BOOKS BY JESSE LYNCH WILLIAMS 
 
 PUBLISHED BY CHARLES SCRIBNER S SONS 
 
 Princeton Stories (1895). 12mo $1.00 
 
 The Adventures of a Freshman (1899). Illus 
 trated by Fletcher Ransom. 12mo . . . $1.25 
 
 The Stolen Story, and Other Newspaper Stories 
 
 (1899). Illustrated by A. I. Keller. 12mo $1.25 
 
 New York Sketches (1902). With many draw 
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 Ernest Peixotto, and others. Small quarto $2.00 
 
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 tion of the four-act comedy, " The Stolen 
 Story.") 12mo $1.25 
 
 The Girl and the Game, and Other College 
 Stories (1908). Illustrated by W. T. 
 Smedley, Henry Hutt, and others. 12mo $1.50 
 
 The Married Life of the Frederic Carrolls 
 (1910). Illustrated by F. R. Gruger and 
 W. Sherman Potts. 12mo $1.50 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF THE 
 FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
"And so they were married, and lived happily 
 ever after" 
 
You mean that you re afraid of mel" 
 
The Married Life of 
 the Frederic Carrolls 
 
 By 
 
 JESSE LYNCH WILLIAMS 
 
 ILLUSTRATED 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER S SONS 
 
 153-157 Fifth Avenue : : New York 
 
Copyright, igio, by Charles Scribners Sons 
 
 Published November, igio 
 
 Second Impression, December, 1910 
 
 Third Impression, January, 1911 
 
 Fourth Impression, February, IQII 
 
 Fifth Impression, March, IQII 
 
 Sixth Impression, May, ign 
 
 Seventh Impression, August, 1911 
 
To 
 MY MOTHER 
 
 AN OLD-FASHIONED WOMAN WHO 
 UNDERSTANDS THE NEW 
 
 577743 
 
Scenario 
 
 FIRST PART 
 
 THEIR "MERE MARRIAGE" 
 I. THE HONEYMOON 3 
 
 Scenes: A sixteenth-century Manor House and a nineteenth- 
 century Imagination. 
 
 (With a romantic overture the curtain is rung up, and the 
 idyllic first act is begun, against an ideal background. 
 Enter, unannounced, an unbidden guest, called "The 
 Gregarious Instinct" a friend in the guise of a foe 
 much to the alarm of an orthodox pair of lovers, ill- 
 prepared for such emergencies. The honeymoon, al 
 ready too long, "ends happily.") 
 
 II. THE DINERS-OUT 32 
 
 Scenes: The Carrolls Town House a "quaint old-fash 
 ioned home," though on Manhattan Island; modern 
 bachelor s apartments (with fascinating Bohemian at 
 mosphere); the Opera; a Police Station. 
 
 (One of the comedies of gregariousness with a cruel re 
 buke for the complacency of popular bachelors. Also 
 a warning, which will not be heeded, against the com 
 placency of the happily married.) 
 
 III. FREDERIC CARROLL, MONOGAMIST . . 81 
 
 Scenes: A modern woman s club (both suffrage and anti); 
 an artist s studio; a wife s heart; her husband s ; the 
 other woman s, and so on, concluding with a tableau in 
 the North Woods. 
 
 ("The other Woman," who is not very "unpleasant" 
 brilliantly illuminates certain unforeseen obstacles in 
 the pretty path of one anxious to be "Just an Old- 
 Fashion ed Wife," and yet compelled to live in new- 
 fashioned conditions. Then we may watch the work 
 ing out of an optimistic intention to make a real union 
 out of a mere marriage.) 
 
 vii 
 
SCENARIO (CONTINUED) 
 
 SECOND PART 
 THE HOUSE OF CARROLL 
 IV. THE COMEDY OF HOME-BUILDING . . 221 
 
 Scenes: First, chiefly in the clouds of sweet illusion. 
 Second, down to earth, also sweet, but solid. 
 
 (Several years have elapsed, and the Carrolls have become 
 younger at least they appear in a new light, as to 
 gether they face the pressing problem of establishing a 
 new home for new Carrolls. They are able to get some 
 fun out of it.) 
 
 V. THE DREAM-HOUSE AND THE NIGHT 
 MARE . 253 
 
 Scenes: On the Carroll Estate and on the Carroll nerves. 
 
