The Genius (30 page)

Eugene, returning and feeling, as usual, depressed about his
state, sought to find consolation in her company. He came in at one
o'clock, their usual lunch hour, and finding Angela still working,
said, "George! but you like to keep at things when you get started,
don't you? You're a regular little work-horse. Having much
trouble?"

"No-o," replied Angela, dubiously.

Eugene noted the tone of her voice. He thought she was not very
strong and this packing was getting on her nerves. Fortunately
there were only some trunks to look after, for the vast mass of
their housekeeping materials belonged to the studio. Still no doubt
she was weary.

"Are you very tired?" he asked.

"No-o," she replied.

"You look it," he said, slipping his arm about her. Her face,
which he turned up with his hand, was pale and drawn.

"It isn't anything physical," she replied, looking away from him
in a tragic way. "It's just my heart. It's here!" and she laid her
hand over her heart.

"What's the matter now?" he asked, suspecting something
emotional, though for the life of him he could not imagine what.
"Does your heart hurt you?"

"It isn't my real heart," she returned, "it's just my mind, my
feelings; though I don't suppose they ought to matter."

"What's the matter now, Angel-face," he persisted, for he was
sorry for her. This emotional ability of hers had the power to move
him. It might have been acting, or it might not have been. It might
be either a real or a fancied woe;—in either case it was real to
her. "What's come up?" he continued. "Aren't you just tired?
Suppose we quit this and go out somewhere and get something to eat.
You'll feel better."

"No, I couldn't eat," she replied. "I'll stop now and get your
lunch, but I don't want anything."

"Oh, what's the matter, Angela?" he begged. "I know there's
something. Now what is it? You're tired, or you're sick, or
something has happened. Is it anything that I have done? Look at
me! Is it?"

Angela held away from him, looking down. She did not know how to
begin this but she wanted to make him terribly sorry if she could,
as sorry as she was for herself. She thought he ought to be; that
if he had any true feeling of shame and sympathy in him he would
be. Her own condition in the face of his shameless past was
terrible. She had no one to love her. She had no one to turn to.
Her own family did not understand her life any more—it had changed
so. She was a different woman now, greater, more important, more
distinguished. Her experiences with Eugene here in New York, in
Paris, in London and even before her marriage, in Chicago and
Blackwood, had changed her point of view. She was no longer the
same in her ideas, she thought, and to find herself deserted in
this way emotionally—not really loved, not ever having been really
loved but just toyed with, made a doll and a plaything, was
terrible.

"Oh, dear!" she exclaimed in a shrill staccato, "I don't know
what to do! I don't know what to say! I don't know what to think!
If I only knew how to think or what to do!"

"What's the matter?" begged Eugene, releasing his hold and
turning his thoughts partially to himself and his own condition as
well as to hers. His nerves were put on edge by these emotional
tantrums—his brain fairly ached. It made his hands tremble. In his
days of physical and nervous soundness it did not matter, but now,
when he was sick, when his own heart was weak, as he fancied, and
his nerves set to jangling by the least discord, it was almost more
than he could bear. "Why don't you speak?" he insisted. "You know I
can't stand this. I'm in no condition. What's the trouble? What's
the use of carrying on this way? Are you going to tell me?"

"There!" Angela said, pointing her finger at the box of letters
she had laid aside on the window-sill. She knew he would see them,
would remember instantly what they were about.

Eugene looked. The box came to his memory instantly. He picked
it up nervously, sheepishly, for this was like a blow in the face
which he had no power to resist. The whole peculiar nature of his
transactions with Ruby and with Christina came back to him, not as
they had looked to him at the time, but as they were appearing to
Angela now. What must she think of him? Here he was protesting
right along that he loved her, that he was happy and satisfied to
live with her, that he was not interested in any of these other
women whom she knew to be interested in him and of whom she was
inordinately jealous, that he had always loved her and her only,
and yet here were these letters suddenly come to light, giving the
lie to all these protestations and asseverations—making him look
like the coward, the blackguard, the moral thief that he knew
himself to be. To be dragged out of the friendly darkness of lack
of knowledge and understanding on her part and set forth under the
clear white light of positive proof—he stared helplessly, his
nerves trembling, his brain aching, for truly he was in no
condition for an emotional argument.

