Mrs. Florence was a woman of taste. She had been in New York a few days previously, whither she had gone to hear a celebrated European singer, whose fame had preceded her. Her allusion to this fact led to an introduction of the subject of music. Hendickson made some remarks that arrested her attention, when quite an animated conversation sprung up between them. Mrs. Dexter did not join in it; but sat a closely observant listener. The young man’s criticisms on the art of music surprised her. They were so new, so analytical, and so comprehensive. He had evidently studied the subject, not as an artist, but as a philosopher—but with so clear a comprehension of the art, that from the mere science, he was able to lead the mind upward into the fullest appreciation of the grander ideal.
Now and then as he talked, Mr. Dexter passed in a brief sentence; but to the keen, intelligent perception of his wife, what mere sounding words were his empty common-places! The contrast between him and Hendrickson was painful. It was in vain that she tried not to make this contrast. It thrust itself upon her, in spite of all resistance.
Mr. Florence had crossed the room with his wife, and joined the little circle. He did not take part in the conversation, and now said, rising as he spoke.
“Come, Dexter; let’s you and I have a game of billiards.”
He laid his band familiarly on the arm of Mr. Dexter, and that individual could not refuse to accept the invitation. They left the room together. This withdrawal of Mr. Dexter put both his wife and Mr. Hendrickson more at their ease. Both felt his absence as a relief. For a time the conversation was chiefly conducted by the latter and Mrs. Florence, only an occasional remark falling from the lips of Mrs. Dexter, and that almost extorted by question or reference. But gradually she was drawn in, and led on, until she was the talker and they the listeners.
When interested in conversation, a fine enthusiasm always gave to the manners of Mrs. Dexter a charming grace, and to her beautiful countenance a higher beauty. She was almost fascinating. Never had Hendrickson felt her power as he felt it now, while looking into her animated face, and listening to sentiment, description, criticism or anecdote, flowing from her lips in eloquent language, and evincing a degree of taste, discrimination, refinement and observation he could scarcely have imagined in one of her age.
He was leaning towards her, and listening with rapt interest, his countenance and eyes full of admiration, when a quick, impatient ahem caused him to look up. As he did so, he encountered the severe face and piercing eyes of Mr. Dexter. The sudden change in the expression of his countenance warned Mrs. Dexter of the presence of her husband, who had approached quietly, and was standing a pace or two behind his wife. But not the slightest consciousness of this presence did her manner exhibit. She kept on talking as before, and talking to Mr. Hendrickson.
“Will you go with me now, Mrs. Dexter?” said her husband, coming forward, and making a motion as if about to offer his arm.
“Not yet if you please, Mr. Dexter,” was smilingly answered. “I am too much interested in this good company. Come, sit down here,” and she made room for him on the sofa.
But he stood still.
“Then amuse yourself a little longer,” said his wife, in a gay voice. “I will be ready to go with you after a while.”
Mr. Dexter moved away, disappointed, and commenced pacing the floor of the long parlor. At every turn his keen eyes took in the aspect of the little group, and particularly the meaning of his wife’s face, as it turned to Mr. Hendrickson, either in the play of expression or warm with the listener’s interest. The sight half maddened him. Three times, in the next half hour, he said to his wife, as he paused in his restless promenade before her—
“Come, Jessie.”
But she only threw him a smiling negative, and became still more interesting to her friends. At last, and of her own will, she arose, and bowing, with a face all smiles and eyes dancing in light, to Mr. Hendrickson and Mrs. Florence, she stepped forward, and placing her hand on the arm of her husband, went like a sunbeam from the room.
CHAPTER XV.
“MADAM!”
They had reached their own apartments, and Mrs. Dexter was moving forward past her husband. The stern imperative utterance caused her to pause and turn round.
“We leave for home in the morning!” said Mr. Dexter.
“We?” His wife looked at him fixedly as she made the simple interrogation.
“Yes, we!” was answered, and in the voice of one who had made up his mind, and did not mean to be thwarted in his purpose.
“Mr. Dexter!” his wife stood very erect before him; her eyes did not quail beneath his angry glances; nor was there any sign of weakness in her low, even tones. “Let me warn you now—and regard the warning as for all time—against any attempt to coerce me into obedience to your arbitrary exactions. Your conduct to-night was simply disgraceful—humiliating to yourself, and mortifying and unjust to your wife. Let us have no more of this. There is a high wall between us, Mr. Dexter—high as heaven and deep as—.” Her feelings were getting the rein and she checked herself. “Your own hands have built it,” she resumed in a colder tone, “but your own hands, I fear, have not the strength to pull it down. Love you I never did, and you knew it from the beginning; love you I never can. That is a simple impossibility. But true to you as steel to the magnet in all the externals of my life, I have been and shall continue to be, even to the end of this unhappy union. As a virtuous woman, I could be nothing less. The outrage I have suffered this day from your hands, is irreparable. I never imagined it would come to this. I did not dream that it was in you to charge upon your wife the meditation of a crime the deepest it is possible for a woman to commit. That you were weakly jealous, I saw; and I came here in cheerful acquiescence to your whim, in order to help you to get right. But this very act of cheerful acquiescence was made the ground of a charge that shocked my being to the inmost and changed me towards you irrevocably.”
The stern angry aspect of Mr. Dexter was all gone. It seemed as if emotion had suddenly exhausted itself.
“We had better go home to-morrow.” He spoke in a subdued voice. “Neither of us can find enjoyment here.”
“I shall not be ready to morrow, nor the next day either,” was the outspoken reply. “To go thus hurriedly, after your humiliating exhibition of distrust, would only be to give free rein to the tongue of scandal; and that I wish to avoid.”
“It has free rein already,” said Mr. Dexter. “At Saratoga I heard your name lightly spoken and brought you away for that very reason. You are not chary enough of yourself in these public places. I know men better than you do.”
“If a light word was spoken of me, sir, at Saratoga or anywhere else, you alone are to blame. My conduct has warranted no such freedom of speech. But I can easily imagine how men will think lightly of a woman when her husband shows watchfulness and suspicion. It half maddens me, sir, to have this disgrace put upon me. To-morrow week I will go home if you then desire it—not a day earlier. And I warn you against any more such exhibitions as we have had to-night. If you cannot take pleasure in society that is congenial to my taste, leave me to my enjoyment, but don’t mar it with your cloudy presence. And set this down as a truism—the wife that must be watched, is not worth having.”
For utterances like these, Mr. Dexter was not prepared. They stunned and weakened him. He felt that he had a spirit to deal with that might easily be driven to desperation. A man, if resolute, he had believed might control the actions of almost any woman—that woman being his wife. And he had never doubted the result of marital authority, should he at any time deem it necessary to lay upon Mrs. Dexter an iron hand. The occasion, as he believed, had arrived; the hand was put forth; the will was resolute; but his vice-like grip closed upon the empty air! The spirit with which he had to deal was of subtler essence and more vigorous life than he had imagined.