Jennie Gerhardt - Theodore Dreiser (recommended reading TXT) 📗

in all to one man, unless he wanted me to be."

"Where do you get those ideas, Jennie?" he asked her once, curious to test the breadth of her philosophy.

"Oh, I don't know, why?"

"They're so broad, so good-natured, so charitable. They're not common, that's sure."

"Why, I don't think we ought to be selfish, Lester. I don't know why. Some women think differently, I know, but a man and a woman ought to want to live together, or they ought not to—don't you think? It doesn't make so much difference if a man goes off for a little while—just so long as he doesn't stay—if he wants to come back at all."

Lester smiled, but he respected her for the sweetness of her point of view—he had to.

To-night, when she saw this woman so eager to talk to Lester, she realized at once that they must have a great deal in common to talk over; whereupon she did a characteristic thing. "Won't you excuse me for a little while?" she asked, smiling. "I left some things uncared for in our rooms. I'll be back."

She went away, remaining in her room as long as she reasonably could, and Lester and Letty fell to discussing old times in earnest. He recounted as much of his experiences as he deemed wise, and Letty brought the history of her life up to date. "Now that you're safely married, Lester," she said daringly, "I'll confess to you that you were the one man I always wanted to have propose to me—and you never did."

"Maybe I never dared," he said, gazing into her superb black eyes, and thinking that perhaps she might know that he was not married. He felt that she had grown more beautiful in every way. She seemed to him now to be an ideal society figure-perfection itself—gracious, natural, witty, the type of woman who mixes and mingles well, meeting each new-comer upon the plane best suited to him or her.

"Yes, you thought! I know what you thought. Your real thought just left the table."

"Tut, tut, my dear. Not so fast. You don't know what I thought."

"Anyhow, I allow you some credit. She's charming."

"Jennie has her good points," he replied simply.

"And are you happy?"

"Oh, fairly so. Yes, I suppose I'm happy—as happy as any one can be who sees life as it is. You know I'm not troubled with many illusions."

"Not any, I think, kind sir, if I know you."

"Very likely, not any, Letty; but sometimes I wish I had a few. I think I would be happier."

"And I, too, Lester. Really, I look on my life as a kind of failure, you know, in spite of the fact that I'm almost as rich as Croesus—not quite. I think he had some more than I have."

"What talk from you—you, with your beauty and talent, and money—good heavens!"

"And what can I do with it? Travel, talk, shoo away silly fortune-hunters. Oh, dear, sometimes I get so tired!"

Letty looked at Lester. In spite of Jennie, the old feeling came back. Why should she have been cheated of him? They were as comfortable together as old married people, or young lovers. Jennie had had no better claim. She looked at him, and her eyes fairly spoke. He smiled a little sadly.

"Here comes my wife," he said. "We'll have to brace up and talk of other things. You'll find her interesting—really."

"Yes, I know," she replied, and turned on Jennie a radiant smile.

Jennie felt a faint sense of misgiving. She thought vaguely that this might be one of Lester's old flames. This was the kind of woman he should have chosen—not her. She was suited to his station in life, and he would have been as happy—perhaps happier. Was he beginning to realize it? Then she put away the uncomfortable thought; pretty soon she would be getting jealous, and that would be contemptible.

Mrs. Gerald continued to be most agreeable in her attitude toward the Kanes. She invited them the next day to join her on a drive through Rotten Row. There was a dinner later at Claridge's, and then she was compelled to keep some engagement which was taking her to Paris. She bade them both an affectionate farewell, and hoped that they would soon meet again. She was envious, in a sad way, of Jennie's good fortune. Lester had lost none of his charm for her. If anything, he seemed nicer, more considerate, more wholesome. She wished sincerely that he were free. And Lester—subconsciously perhaps—was thinking the same thing.

No doubt because of the fact that she was thinking of it, he had been led over mentally all of the things which might have happened if he had married her. They were so congenial now, philosophically, artistically, practically. There was a natural flow of conversation between them all the time, like two old comrades among men. She knew everybody in his social sphere, which was equally hers, but Jennie did not. They could talk of certain subtle characteristics of life in a way which was not possible between him and Jennie, for the latter did not have the vocabulary. Her ideas did not flow as fast as those of Mrs. Gerald. Jennie had actually the deeper, more comprehensive, sympathetic, and emotional note in her nature, but she could not show it in light conversation. Actually she was living the thing she was, and that was perhaps the thing which drew Lester to her. Just now, and often in situations of this kind, she seemed at a disadvantage, and she was. It seemed to Lester for the time being as if Mrs. Gerald would perhaps have been a better choice after all—certainly as good, and he would not now have this distressing thought as to his future.

They did not see Mrs. Gerald again until they reached Cairo. In the gardens about the hotel they suddenly encountered her, or rather Lester did, for he was alone at the time, strolling and smoking.

"Well, this is good luck," he exclaimed. "Where do you come from?"