 (A continuation of the above, and a concrete example of 
 the insidious delights and dangers of building castles in 
 the air with its amusing reactions upon the Carrolls, 
 who are foes of Comoromise.) 
 
 VI. THE CARROLLS HOUSE-WARMING . . 283 
 
 Scenes: Partly in the past, partly at "The Meadows" 
 (proper name of a house called " The Carrolls 1 .") 
 
 (Showing how a home found itself, and suggesting how 
 the Carrolls found themselves an established unit in a 
 conservative circle of the Nicest People.) 
 
 VII. THE FAMILY PARTY 309 
 
 Scenes: The same set and properties as in the last, but with 
 an entirely different background. Victorian atmosphere. 
 Any American household of " culture and refinement" 
 would do as well. 
 
 (Others, members of one of our best families appear, ex 
 plaining (by their silence) much that has gone before. 
 Suddenly a family skeleton is disclosed, the clan spirit 
 is aroused, and the House of Carroll now seems sound 
 and secure.) 
 
 viii 
 
SCENARIO (CONTINUED) 
 
 THIRD PART 
 
 THEIR SHARE OF THE WORLD 
 VIII. THEIR MILLIONAIRE TENANT . . . 383 
 
 Scenes: The Carrolls celebrated country place and the 
 
 Parkers expensive boarding-house. 
 (The Acquisitive sense collides with the Esthetic sense 
 
 to the amazement of both worthy civilizers. N.B. : The 
 
 Carrolls formerly owned their home now we see the 
 
 home beginning to own the Carrolls.) 
 
 IX. THE CARROLLS FORMAL GARDEN . . 433 
 
 Scenes: Fred s studio, Molly s mind, and the Carrolls 
 terrace. 
 
 (Mrs. Carroll threatens to become a New Woman, much to 
 the perplexity of her loving and loved husband. The 
 children and other conservative allies stand by him, and 
 we need feel little concern over the net result.) 
 
 X. THE CARROLLS FORTUNE 481 
 
 Scenes: First act, the House of Sterling and the House of 
 Carroll. Second act: The House oj Mammon, and the 
 wicked but inspiring -world. 
 
 (A logical conclusion to all that has preceded. By the 
 simple aid of the "mistaken identity" trick (dear to 
 dramatists) virtue is easily shown to triumph inevitably, 
 and as the curtain is rung down, we all applaud and 
 turn away to our own sweet homes.) 
 
Illustrations 
 
 "You mean that you re afraid of me !" . . . Frontispiece 
 
 FACING PAGE 
 
 But as it happened she did interrupt him, though not 
 at his work 117 
 
 While he was designing entrancing groups of low, lattice 
 windows with hollyhocks peeping in 226 
 
 Then the architect wrote the Carrolls a lovely letter, or 
 rather, he called to his stenographer, "Jolly Number 
 Two!" 270 
 
 The house was on their nerves 278 
 
 The discovery of the skeleton in the Carrolls closet . 374 
 " Remove that," she commanded haughtily .... 400 
 
 !< I hate Aunt Bella s public spirit," she cried vindic 
 tively 563 
 
FIRST PART 
 THEIR "MERE MARRIAGE" 
 
" And so they were married, and lived happily ever after." 
 
 i 
 
 THE HONEYMOON 
 
 SCENES : A sixteenth-century Manor House and a nine 
 teenth-century Imagination. 
 
 (WITH A ROMANTIC OVERTURE THE CURTAIN IS RUNG UP, 
 AND THE IDYLLIC FIRST ACT IS BEGUN, AGAINST AN IDEAL 
 BACKGROUND. ENTER, UNANNOUNCED, AN UNBIDDEN 
 GUEST, CALLED "THE GREGARIOUS INSTINCT 5 A FRIEND 
 IN THE GUISE OF A FOE MUCH TO THE ALARM OF AN OR 
 THODOX PAIR OF LOVERS, ILL-PREPARED FOR SUCH EMER 
 GENCIES. THE HONEYMOON, ALREADY TOO LONG, "ENDS 
 HAPPILY.") 
 
