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180 Arthur Orton's Career
of Orton. This, Stanwood concluded, was
only natural, for no girl, even to her betrothed,
mentions voluntarily the suitor
who has been rejected. As for himself, in
his own immediate and unrealizable bliss,
• he had, for the most part, so broken away
from all reality that any chance thought
of what he had been told was momentarily
lost in the haze of a scarcely present world
somewhere below the empyrean in which
he lived. Then, in the next few years,
there had been nothing to recall Orton at
all. When that personage began to take
his place as a prominent actor in the unseen
drama of Stanwood's existence, he
himself had experienced a decided diffidence
and natural disinclination in referring
to him. Through the very consciousness
of such enforced reticence, the predicament
had received a new complexity,
and from the knowledge that he strove to
keep the fact in the background it obtained
greater prominence.
Sometimes he was led to the belief that
Marian experienced the same constraint.
Once, when the morning's print which she
held at the breakfast-table had contained
particularly prominent mention of Orton,
he had watched her as well as he could.
He was aware that she was quite capable
of appearing utterly unconcerned—as she
did—for with all else, as he knew, she had
exceeding social skill which she might well
at that moment employ for domestic purposes.
At least he could discover little in
her apparently frank face and her ready
directness of gaze. Would, however, the
page which she read bring to her mind
fancies of what might have been? When
he had left the house, would she lose herself
in regretful revery? Or might she not
put the paper resolutely aside, which he
felt must be as bad, striving to push it out
of her sight as he strove to push the truth?
Not that he had ever known reason to
complain of Marian. As the world averred,
the marriage had been an exceptionally
happy one, and for once, as he knew, the
world had been entirely right in its conclusions.
Certainly his case was not an isolated
one. In married life the thought must
sometimes arise of what would have happened
if one or the other had willed otherwise.
The wedding march means such an
absolute turning from other ways that imagination
with a husband or wife will exercise
itself with the fancied vista of other
courses. If ever the better is the enemy of
the good, the assailment comes the most
forcibly with those united by the conjugal
yoke. For such arises with frequency
the question in practical philosophy
of how much less or greater are the
evils one has than those one wots not of,
and the temptation always exists, as he
knew, to give exceeding value to conditions
which may be so freely fancied.
Rarely, though, was the conjuncture so directly
presented as Stanwood feared that
it must be for Marian. Seldom was a generally
vague alternative brought so clearly
forward. Was she sorry? Did she experience
moments, hours, in which she wished
that her decision had been different?
There lay the point for Stanwood. This
was what he felt driven continually to ask
himself—what he did ask himself—the consequent
doubt becoming the recurring disturbance
of his day, the harassing uncertainty
continually arising active and disquieting
in his mind. That was the perplexity
which had beset him since reading
the newspaper at the club as in the same
way he had many times before been beset.
These perturbations accompanied him and
involved him while he walked in an exacting
self-argument in which beginning and
end mingled without conclusion.
The dusk of the evening was deep
enough to be undistinguishable from night
when he turned into the walk which ran
with the drive up to the porte-cochere. His
mind was still occupied with the matter
which had filled his consciousness when he
admitted himself with his latch-key to the
dimly lit hall where there was, however,
enough light to display its discriminating
sumptuousness. He went, after taking off
his hat and overcoat, directly to the
library in the new wing which also clearly
evinced the prosperous status of the establishment.
The rugs were good and
unobtrusively valuable. The silver trappings
of the writing-table were numerous
and heavy. The number of magazines
and books made it not only de jure but de
facto a library. The apartment was unillumined
save for the low light, just sufcient
to make writing possible at a desk
where a woman sat.
"I'm here."