"Madrid, if you please. I didn't know I was coming until last Thursday. The Ellicotts are here. I came over with them. You know I wondered where you might be. Then I remembered that you said you were going to Egypt. Where is your wife?"

"In her bath, I fancy, at this moment. This warm weather makes Jennie take to water. I was thinking of a plunge myself."

They strolled about for a time. Letty was in light blue silk, with a blue and white parasol held daintily over her shoulder, and looked very pretty. "Oh, dear!" she suddenly ejaculated, "I wonder sometimes what I am to do with myself. I can't loaf always this way. I think I'll go back to the States to live."

"Why don't you?"

"What good would it do me? I don't want to get married. I haven't any one to marry now—that I want." She glanced at Lester significantly, then looked away.

"Oh, you'll find some one eventually," he said, somewhat awkwardly. "You can't escape for long—not with your looks and money."

"Oh, Lester, hush!"

"All right! Have it otherwise, if you want. I'm telling you."

"Do you still dance?" she inquired lightly, thinking of a ball which was to be given at the hotel that evening. He had danced so well a few years before.

"Do I look it?"

"Now, Lester, you don't mean to say that you have gone and abandoned that last charming art. I still love to dance. Doesn't Mrs. Kane?"

"No, she doesn't care to. At least she hasn't taken it up. Come to think of it, I suppose that is my fault. I haven't thought of dancing in some time."

It occurred to him that he hadn't been going to functions of any kind much for some time. The opposition his entanglement had generated had put a stop to that.

"Come and dance with me to-night. Your wife won't object. It's a splendid floor. I saw it this morning."

"I'll have to think about that," replied Lester. "I'm not much in practice. Dancing will probably go hard with me at my time of life."

"Oh, hush, Lester," replied Mrs. Gerald. "You make me feel old. Don't talk so sedately. Mercy alive, you'd think you were an old man!"

"I am in experience, my dear."

"Pshaw, that simply makes us more attractive," replied his old flame.

CHAPTER XLVI

That night after dinner the music was already sounding in the ball-room of the great hotel adjacent to the palm-gardens when Mrs. Gerald found Lester smoking on one of the verandas with Jennie by his side. The latter was in white satin and white slippers, her hair lying a heavy, enticing mass about her forehead and ears. Lester was brooding over the history of Egypt, its successive tides or waves of rather weak-bodied people; the thin, narrow strip of soil along either side of the Nile that had given these successive waves of population sustenance; the wonder of heat and tropic life, and this hotel with its modern conveniences and fashionable crowd set down among ancient, soul-weary, almost despairing conditions. He and Jennie had looked this morning on the pyramids. They had taken a trolley to the Sphinx! They had watched swarms of ragged, half-clad, curiously costumed men and boys moving through narrow, smelly, albeit brightly colored, lanes and alleys.

"It all seems such a mess to me," Jennie had said at one place. "They are so dirty and oily. I like it, but somehow they seem tangled up, like a lot of worms."

Lester chuckled, "You're almost right. But climate does it. Heat. The tropics. Life is always mushy and sensual under these conditions. They can't help it."

"Oh, I know that. I don't blame them. They're just queer."

To-night he was brooding over this, the moon shining down into the grounds with an exuberant, sensuous luster.

"Well, at last I've found you!" Mrs. Gerald exclaimed. "I couldn't get down to dinner, after all. Our party was so late getting back. I've made your husband agree to dance with me, Mrs. Kane," she went on smilingly. She, like Lester and Jennie, was under the sensuous influence of the warmth, the spring, the moonlight. There were rich odors abroad, floating subtly from groves and gardens; from the remote distance camel-bells were sounding and exotic cries, "Ayah!" and "oosh! oosh!" as though a drove of strange animals were being rounded up and driven through the crowded streets.

"You're welcome to him," replied Jennie pleasantly. "He ought to dance. I sometimes wish I did."

"You ought to take lessons right away then," replied Lester genially. "I'll do my best to keep you company. I'm not as light on my feet as I was once, but I guess I can get around."

"Oh, I don't want to dance that badly," smiled Jennie. "But you two go on, I'm going up-stairs in a little while, anyway."

"Why don't you come sit in the ball-room? I can't do more than a few rounds. Then we can watch the others," said Lester rising.

"No. I think I'll stay here. It's so pleasant. You go. Take him, Mrs. Gerald."

Lester and Letty strolled away. They made a striking pair—Mrs. Gerald in dark wine-colored silk, covered with glistening black beads, her shapely arms and neck bare, and a flashing diamond of great size set just above her forehead in her dark hair. Her lips were red, and she had an engaging smile, showing an even row of white teeth between wide, full, friendly lips. Lester's strong, vigorous figure was well set off by his evening clothes, he looked distinguished.

"That is the woman he should have married," said Jennie to herself as he disappeared. She fell into a reverie, going over the steps of her past life. Sometimes it seemed to her now as if she had been living in a dream. At other times she felt as though she were in that dream yet. Life sounded in her ears much as this night did. She heard its cries. She knew its large-mass features. But back of it were subtleties that shaded and changed one into the other like