 WHEN the wild rain-clouds were driven 
 out to sea at last the happy pair had vent 
 ured forth from their secluded retreat, and, 
 passing through "my lady s garden," had 
 crossed the ancient Bowling Green and 
 mounted Beacon Hill, where, hand-in-hand, 
 they had gazed out across the sparkling 
 downs as the sun sank behind the distant 
 fringe of trees. Then, still in silence (but 
 
 3 
 
;:THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 still together), they had returned to the ivy-= 
 mantled manor-house all their own for 
 days to come, with no fear of separation, no 
 danger of interruption. 
 
 Here in the goodly Tudor hall, mellow 
 with the tone of time, before the smoke- 
 stained fireplace, guarded on either side by 
 carved knights in armor, the lovers lingered 
 as if reluctant to break the spell, gazing 
 dreamily into the glowing embers, while 
 outside the wind crooned caressingly about 
 the mossy gables, and the rooks in the 
 swaying fir-trees called to one another, their 
 clamor now faint, now clear wafted by 
 the wind. 
 
 He was seated in an immense oak chair 
 of richly carved back, and she on a low 
 stool at his feet, her fair head resting against 
 his knee while he ran his fingers idly through 
 her light-brown hair. He was smoking his 
 pipe, for which she had held the match, as 
 was her pretty custom. A bit of unfinished 
 embroidery lay unnoticed at her side. It 
 was all just as they had pictured it in the 
 long ago, a dream come true. . . . 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 Presently Frederic Carroll, for he it was, 
 might have been seen quietly removing his 
 pipe with one hand while quickly covering 
 his mouth with the other. His jaws opened 
 wide with a spasmodic movement, irresisti 
 ble, pitiless; then, after the climax, closed 
 again, softly; this being followed by a rapid 
 blinking of the eyelids, as though tears were 
 there. 
 
 Then, suddenly realizing the significance 
 of what he had unwittingly done, Frederic 
 Carroll scowled troubledly and, all unseen 
 by her, he shook his handsome head. But 
 he said nothing. Outwardly all was beauti 
 ful, and his silence seemed the sweet silence 
 of perfect comradeship, broken only by the 
 whisper of the wind and the low moan of 
 the distant sea. 
 
 II 
 
 Shall we penetrate the disturbing secrets 
 behind that troubled brow and see just what 
 was the matter ? 
 
 When the beautiful dream was first at 
 tained it had all seemed too good to be real, 
 
 5 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 but now with nothing else to think about, 
 nothing else for a usually busy man to do 
 all day, it was fast becoming too real to be 
 good. There were to be four more weeks 
 of this before he could get back to his work 
 which he also loved and he was wonder 
 ing how he could keep up the pace. 
 
 True, this was precisely what he had 
 worked for, lived for, longed for. He had 
 won what he wanted, and now would he stop 
 wanting what he had won ? It was miserably 
 unfair to the charming creature at his feet, 
 but he couldn t help it. He was doing his 
 best to keep on loving her; yet already there 
 had come times when he did not thrill at 
 hearing her light staccato step approaching 
 along the passage. Even now he could look 
 down upon her there in the soft light of the 
 afterglow without feeling "an irresistible 
 impulse" to take her in his arms. If it 
 were as bad as this in two months what 
 would it be in a year in a lifetime of fire 
 side companionship ? He shut his eyes as if 
 afraid to face the appalling picture. She was 
 so young and so fair, and he was so bored. 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 He wondered how she could keep on lik 
 ing it. But that, it seemed, was the nat 
 ure of woman. Had not the poets, the true 
 lover s only Baedeker, declared that love 
 was of man s life a thing apart, but of wom 
 an s life the whole business ? She did not 
 seem to mind seeing no one but him; she 
 liked being shut in by the rain. The home 
 was woman s sphere. She had become 
 habituated to it by centuries of training 
 the only really domesticated animal. 
 
 Presently Molly, for it was no other, 
 looked up at her husband and smiled. 
 " Fred," she asked drolly, "are you still hap 
 py in your new life in your little home ?" 
 
