several automobiles were drawn up at one side of the road. A group of people was gathered around an overturned car. A man looked up, and, seeing the new- comers, went over to where they had halted. "I wouldn't delay here," he said. "It's no place for the lady. There were two people in the car — a man and a woman. They've both been killed. The man's unrecognizable. The woman's pinned under the car. We're trying to jack it up, to get at the body." They drove on. Enough time had elapsed and the scene of the accident was sufficiently remote for the disagreeable impression made 14 Speed by it to have worn off, when they reached the Beau Sejour. "Anything special?" the man asked the head-waiter. "Ah, yesl — ^We have a beautiful supper — ordered over the 'phone — for two people who haven't come. — Oysters right out of the water! — Red-heads ! — Chande brut, exquisitely f rap- ped ! " — He was going on, but the man cut in. "Serve it," he said. — "We're in luck, Maude," he called out, as he went down the steps to help her out of the car. 15 Ill NEWS I A SLIM line of smoke rose straight up- •^ ^ ward from a cigarette held between two slender fingers. From the "lounge" off the ball-room a woman was so intent, watching two men, that for some moments she had for- gotten to raise the cigarette to her lips. There was dancing — plenty of it. Couples were swaying with the sensuous grace that is part of the lure of the modern dance. There was exchange of whispers, glances. Through it all, like a low, tremulous call to love, shiv- ered the music. — But she was watching. One of the men was her husband. She knew what the other was telling him. One of those charming friends of her own sex had taken i6 News special pains that evening to distil like poison into her ear the news that Ralph — the man who was talking to her husband — ^was engaged to Cora Langham. The woman who told her had narrowly scanned her face to note the effect upon her of the sudden announcement. But all it evoked, was an indifferent, "Oh, really?" and a curi- ous smile that might mean anything, but looked so much like a sneer, that her informant, dis- concerted by such unexpected composure, launched into a nervous panegyric of Ralph's fiancee. "So sweet! — So naive and unsophisticated! — ^At least that's what we all think. And so clever! — Those exquisite gowns she wears, and her people not a bit well to do, for a girl who goes out so much. — Makes them all herself I Told me so. — And isn't she just the dearest little thing in the world in them? — ^We're all so glad for her, and for Ralph too." "Yes?" 17 Modern Women And still that curious smile, so provoking because it implied so much, yet told so little. Her informant had counted upon being able to flit about the ball-room telling people how the married woman, whose' name during the past year invariably had been coupled with Ralph's, had taken the news of his engagement' to Cora. In point of fact, she hadn't " taken " it at all, and at present was looking indiffer- ently across the room, where Ralph stood talk- ing to her husband : — that husband, who was considered a model of his kind, because he had either been blind to what everyone else saw, or pre-occupied with an affair of his own, which, however, he had conducted with so much discretion that no one had been able to discover the woman. Now, seeing his wife looking in his direction, he slipped his arm with easy familiarity through Ralph's and piloted him to where she sat. "Bess, Ralph has an interesting piece of i8 News news for you." Then he left him standing, sheepish and undecided, before her. "Oh!" she exclaimed, looking up at him with her prettiest smile, for she knew every woman in the room was staring at them, " you don't have to tell me. Everyone is raving about it — ^your engagement to Cora! — You've just told Jim, haven't you? Wasn't he pleased?" " He was bully about it! " " He ought to be. He knows her so well." "Really? — Cora has only mentioned him once or twice, and then just casually." " That may have been from motives of deli- cacy." " I don't think I quite understand." " Oh, I see. She hasn't told you. Jim, of course, wouldn't. Why — er — my dear Ralph — she and Jim — that is to say — ^Well — ^you must have happened along just about as Jim was getting tired of paying her dressmakers' bills and other very personal, not to say in- 19 Modern Women timate, expenses ; with her people — ^whom you won't find any too refined, anyhow — ^beginning to take advantage of the situation and ' laying down ' on Jim for anything and everything. — I must say, Ralph, it's fine, real Christianlike of you to take her off Jim's hands. No wonder he's so 'bully about it.' He ought to be. — Don't you think so?" She stopped, looked up at him with a cheer- ful little laugh. It was easy for her to see that he was convinced of the truth of what she had told him. It tallied too well with certain suspicions that had begun to creep into his own mind, in spite of himself. She noted how, involuntarily, he clenched a fist. Then he re- called where and in whose presence he was; straightened up, bowed, and sauntered off — but not in the direction where Cora was sitting. II "I can't say he looked as if the last five minutes were the most joyous of his life. 20 News Serves him right though, for not letting you know like a gentleman, instead of leaving it to that cat, who was sitting with you a little while ago, to tell you." " That's why you led him up to the slaugh- ter?" "That's why." She raised her cigarette, and took a whiff. The curve of the hand, the poise of the fingers, the pursing of the lips, as she emitted a deli- cate ring of smoke, were exquisite. " Cutting out all the dead wood between us, Jim, how would you like to have me for your little playmate again?" "Shall we begin by showing these idiots how to dance?" She rose, placed herself in his arms, and, together, they glided into the ball-room, while everyone stared. 