And with a slight nod she went, angry and ashamed that she had so unaccountably opened up her secret soul, bared its ugly wounds, before a man she knew so slightly, a man in a position but one remove from menial.However, she took his advice--not as to trying to view the matter from all sides, for she was convinced that there was only the one side, but as to calming herself by a long drive alone in the woods and along quiet roads.When she returned she was under control once more.
She found the general impatiently awaiting her.
Many packages had come--from the jewelers, from the furriers, from a shop whose specialty was the thinnest and most delicate of hand-made underwear.The general loved to open and inspect finery for her--loved it more than he loved inspecting finery for himself, because feminine finery was far more attractive than masculine.To whet his pleasure to the keenest she must be there to admire with him, to try on, to exhibit.As she entered the salon where the little man was fussing about among the packages, their glances met.She saw that Harding had told him--at least in discreet outline--of their conversation.She also saw that if she reopened the subject she would find herself straightway whirled out upon a stormy sea of danger that might easily overwhelm her flimsy boat.She silently and sullenly dropped into her place; she ministered to the general's pleasure in packages of finery.
But she did not exclaim, or admire, or respond in any way.The honeymoon was over.Her dream of wifehood was dissipated.
She understood now the look she so often had seen on the faces of rich men's poor wives driving in state in Fifth Avenue.That night, as she inspected herself in the glass while the general's maid for her brushed her long thick hair, she saw the beginnings of that look in her own face.``I don't know just what I am,'' she said to herself.``But I do know what I am not.I am not a wife.''
She sent away the maid, and sat there in the dressing-room before the mirror, waiting, her glance traveling about and noting the profuse and prodigal luxury.In the corner stood a circular rack loaded with dressing-gowns--more than a score of exquisite combinations of silk and lace or silk and chiffon.It so happened that there was nowhere in sight a single article of her apparel or for her toilet that was not bought with the general's money.No, there were some hairpins that she had paid for herself, and a comb with widely separated teeth that she had chanced to see in a window when she was alone one day.Anything else?
Yes, a two-franc box of pins.And that was all.
Everything else belonged to the general.In the closets, in the trunks--all the general's, part of the trousseau he had paid for.Not an undergarment; not an outer garment; not a hat or a pair of shoes, not a wrap, not a pair of gloves.All, the general's.
He was in the door of the dressing-room--the small wiry figure in rose-silk pajamas.The mustache and imperial were carefully waxed as always, day and night.
On the little feet were high-heeled slippers.On the head was a rose-silk Neapolitan nightcap with gay tassel.
The nightcap hid the bald spot from which the lofty toupee had been removed.A grotesque little figure, but not grotesque to her.Through the mask of the vain, boastful little face she saw the general watching her, as she had seen him that afternoon when she came in--the mysterious and terrible personality that had made the vast fortune, that had ridden ruthlessly over friend and foe, over man and woman and child--to the goal of its desires.
``It's late, my dear?'' said the little man.``Come to bed.''
She rose to obey--she in the general's purchases of filmy nightgown under a pale-pink silk dressing-gown.
He smiled with that curious noiseless mumbling and smacking of the thin lips.She sat down again.
``Don't keep me waiting.It's chilly,'' he said, advancing toward her.
``I shall sleep in here to-night--on the couch,'' said she.She was trembling with fright at her own audacity.
She could see a fifty-centime piece and a copper dancing before her eyes.She felt horribly alone and weak, but she had no desire to retract the words with which she had thrown down the gauntlet.
The little general halted.The mask dropped; the man, the monster, looked at her.``What's the matter?''
said he in an ominously quiet voice.
``Mr.Harding delivered your message to-day,'' said she, and her steady voice astonished her.``So I am going back home.''
He waited, looking steadily at her.
``After he told me and I thought about it, I decided to submit, but just now I saw that I couldn't.I don't know what possesses me.I don't know what I'm going to do, or how I'm going to do it.But it's all over between us.'' She said this rapidly, fluently, in a decisive way, quite foreign to her character as she had thought it.
``You are coming to bed, where you belong,'' said he quietly.
``No,'' replied she, pressing herself against her chair as if force were being used to drag her from it.She cast about for something that would make yielding impossible.``You are--repulsive to me.''
He looked at her without change of countenance.
Said he: ``Come to bed.I ask you for the last time.''
There was no anger in his voice, no menace either open or covert; simply finality--the last word of the man who had made himself feared and secure in the mining-camps where the equation of personal courage is straightway applied to every situation.Mildred shivered.She longed to yield, to stammer out some excuse and obey him.But she could not; nor was she able to rise from her chair.She saw in his hard eyes a look of astonishment, of curiosity as to this unaccountable defiance in one who had seemed docile, who had apparently no alternative but obedience.He was not so astonished at her as she was at herself.``What is to become of me?'' her terror-stricken soul was crying.
``I must do as he says--I must--yet I cannot!''
And she looked at him and sat motionless.
