  Yet her marriage had realized in almost every particular what she had—so much younger—planned. The early suggestion, becoming through constant reiteration a part of her knowledge, had been followed and accomplished; and, as well, her later needs were served. Linda told herself that, in a world where a very great deal was muddled, she had been unusually fortunate. And this made her angry at her pervading lack of interest in whatever she had obtained. Other women, she observed, obviously less fortunate than she, were volubly and warmly absorbed in any number of engagements and pleasures; she continually heard them, Arnaud's connections—the whole superior society, eternally and vigorously discussing servants and bridge, family and cotillions, indiscretions and charities. These seemed enough for them; their lives were filled, satisfied, extraordinarily busy. Linda, for the most part, had but little to do. Her servants, managed with remote exactness, gave no trouble; she had an excellent woman for the children; her dress presented no new points of anxiety nor departure ... she was, in short, Arnaud admitted, perfectly efficient. She disposed of such details mechanically, almost impatiently, and was contemptuous, no envious, of the women whose demands they contented. At the dinners, the balls, to which Arnaud's sense of obligation both to family and her took them against his inclination, it was the same—everyone, it appeared to Linda, was flushed with an intentness she could not share. Men, she found, some of them extremely pleasant, still made adroit and reassuring efforts for her favor; the air here, she discovered, was even freer than the bravado of her earlier surroundings. This love-making didn't disturb her—it was, ultimately, the men who were fretted—indeed, she had rather hoped that it would bring her the relief she lacked. But again the observations and speculation of her mature childhood, what she had heard revealed in the most skillful feminine dissections, had cleared her understanding to a point that made the advances of hopeful men quite entertainingly obvious. Their method was appallingly similar and monotonous. She liked, rather than not, the younger ones, whose confidence that their passion was something new on earth at times refreshed her; but the navigated materialism of greater experience finally became distasteful. She discussed this sharply with Arnaud: “You simply can't help believing that most women are complete idiots.” “You haven't said much more for men.” “The whole thing is too silly! Why is it, Arnaud? It ought to be impressive and sweep you off your feet, up—” “Instead of merely behind some rented palms,” he added. “But I must say, Linda, that you are not a very highly qualified judge of sentiment.” He pronounced this equably, but she was conscious of the presence of an injury in his voice. She was a little weary at being eternally condemned for what she couldn't help. Any failure was as much Arnaud Hallet's as hers; he had had his opportunity, all that for which he had implored her. Her thoughts returned to Dodge Pleydon. April was well advanced, and he had written that he'd be back and see them in the spring. Linda listened to her heart but it was unhastened by a beat. She would be very glad to have him at hand, in her life again, of course. Then the direction of her mind veered—what did he still think of her? Probably he had altogether recovered from his love for her. It had been a warm day, and Arnaud had opened a window; but now she was aware of a cold air on her shoulder and she asked him abruptly to lower the sash. Linda remembered, with a lingering sense of triumph, the Susanna Noda whom Dodge had left at a party for her. There had been a great many Susannas in his life; the reason for this was the absence of any overwhelming single influence. It might be that now—he had written of the change in the subjects of his work—such a guide had come into his existence. She hoped she had. Yet, in view of the announced silliness of women, she didn't want him to be cheaply deluded. He was an extremely human man. But she, Linda, it seemed, was an inhuman woman. The days ran into weeks that added another month to spring; a June advanced sultry with heat; and, suddenly as usual, a maid at the door of her room announced Pleydon. It was five o'clock in the afternoon, she had to dress, and she sent him a message that he mustn't expect her in a hurry. She paused in her deliberate preparations for a long thoughtful gaze into a mirror; there was not yet a shadow on her face, the trace of a line at her eyes. The sharp smooth turning and absolute whiteness of her bare shoulders were flawless. At first it appeared to Linda that he, too, had not changed. They were in the library opening into the dining-room, a space shut against the sun by the Venetian blinds, and faintly scented by a bowl of early tea roses. He appeared the same—large and informally clad in gray flannels, with aggressive features and sensitive strong hands. He was quiet but plainly happy to be with her again and sat leaning forward on his knees, watching her intently as she chose a seat. Then it slowly dawned on her that he had changed, yes—tragically. Pleydon, in every way, was years older. His voice, less arbitrary, had new depths of questioning, his mouth was more repressed, his face notably sparer of flesh. He was immediately aware of the result of her scrutiny. “I have been working like a fool,” he explained. “A breath of sickness, too, four years ago in Soochow. One of the damnable Asiatic fevers that a European is supposed to be immune from. You are a miracle, Linda. How long has it been—nearly eight years; you have two children and Arnaud Hallet and yet you are the girl I met at Markue's. I wanted to see you different, just a little, a trace of something that should have happened to you. It hasn't. You're the most remarkable mother alive.” “If I am,” she returned, “it is not as a success, or at least for me. Lowrie and VignÉ are healthy, and happy enough; but I can't lose myself in them, Dodge; I can't lose myself at all.” He was quiet at this, the smoke of his cigarette climbing bluely in a space with the aqueous stillness of a lake's depths. “The same,” he went on after a long pause; “nothing has touched you. I ought to be relieved but, do you know, it frightens me. You are relentless. You have no right, at the same time, to be beautiful. I have seen a great many celebrated women at their best moments, but you are lovelier than any. It isn't a simple affair of proportion and features—I wish I could hold it in a phrase, the turn of a chisel. I can't. It's deathless romance in a bang cut blackly across heavenly blue.” He was silent again, and Linda glad that he still found her attractive. She discovered that the misery his presence once caused her had entirely vanished, its place taken by an eager interest in his affairs, a lightness of spirit at the realization that, while his love for her might have grown calm, no other woman possessed it. At the dinner-table she listened—cool and fresh, Arnaud complained, in spite of the heat—to the talk of the two men. By her side Elouise Lowrie occasionally repeated, in a voice like the faint jangle of an old thin piano, the facts of a family connection or a commendation of the Dodges. Arnaud really knew a surprising lot, and his conversation with Pleydon was strung with terms completely unintelligible to her. It developed, finally, into an argument over the treatment of the acanthus motive in rococo ornament. France was summoned against Spain; the architectural degrading of Italy deplored.... It amazed her that any one could remember so much.
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