CHAPTER XL

As I hoped, there were no ill effects from this little diversion, but by now I was so interested in Miss W—— that I felt a little unfair to her. As I look back on it I can imagine no greater error of mind or temperament than that which drew me to her, considering my own variable tendencies and my naturally freedom-loving point of view. But since we are all blind victims of chance and given to far better hind-sight than fore-sight I have no complaint to make. It is quite possible that this was all a part of my essential destiny or development, one of those storm-breeding mistakes by which one grows. Life seems thus often casually to thrust upon one an experience which is to prove illuminating or disastrous.

To pick up the thread of my narrative, I saw Miss Ginity at breakfast, but she showed no sign that we had been out together the previous evening. Instead, she went on her way briskly as though nothing had happened, and this made her rather alluring again in my eyes. When Miss W—— came down I suffered a slight revulsion of feeling: she was so fresh and innocent, so spiritually and mentally above any such quick and compromising relationship as that which I and my new acquaintance had established the night before. I planned to be more circumspect in my relations with Miss Ginity and to pay more attention to Miss W——.

This plan was facilitated by the way in which the various members of the party now grouped and adjusted themselves. Miss W—— and her sister seemed to prefer to go about together, with me as an occasional third, and Miss Ginity and several of her new acquaintances made a second company, with whom I occasionally walked. Thus the distribution of my attentions was in no danger of immediate detection and I went gayly on.

A peculiar characteristic at this time and later was that I never really expected any of these relationships to endure. Marriage might be well enough for the average man but it never seemed to me that I should endure in it, that it would permanently affect my present free relationship with the world. I might be greatly grieved at times in a high emotional way because they could not last, but that was rising to heights of sentiment which puzzled even myself. One of the things which troubled and astonished me was that I could like two, three, and even more women at the same time, like them very much indeed. It seemed strange that I could yearn over them, now one and now another. A good man, I told myself, would not do this. The thought would never occur to him, or if it did he would repress it sternly. Obviously, if not profoundly evil I was a freak and had best keep my peculiar thoughts and desires to myself if I wanted to have anything to do with good people. I should be entirely alone, perhaps even seized upon by the law.

During the next two weeks I saw much of both Miss W—— and Miss Ginity. By day I usually accompanied Miss W—— and her sister from place to place about the grounds and of an evening strolled with Miss Ginity, all the while wondering if Miss W—— really liked me, whether her present feeling was likely to turn to something deeper. I felt a very definite point of view in her, very different from mine. In her was none of the variability that troubled me: if ever a person was fixed in conventional views it was she. One life, one love would have answered for her exactly. She could have accepted any condition, however painful or even degrading, providing she was bolstered up by what she considered the moral law. “To have and to hold, in sickness and in health, in poverty and in riches, until death do us part.” I think the full force of these laws must have been imbibed with her mother’s milk.

As for Miss Ginity, although she was conventional enough, I did feel that she might be persuaded to relax the moral rule in favor of one at least, and so was congratulating myself upon having achieved an affectional triumph. She may not have been deeply impressed by my physical attraction but there was something about me nevertheless which seemed to hold her. After a few days she left the hotel to visit some friends or relatives, to whom she had to pay considerable attention, but in my box nights or mornings, if by any chance I had not seen her, I would find notes explaining where she could be found in the evening, usually at a drugstore near the park or her new apartment, and we would take a few minutes’ stroll in the park. Such a fever of emotion as she displayed at times! “Oh dear!” she would exclaim in an intense hungry way upon seeing me. “Oh, I could hardly wait!” And once in the park she would throw her strong young arms about me and kiss me in a fiery, hungry way. There was one last transport the night before she left for Michigan for a visit, when if I had been half the Don Juan I longed to be we might have passed the boundary line; but lack of courage on my part and inexperience on hers kept us apart.

When I saw her again in St. Louis——

But that is still another story.