Short Fiction · Eden (8/13) (2/2)

“I made sure of finding you,” he announced jauntily, as he approached.

He took her hand in his and raised it to his lips. In his buttonhole was a flower, and in his breath the odor of crème de menthe. It was evident that he had just dined. “Your man tells me that Mr. Usselex is not at home,” he continued. “I fancied he might be going to the assembly too. I see that you are. You look like a queen of old time. No, but you are simply stunning.”

He stepped back that he might the better enjoy the effect. Eden had sunk on the lounge again. In and out from her skirt a white slipper, butterflied with gold, moved restlessly.

“But you are pale,” he added. “What is it?” He had scanned her face⁠—its pallor was significant to him; but it was the nervousness of the slipper that prompted the question. To his thinking there was nothing more talkative than the foot of a pretty woman.

Eden shrugged her shoulders. “I didn’t expect you,” she said; “I am sure that I wouldn’t have received you if I had.”

“Ah, that is hardly gracious now.”

“Besides, your reputation is deplorable.”

“No one has any reputation, nowadays,” Maule answered, with the air of a man describing the state of the weather. “You hear the most scandalous things about everyone. Who has been talking against me? A woman, I wager. Do you know what hell is paved with?”

“Not with your good intentions, I am positive.”

“It is paved with women’s tongues. That is what it is paved with. What am I accused of now?”

“As if I knew or cared. In my opinion you are depraved, and that is sufficient.”

“Why do you call me depraved? You are not fair. Depravity is synonymous with the unnatural. Girls in short frocks don’t interest me. Never yet have I loitered in the boudoir of a cocotte. Corydon was not a gentleman whom I would imitate. Neither was Narcissus. On the other hand, I like refined women. I have an unquestionable admiration for a pretty face. What man whose health is good has not? If capacity for such admiration constitutes depravity, then depraved I am.” He paused. “H’m,” he muttered to himself, “there’s nothing of the Joseph about me.”

But he might have continued his speech aloud. Eden had ceased to hear, her thoughts were far away. He looked at her inquiringly.

“Something is the matter,” he said at last. “What has happened?”

Eden aroused herself ever so little from her reverie. “Nothing,” she answered. “I wish you would go away.”

“Something is the matter,” he insisted. “Tell me what is troubling you. Who is there to whom you can turn more readily than to me? Eden, you forget so easily. For months I was at your side. And abruptly, a rumor, a whisper, a wind that passes took you from me. Eden, I have not changed. Nor have you ceased to preside over my life. It is idle and useless enough, I know. With your aid it would have been less valueless, I think; but such as it is, it is wholly yours. Tell me, what it is that troubles you.”

And Eden, influenced either by the caress of the words or that longing which in moments of mental anguish forces us to voice the affliction, though it be but to a wall, looked in his face and answered:

“A hole has been dug in my heart, and in that hole is hate.”

“Hate? Why, hate is a medieval emotion; you don’t know what it means.” And as he spoke he told himself she was mad.

“Do I not? Ah, do I not?” She beat a measure on her knee with her fingers, and her eyes roamed from Maule to the ceiling and then far into space. “There is one whom I think of now; could I see him smitten with agony such as no mortal ever felt before, his eyes filled with spectres, his brain aflame⁠—could I see that and know it to be my work, I should lie down glad and willing, and die of delight.”

She stood up and turned to him again. “Do I not know what hatred means?”

“Eden, you understand it so well that your conception of love must be clearer still.”

“Love, indeed!” She laughed disdainfully. “Why, love is a fever that ends with a yawn. Love! Why, men used to die of love. Now they buy it as they buy their hats, ready-made.”

“Then I am in that fever now⁠—Hush! here is your husband. The tenor wasn’t half bad, I admit. Mr. Usselex, I am glad to see you.”

Maule had risen at Usselex’s entrance and made a step forward to greet him. “I stopped on my way to Delmonico’s,” he added, lightly. “I made sure you were both going.”

“Yes,” Usselex answered. “The carriage is at the door now. We can give you a lift if you care to.”

He turned to Eden. “Shall I ring for your wrap?”

For one second Eden looked her husband straight in the eyes. And for one second she stood dumb, impenetrable as Fate, then gathering the folds of her dress in one hand, she answered in a tone which was perfectly self-possessed, “I have changed my mind,” and swept from the room.