And yet Angela was crying now. She had walked away from him and
was leaning against the mantel-piece sobbing as if her heart would
break. There was a real convincing ache in the sound—the vibration
expressing the sense of loss and defeat and despair which she felt.
He was staring at the box wondering why he had been such an idiot
as to leave them in his trunk, to have saved them at all.

"Well, I don't know that there is anything to say to that," he
observed finally, strolling over to where she was. There wasn't
anything that he could say—that he knew. He was terribly
sorry—sorry for her, sorry for himself. "Did you read them all?" he
asked, curiously.

She nodded her head in the affirmative.

"Well, I didn't care so much for Christina Channing," he
observed, deprecatingly. He wanted to say something, anything which
would relieve her depressed mood. He knew it couldn't be much. If
he could only make her believe that there wasn't anything vital in
either of these affairs, that his interests and protestations had
been of a light, philandering character. Still the Ruby Kenny
letter showed that she cared for him desperately. He could not say
anything against Ruby.

Angela caught the name of Christina Channing clearly. It seared
itself in her brain. She recalled now that it was she of whom she
had heard him speak in a complimentary way from time to time. He
had told in studios of what a lovely voice she had, what a charming
platform presence she had, how she could sing so feelingly, how
intelligently she looked upon life, how good looking she was, how
she was coming back to grand opera some day. And he had been in the
mountains with her—had made love to her while she, Angela, was out
in Blackwood waiting for him patiently. It aroused on the instant
all the fighting jealousy that was in her breast; it was the same
jealousy that had determined her once before to hold him in spite
of the plotting and scheming that appeared to her to be going on
about her. They should not have him—these nasty studio
superiorities—not any one of them, nor all of them combined, if
they were to unite and try to get him. They had treated her
shamefully since she had been in the East. They had almost
uniformly ignored her. They would come to see Eugene, of course,
and now that he was famous they could not be too nice to him, but
as for her—well, they had no particular use for her. Hadn't she
seen it! Hadn't she watched the critical, hypocritical, examining
expressions in their eyes! She wasn't smart enough! She wasn't
literary enough or artistic enough. She knew as much about life as
they did and more—ten times as much; and yet because she couldn't
strut and pose and stare and talk in an affected voice they thought
themselves superior. And so did Eugene, the wretched creature!
Superior! The cheap, mean, nasty, selfish upstarts! Why, the
majority of them had nothing. Their clothes were mere rags and
tags, when you came to examine them closely—badly sewed, of poor
material, merely slung together, and yet they wore them with such a
grand air! She would show them. She would dress herself too, one of
these days, when Eugene had the means. She was doing it now—a great
deal more than when she first came, and she would do it a great
deal more before long. The nasty, mean, cheap, selfish, make-belief
things. She would show them! O-oh! how she hated them.

Now as she cried she also thought of the fact that Eugene could
write love letters to this horrible Christina Channing—one of the
same kind, no doubt; her letters showed it. O-oh! how she hated
her! If she could only get at her to poison her. And her sobs
sounded much more of the sorrow she felt than of the rage. She was
helpless in a way and she knew it. She did not dare to show him
exactly what she felt. She was afraid of him. He might possibly
leave her. He really did not care for her enough to stand
everything from her—or did he? This doubt was the one terrible,
discouraging, annihilating feature of the whole thing—if he only
cared.

"I wish you wouldn't cry, Angela," said Eugene appealingly,
after a time. "It isn't as bad as you think. It looks pretty bad,
but I wasn't married then, and I didn't care so very much for these
people—not as much as you think; really I didn't. It may look that
way to you, but I didn't."

