My Actor Husband Part 11

I drove back with the doctor. There was no way out of it without making a scene. "Sid" and the doctor engaged in a brush along the road. The reckless speeding fitted in with my mood. There were moments when I almost wished that something would break and land me with some broken bones, if nothing more. I was smarting under Will's obvious lack of consideration; He knew the atmosphere was not a congenial one, yet he sacrificed me to it without hesitation. I wanted with all my heart to have him popular and sought after; I was willing to play the game--up to a certain point. But when the game entailed a loss of self-respect, of confidence, or of equivocation with one's better instincts, there I drew the line. It ceased to be worth the candle.

I could no longer shut my eyes to the encroachments upon our happiness the very exigencies of his profession demanded. My pa.s.sionate and childish efforts at blind man's buff were not convincing. The time had come when my husband and I must have a complete understanding. I must make clear to him how I felt. After that, if he were still blind to the dangers which threatened our life--no, I would not dwell on such a contingency. I felt sure Will would see things at their true valuation.

For the first time that day I settled back to something approaching a state of composure. One always feels less perturbed after determining upon a course of action. I resolved to see the evening through with as much equanimity as possible. There was something grimly humorous about the situation: if Will really wanted to make a sport of me I was "cutting my eye-teeth" with a vengeance.

So engaged was I with my own thoughts I had not noticed that we had slowed up. Coincidentally the car came to a stop. The doctor rose to his feet and looked behind him.

"Anything wrong?" I questioned.

"No; I only wanted to make sure the coast was clear."

He knelt with one knee on the seat and pulled the robe about me from behind. With his free hand he raised my face close to his, and held me there.

"I'm going to have one kiss from those luscious lips--if it takes a leg," he said.

The doctor was a strong man. Will had often remarked that no one would suspect me of having so much strength. Yet I was a mere child in the doctor's hands. He pinioned my arms beneath the weight of his body. He kept his lips on mine until the strength oozed out of my finger-tips from sheer suffocation. When he raised his head it was only to look at me and breathing hard again to fasten himself upon me with a fiercer tremor which shook his whole frame.... Only once or twice in all our married life had Will kissed me like that. I had believed it an expression of purest love. I realized now that it connoted other emotions less pure.... "Baby! Baby!... Put your arms around my neck....

You haven't fainted, have you?" ... He lifted me to my feet. I could not repress a hysterical sob. "There--that's better! I didn't mean to be so rough, but I'm mad about you. You drive me crazy! Kiss me of your own free will...."

I succeeded in holding him back while I looked him in the eyes, struggling to express what my lips refused to say.... "O ... O...." I finally stammered. "Is it right?... Do you think it's right?..."

Wholly misconstruing my words, he strained me to him and kissed me more tenderly, endeavouring to soothe me. "Right? Little boy, who the devil cares whether it's right or not! It's nice, isn't it? Don't you love it?"

"My husband ... do you think it's right to him?..."

Something of the disgust I felt must have pierced him, for he released me with a change of expression.

"O, come now--don't spring that old gag on your friend the Doc.... What do you care as long as he doesn't get on to it?... You know as well as I do that a good-looking fellow in his profession has it thrown at him from all sides. You don't think he turns 'em _all_ down, do you? You've got too much sense for that.... Come on, now ... let's understand each other.... You're as safe with me as a babe on its mother's breast....

I'll call you up on Sat.u.r.day and we'll go off some place together ...

where we can talk it over.... G.o.d, Baby! I'm crazy about you!..."

When Will and I walked into our rooms at the hotel the little travelling clock on my bureau pointed the hour of three. I slipped out of the fur coat the doctor had loaned me and left it in a heap upon the floor. I don't know how long I stood contemplating s.p.a.ce.... Then I heard him cross the room and pick up the coat. I felt his eyes fastened upon me. I roused myself and went into the bedroom, where I began to take down my hair in front of the mirror. Will followed me and I saw that he was watching me in the gla.s.s. After a moment he spoke to me.