21 IV LOVE I TT E was one of the greatest portrait pain- •*■ "*■ ters, American, but living abroad and over here only on one of his infrequent visits. He was in my studio; other painters had dropped in to see him, and the talk naturally had drifted from other topics to his work. "Maruja?" he said, repeating a question one of us had asked. "No, I haven't kept track of her. Perhaps I should have. It was the Luxembourg's purchase of my portrait of her that laid the foundation of whatever repu- tation I may have. But — " He broke off and looked gravely around the circle. " Of course," he resumed at last, as if moved by a sudden impulse, " some of you remember her. Maruja,, Spanish dancer — ^black hair, 22 Love burning eyes, sinuous grace of motion — every step, every gesture, even every pose subtly ad- justed to rhythm — the incarnation of the wavy line in music. They used to tell a story in Boston — ^where my people come from — of Em- erson and Charles Eliot Norton at one of Fanny EUsler's performances. 'Ralph,' whispered Norton, 'this is art' ' Charles,' returned the Concord philosopher, * it is religion ! ' "Art the dancing of Maruja surely was. Religion it as surely was not. Rather it was magic — music, with all its strange potentiali- ties, liquefied into action. This woman trod mysterious measures, overtones of motion no one else had dreamed of, making rhythm vis- ible, giving it form and color, transmuting it into all things man had ever yearned for or desired. Such dancing! The height of aban- don, the depth of quiescence, with uncanny hints of unrest still vexing the surface — a mere ripple of the body, a slight swaying from the 3 23 Modern Women waist up, a narrow line of white gleaming from behind slightly parted lips, the poise of a cobra ready to strike! " Tensely you waited for the forward thrust, to learn into the heart of what man the fangs would sink; also you believed everything you had ever heard of her — not only of her beauty and her wonderful art, but of the ruin she had always left in her track. The story of the young French sculptor who had suddenly leaped into fame by modeling a stunning por- trait relief of her — and poisoned himself soon after; of the Spanish poet who had dedicated his finest sonnet to her — and ended in a mad- house; of the Russian diplomat who had squandered a fortune on her — and blown his brains out^-these were just samples. There were many others. But those of us who under- stood the * grand temperament ' also understood her. She was no mere dancer. She was one of those great artists, to whom love was but a means of shedding and renewing emotional tis- 24 Love sue ; a thing to be flashlighted a thousand times, yielding each time a new image on the plate ; an adventure passionately entered upon, yet coolly scanned as regards development and outcome; a succession of experiences from which she enriched the technical resources of her one great passion, that to which she dedi- cated everything and everyone — her art. The 'grand temperament' feeds on love and picks the bones clean. Its victims, like the suicides at Monte Carlo, are but vaguely missed. Their exit is subdued, deadened. They go to the scrap heap with the rest of the discarded ma- chinery of the world. Often the * grand tem- perament' finds a strange lodgement and is discovered where least expected. It chanced that this time it had elected to manifest itself in the person of a woman who danced. II " All these things he should have understood — ^would have understood, if he hadn't been so 25 Modern Women handsome and so accustomed to having women fall in love with him. Almost every other per- son, man or woman, said he reminded them of a young Greek god — though none of them had ever seen one. But what they meant was that he had the form and features a great sculptor would have rejoiced to model ; that he was an Apollo, re-created for their unconsciously half-pagan world to worship all over again; and that he took its adulation as his preroga- tive. People who ought to know say the Greeks painted their statues. But they would have had difficulty in reproducing the sheen of his fair, wavy hair, the deep storm-blue of his eyes, the clear pink of his complexion and the general sparkle and animation of his man- ner. (I tried a portrait of him and gave it up — the only thing I ever gave up.) It was won- derful how the tide always set toward him. You could feel the stir when he entered a room, and the movement of eyes, talk and in- terest in his direction. And yet he didn't un- 26 Love derstand that, often as he had played with fire, she might be the once too often ; that skillfully as he had hitherto managed to steer clear of treacherous reefs, the coast of her Bohemia was strewn with wreckage. " Into all his other * affairs ' he had gone with his eyes open, like the leading man in a play ; and when it was all