"Didn't care!" sneered Angela, all at once, flaring up. "Didn't
care! It looks as though you didn't care, with one of them calling
you Honey Boy and Adonis, and the other saying she wishes she were
dead. A fine time you'd have convincing anyone that you didn't
care. And I out in Blackwood at that very time, longing and waiting
for you to come, and you up in the mountains making love to another
woman. Oh, I know how much you cared. You showed how much you cared
when you could leave me out there to wait for you eating my heart
out while you were off in the mountains having a good time with
another woman. 'Dear E—,' and 'Precious Honey Boy,' and 'Adonis'!
That shows how much you cared, doesn't it!"

Eugene stared before him helplessly. Her bitterness and wrath
surprised and irritated him. He did not know that she was capable
of such an awful rage as showed itself in her face and words at
this moment, and yet he did not know but that she was well
justified. Why so bitter though—so almost brutal? He was sick. Had
she no consideration for him?

"I tell you it wasn't as bad as you think," he said stolidly,
showing for the first time a trace of temper and opposition. "I
wasn't married then. I did like Christina Channing; I did like Ruby
Kenny. What of it? I can't help it now. What am I going to say
about it? What do you want me to say? What do you want me to
do?"

"Oh," whimpered Angela, changing her tone at once from helpless
accusing rage to pleading, self-commiserating misery. "And you can
stand there and say to me 'what of it'? What of it! What of it!
What shall you say? What do you think you ought to say? And me
believing that you were so honorable and faithful! Oh, if I had
only known! If I had only known! I had better have drowned myself a
hundred times over than have waked and found that I wasn't loved.
Oh, dear, oh, dear! I don't know what I ought to do! I don't know
what I can do!"

"But I do love you," protested Eugene soothingly, anxious to say
or do anything which would quiet this terrific storm. He could not
imagine how he could have been so foolish as to leave these letters
lying around. Dear Heaven! What a mess he had made of this! If only
he had put them safely outside the home or destroyed them. Still he
had wanted to keep Christina's letters; they were so charming.

"Yes, you love me!" flared Angela. "I see how you love me. Those
letters show it! Oh, dear! oh, dear! I wish I were dead."

"Listen to me, Angela," replied Eugene desperately, "I know this
correspondence looks bad. I did make love to Miss Kenny and to
Christina Channing, but you see I didn't care enough to marry
either of them. If I had I would have. I cared for you. Believe it
or not. I married you. Why did I marry you? Answer me that? I
needn't have married you. Why did I? Because I loved you, of
course. What other reason could I have?"

"Because you couldn't get Christina Channing," snapped Angela,
angrily, with the intuitive sense of one who reasons from one
material fact to another, "that's why. If you could have, you would
have. I know it. Her letters show it."

"Her letters don't show anything of the sort," returned Eugene
angrily. "I couldn't get her? I could have had her, easily enough.
I didn't want her. If I had wanted her, I would have married
her—you can bet on that."

He hated himself for lying in this way, but he felt for the time
being that he had to do it. He did not care to stand in the rôle of
a jilted lover. He half-fancied that he could have married
Christina if he had really tried.

"Anyhow," he said, "I'm not going to argue that point with you.
I didn't marry her, so there you are; and I didn't marry Ruby Kenny
either. Well you can think all you want; but I know. I cared for
them, but I didn't marry them. I married you instead. I ought to
get credit for something on that score. I married you because I
loved you, I suppose. That's perfectly plain, isn't it?" He was
half convincing himself that he had loved her—in some degree.

"Yes, I see how you love me," persisted Angela, cogitating this
very peculiar fact which he was insisting on and which it was very
hard intellectually to overcome. "You married me because you
couldn't very well get out of it, that's why. Oh, I know. You
didn't want to marry me. That's very plain. You wanted to marry
someone else. Oh, dear! oh, dear!"

"Oh, how you talk!" replied Eugene defiantly. "Marry someone
else! Who did I want to marry? I could have married often enough if
I had wanted to. I didn't want to marry, that's all. Believe it or
not. I wanted to marry you and I did. I don't think you have any
right to stand there and argue so. What you say isn't so, and you
know it."