"Girlie ..." his voice was kind.... "You'll have to learn to gauge your capacity.... You're not a tank like the rest of the crowd.... Look at your face; it's as red as a red, red rose--and has been all evening."

He patted me on the arm and went into the bathroom. I felt as if I were going to shriek.... _Will thought I was drunk...._ I looked at myself in the gla.s.s.... My face was drawn and there were red burning spots in my cheeks.... My eyes peered but like two burnt holes in a blanket....

Yes, it was plain to see that I was not myself.... I smothered a burst of hysterical laughter.... I started toward the bathroom where Will was preparing for bed. I intended to tell him that in all, during the entire day, I had taken only one gla.s.s of champagne--and that at his request.... Then I stopped. I did not dare to trust myself.... I knew he would laugh and pet me and say he had not meant to criticize and then he would take me in his arms ... and I would cry it all out upon his heart.... I would tell him the whole miserable experience ... and he ...

what would _he_ do? If he called the doctor to account there would be a scandal.... It would be degrading.... I could never endure it.... _And if he did not call the Doctor to account--if he merely cut him without demanding satisfaction_, I should _despise_ him--I should _hate_ him....

"O, yes you would--you _know_ you would, though you wouldn't acknowledge it even to yourself" ... it was Miss Burton's voice.... "Take my advice--better not tell him at all." I switched off the light, so that Will could not see my face....

CHAPTER XI

I revelled in the heavy cold which kept me indoors. No amount of urging or cajoling on the part of my husband could induce me to see the doctor.

Were I to express a preference for some other physician, Will's suspicions might be aroused. Experience applied old-fashioned remedies and in a few days I was able to be about the room. Mrs. Pease telephoned daily and called several times in person. Will saw her, but Experience had been instructed that I could see no one. During my retirement I had turned things over in my mind, arguing _pro_ and _con_ the advisability of a thorough understanding with Will. It appeared to me that the danger of such a proceeding lay in the tearing down of barriers which could never again be replaced--a rending aside of all illusion between us.

Heretofore I had refrained from any expression of animadversion of his profession or his conduct. If he suspected any dissatisfaction on my part he preferred to let it pa.s.s without comment.

Spasmodically he indulged in bursts of confidence--confidences of the kind not calculated to improve my opinion of his profession. At such times he appeared fully to appreciate the corroding atmosphere in which he lived. He even contemplated retiring from the stage. These phases were rare, however, generally attending a disappointment in a role, discontent with an engagement or unfavourable criticism of his work. The mood soon pa.s.sed and he appeared to be content with the ephemeral joys of the moment.

The longer I brooded over the subject the less sure I became of any good to be attained by a frank expression of my mind. Were I to eliminate all circ.u.mlocution and say: "My husband, there is something fundamentally wrong with a profession which demands a compromise with one's best instincts," or "the cla.s.s of people with which you come in daily contact make for your ultimate degradation," or, again, "I do not approve of your petty deceits, the complacency with which you accept moral obliquity, the low standard which permeates our entire life," this would call for amplification, an indulgence in personalities which could result only in a greater breach between us. I might even be accused of jealousy, inconsideration for his future, and a lack of faith in the man.

It had often occurred to me that there was such a thing as too great intimacy, a too careless frankness between husband and wife! A lack of reserve which ended in a secret contempt for each other's weaknesses. To be tolerant of and to respect these weaknesses while striving to stimulate the best in each other's nature; in short, to be a complement, each to the other, this appeared to me the basic principle of marriage.

And as I had done in the past I again fell back upon my inner self. I wanted, O, I so wanted to develop the best that was in him ... and there was much, nearly all of him was good. The danger lay in environment....

One day--it was a week later that Will had planned to dine at the Press Club--I lay on the couch watching Boy. He sat on a fur rug on the floor, playing with Snyder. Experience had gone down to an early dinner. There was a knock on the door. I called out, "Come in." It was the doctor.