over, and the curtain rung down, there he was ready to be cast for the lover in the next comedy, with another heroine eagerly waiting to go on. But this Spanish dancer was a heroine of a different type. She bided her time and made her choice. I recall the first night she saw him. She had been here a month without finding anyone she loved well enough to destroy. Suddenly, as I watched her, the smoldering fire in her eyes flashed into a clear flame. Whatever part of the stage the dance carried her to, the flash was always in the same direc- tion. I followed it, and at the end of it sat he, 27 Modern Women his blue eyes shining back with the light they caught from hers. " You must know that if there is a task more ungrateful than trying to save a man from himself, it is trying to save him from a woman. I discovered that when I tried to warn the man in this case. I reminded the man of the ruin she had wrought. I even confirmed some of the stories that were current about her. For she had filled engagements in Paris, when I was massier in Carotin's studio, and later on she appeared in Madrid, when I was copying Velasquez portraits in the Prado ; and again in Florence, when I was there. But he had a ready answer to everything I said: * She really hadn't loved any of these men — only thought she had. It was different with him. He had touched the deepest chord in her nature. She had told him so herself.' " ' The deepest chord in her nature ! ' It is useless to argue against that ancient fallacy. When I tried to, he lost his temper, accused 28 Love me of being jealous of him, because I'd painted her portrait without her falling in love with me. Of course it would have been a vain effort for me to have attempted to explain to him my theory of portraiture — that the artist should hold himself wholly detached from his sitter, regard her in a purely objective, ana- lytical way, although he may employ a tech- nique that is most personal and subjective in putting what he sees on canvas ; that I sling my paint as I want to, but see my sitter as she is and for what she is ; and that thus I had seen Maruja. " But he was too good — of his kind — to let go by the board without further effort. If only as a unique specimen of the genus homo from an artist's point of view, he was worth it, and he was a nice sociable chap besides. I also must own to a slightly selfish motive. His portrait had baffled me and I wanted to try my hand at it again. So I went to see the woman. From the way she spoke you'd have thought 29 Modern Women her passion for him so intense as to be lasting. But when I asked her if she had any idea of marrying him, she emitted three pretty rings of cigarette smoke and watched them float away as if she were lost in studying their airy grace. Ill " The rest is quickly told. He followed her to Paris, and in due time there was a brief cable in the papers saying he had shot him- self at the door of her apartment in the Rue de Prony. I was over there some months later and asked her about it. "'Ah, yes,' she sighed, 'It was too bad. But he kept coming to the apartment and making scenes. The Count — Oh, I forgot you never heard of the Count! Is he with me now? No. Poor fellow, he was found in the Seine a few weeks ago. Well, the Count — you see, he paid for the apartment, and, as he objected to the scenes, which were rather try- ing, I had to tell your friend that he musn't 30 Love come here any more. When he found out next day that I meant it and that he couldn't get in, he shot a hole in his head right on the stair landing and made a horrid spot on a hand- some new rug in front of the door. It had to be thrown away.' " Once more she emitted three pretty rings of cigarette smoke — which was one of her minor accomplishments — and watched them float away and melt into space. Then to me: *I had hoped, my friend, that you had come over here to ask me to pose for you again.' " You see the Luxembourg had meanwhile acquired my portrait of her, and I suppose she felt flattered by a new kind of vogue this had given her. Fortunately — perhaps — I had others to paint. Moreover" — and this he said with a bitterness I never had heard in his voice before — "there was a beautiful new rug at the door of her apartment with her initials exquisitely woven in a center medallion, and it would have been a pity to spoil it." 31 Modern Women IV When the gathering broke up, one of the younger men, who had come back from Paris later than most of us, stayed behind with me. A certain restlessness on his part had struck me during the telling of the portrait painter's story. Even now he walked about the room as if to look at the pictures, though he barely glanced at them. At last he turned abruptly and said: "They were still talking about her in the studios when I was over there. She was in love — desperately in love — ^with one man; and they say he never even knew that she cared for him. In the end it broke her up and she disap- peared from the stage." "And who was the man?" " The artist who painted the portrait of her that hangs in the Luxembourg." 