"I took advantage of my professional capacity and came up unannounced,"

he said, easily, without directly looking at me. He removed his coat and tickled Boy's face with the tail of the fur lining. Boy drew up his nose and laughed at the sensation, and the doctor dropped the coat upon the floor for him to play with. Then he squatted beside him while Boy stroked the fur and called it "cat." For several minutes the doctor busied himself with the child, deploring the deformities of Snyder and imitating a dog's bark.

"Great boy, that!" he concluded, rising to his feet and taking a long breath.

"Now, then, tell me all about it," he said, drawing up a chair in a purely professional manner and looking at me without a trace of self-consciousness. "You're pale; that's what you get for not sending for the doc. How's your pulse?" He reached for my hand and held it regardless of my frowning face.... "Rotten ... you need a tonic. I'll write a prescription right off." There was silence while he wrote. Then he rose, placed the slip of paper on the table, tossed the boy in the air and crossed back, looking down at me with his hands in his pockets.

"Well, little girl, what have you got to say for yourself?... I suppose you're still sore on me ... forget it and forgive. I apologize. I acted like a beast, I know.... It was the booze. It got the better of my judgment. Just the same, _in vino veritas_, I was most terribly stuck on you--and still am--no, sit still! I'm cold sober.... I thought, of course, you were like the rest.... Come, shake hands with me and say all is forgiven. I saw your husband to-day and he told me to come and see you.... I knew then that it was all right.... I felt sure you had too much common sense to tell hubby.... When are you coming out of the nunnery?..." He threw himself into the chair and smiled genially. I was holding fast to something he had said: "I thought of course you were like the rest." ...

"Doctor, will you answer me a question--truthfully, I mean?"

"I will if I can," he flashed back at me.

"You said a few minutes since that you had thought me like the rest. Who did you mean by 'the rest'--women as a cla.s.s--the cla.s.s you go about with--or the women of the stage?"

"Well ... if you want the honest truth--I had actresses in mind when I spoke."

"You believe actresses are any worse, even as bad, as the women I met at dinner last week?"

"Um ... ye-s ... I think actresses would go farther."

"_Go farther!_"

"Yes. None of these women--at least not many of them--you've met would really go the limit. They do a good deal of playing around the edge, but it's only once in a while they get into a sc.r.a.pe.... Look here! I don't hold a brief for judging the relative virtues of women. I don't blame anybody for squeezing all the enjoyment they can out of life--for you don't know what's coming hereafter."

The doctor showed signs of irritation....

A sound from Boy suggested my next remark.

"Suppose one has children?"

"That's a horse of another colour.... Though when you come right down to it I don't see that a family cuts much ice. Children are for the most part accidents. They just happen. Their conception is the result of carelessness or laziness. Their ultimate arrival is accepted a good deal like a deluge or a fire; you do everything you can to stop it--to the verge of self-destruction--then you throw up your hands and accept the inevitable. There isn't one love child in a million. I mean a child of love in the sense of premeditated and welcome conception. Men and women marry for one of a half dozen reasons, most commonly because they believe they are in love. When the honeymoon wanes and you get right down to commonplace, every-day life in all its ugliness, we begin to feet that we've been buncoed. If we are truthful with ourselves we acknowledge a share of the bunco game. Way back in our subconscious mind the sensation of our courtship, the pursuit and the first mad moments of possession have stuck fast.... We fairly throb at the thought of them.

We begin to hanker for a repet.i.tion of these sensuous dope-dreams....

Presently we are off hot for the chase ... and a little dash of the forbidden fruit acts as a stimulant. Like all stimulants it becomes necessary to increase the dose after a while to insure efficacy. That's where we begin to slop over...." The doctor leaned back with the air of one who is satisfied with his diagnosis.

"We are getting away from the subject," I remarked caustically.