32 V MAN TT E had been waiting for some time. She •*■ •*■ was engaged with her lawyer, and could not come downstairs immediately, the butler had told him. He was in the drawing room. It was fur- nished with impeccable taste, and at the same time so comfortably, that the fortune spent on the many rare things in it, didn't stick out, like so many pins to irritate you. She was wealthy. That was one reason he had proposed to her. He himself was so rich that he would have regarded with suspicion any woman of ordinary means, who might have sought to " make up " to him. It pleased 33 Modern Women him that her wealth eliminated all taint of mercenary consideration from her prompt ac- ceptance of him. The suggestion received by him through her lawyer, that, prior to the wed- ding, less than a fortnight away, a settlement, commensurate with -his large means, should be made upon hei", had at first struck him dis- agreeably. But reflection had convinced him that it was a business detail a woman of her fortune might regard as a wise and necessary preliminary. She was bestowing herself upon him, and besides being wealthy, she was fine looking and one of the most brilliant women he had ever met. That morning her lawyer had brought him the necessary papers. Prob- ably he was upstairs now informing her that they had been executed. She had been married before; and more than once, he understood. He had not asked for details. Coming from " the coast," where matrimonial adventures long ago ceased to 34 Man startle, whatever might have happened before he appeared upon the scene, did not interest, let alone alarm him. Nor had he ever in- quired about the source of her wealth. It was hers. It did not concern him. It was there. That was all. He was just reaching out, to take up a book from a small table nearby, when he heard the lawyer come downstairs and go out. He knew that she would enter the drawing room in a few moments. II He had never seen her look handsomer. Her evident high spirits gave her a heightened color that was most becoming. He did not like to ask the cause of her elation. It might be the promptness and liberality, with which he had acted in the matter of the settlement. If she wished to thank him, she would. "I'm so sorry to have kept you waiting," she said. 35 Modern Women Her tone of voice was not only apologetic, it was delightfully sympathetic. The delay was worth while, just to hear her regret it. "No doubt," he said deprecatingly, "you had important matters to talk over with your lawyer." "He manages all my affairs, and so well. Just think! (Again the heightened color, which was so becoming.) He came to tell me that, some time between now and our wedding day, he will be able to turn over to me the fourth million left me by my third husband!" With a little sigh that was charming — since it had in it a mingling of sorrow for the past (which was most appropriate), together with confidence in the present and future (which was delightful) — she gently laid a hand on his. " I have always been most fortunate in mar- rying generous men," she said. " I'm sure," he responded, with an effort at being gallant, unusual with him, but prompted 36 Man by the delicate sensation of her touch, " they would congratulate me, if they were here." "Ah, yes," she murmured, as she moved a little closer to him. " I think they would. They were such good things ! " 37 VI SHOW I ""r\IDN'T you know? Yet why should you ■"-^ — you were out of reach of all local news when it happened. "But to think that his death should have been nothing more than * local news ' ! Therein, my dear fellow, lurks the tragedy of his life. Read his last letter to mel He had just read my ' Dreamers ' and wrote to congratulate me. Your mention of the book reminded me of the letter. Be sure to return it. I consider it unique. Don't you?" And so -he was dead, had been dead two years according to Graham — and I ignorant of it. But, as Graham said, it was local news, a paragraph tucked away in the obituary col- 38 Show umn probably referring to him as " a frequent contributor to the magazines and Sunday news- papers," and telling what he died of, but not mentioning one of his contributions by title. Poor Archie ! He was one of those free lances — ^who survive everything they write. His little nugget of reputation was buried with him, like the coins in ancient urn-burial to provide passage money for the journey to the borderland — if so, the only expense Archie ever was prepared to meet on a cash basis. Where I had been — the wilds to which a mining expert's work is likely to take him at any time for an indefinite period — no news but of events that move the world ever pene- trates and, even then, not until long after the world has ceased to move and has settled back again to await another shock. Needless to say Archie's death had not been a world mov- ing event, but the fact that I was two whole years behindhand in hearing about it did not deaden the shock to me. Indeed I was signally 39 Modern Women unprepared for it, since when I reached Lon- don, about a month before I received Gra- ham's letter, and was looking over a file of American papers, I saw in one of those ome- lets known as the "Sunday Color section" a humorous column signed by Archie and en- titled " Husbands of Famous Prima Donnas and Why They Did It." It was easily accounted for now that I knew. Probably it was the fag end of a lot of Archie's "stuff" that some literary agent had had in hand. Oddly enough, although Archie had been dead two years, the column was timely, for the " ad " of the opening of the opera sea- son was on the opposite page. It was like Archie to be " timely." " Timeliness " was his curse. It was one reason why everything he wrote ha