 He chuckled fondly, as she knew he 
 would, for he always did when she bur 
 lesqued Aunt Bella s sentimental phrases, 
 especially as their little home was consider 
 ably larger than any they ever expected to 
 occupy again at least, until their new life 
 was considerably older. It was an historic 
 estate, founded centuries before, added to 
 and subtracted from in various succeeding 
 centuries of war or affluence and now in- 
 
 7 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 trusted for a short term to these young 
 Americans at what seemed a ridiculously 
 low rental. They had seen the advertise 
 ment of it in Country Life, had fallen in 
 love with the pictures, and had snapped it 
 up, poor innocents, without understanding, 
 being Americans, certain quaint old Eng 
 lish customs which made the rent but one 
 small factor in the expense of leasing quaint 
 old English places. 
 
 Frederic Carroll, "the promising young 
 portrait painter," had received a commis 
 sion for some illustrations of certain historic 
 scenes in this interesting part of England 
 for one of the magazines at home. At his 
 bachelor dinner, which seemed years ago, 
 he had boasted laughingly of his parsi 
 mony. "Not every bridegroom can make 
 his honeymoon pay!" he had said, with a 
 humorous swagger. 
 
 To be sure, the illustrations were only a 
 month s work, but with Molly at his side, 
 with the inspiration of love not to speak 
 of the spur of necessity he had counted 
 upon bringing home enough landscapes 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 from this charming, Constablesque country, 
 unappreciated by most painters, to warrant 
 the extra expense. But he had not counted 
 upon its raining every day for a month. 
 
 However, both of them had read and 
 dreamed for years of just such a place as 
 this (you see how congenial they had thought 
 they were), and as neither expected ever 
 to have another honeymoon (they had 
 laughingly agreed upon this matter too) 
 they meant to make the most of it. Well, 
 they were doing so. 
 
 But three months meant three moons, 
 and there are other foods than honey. 
 Men, especially those who smoke, are not so 
 fond of sweets as women are. It seems that 
 there are also other worthy instincts in life 
 besides the mating instinct, though that 
 may be the prettiest and most potent. For 
 instance, there is the instinct for work, and 
 there is the gregarious instinct. Even to 
 the best of mated couples in the most 
 "ideal" surroundings with entrancing 
 walled gardens and avenues of firs, with 
 copses, swales, downs; moors, fens, and 
 
 9 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 even a haunted chamber the low insistent 
 call of the tribe will sometimes penetrate. 
 
 In those first idyllic days, when it all 
 seemed too wonderful to be believed, when 
 transported by the glory of loving some 
 thing better than one s self the period 
 upon which poets are inclined to dwell to 
 the exclusion of what follows they were 
 both perfectly convinced that never again 
 should they want any one in their cosmos but 
 each other. In fact, a universe alone would 
 have suited them very well, or a delightful 
 desert island; at the very least, a privately 
 owned wilderness. But as that was not 
 altogether practicable they had rented a 
 wilderness, this very charming one, in a 
 remote corner of the world, far from home 
 and free from friends, where they had no 
 more to do with their English neighbors, 
 who were inclined to be kind, than cour 
 tesy demanded. 
 
 But, alas! even with the one woman in 
 the world the wilderness was not paradise 
 enow for Frederic Carroll. For that matter, 
 it had not proved to be enough even in the 
 
 10 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 case of Adam and the one woman then in 
 the world, though theirs was a real paradise, 
 and Adam, it will be recalled, had not ac 
 quired the unfortunate habit of earning his 
 own loaf and jug of wine another respect 
 in which he had the advantage over his 
 young descendant, Fred; if it was an ad 
 vantage. And yet, like many a misled lover 
 before him, here was a bridegroom who 
 felt himself horribly lacking in the prime 
 essentials of an orthodox husband, because 
 he was rapidly becoming bored to death at 
 being cooped up through a long, rainy season 
 in a fascinating old manor-house with the 
 only girl he had ever really loved. 
 
 Now that his dream was demolished, 
 would the old haunting nightmare come 
 true ? For, previous to meeting the one 
 woman in the world, though he had adored 
 other women in the world for days at a 
 time even weeks he had always feared 
 ("something told him") that if ever he 
 learned to love any of them enough to marry 
 them he would afterward learn to hate 
 them enough to wish he hadn t. This 
 
 IT 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 seemed such an ungrateful way to treat 
 some sweet, unsuspecting girl who would 
 trust him and give him "her all" that he 
 had often felt quite sorry for the poor thing 
 and wondered what she looked like and 
 whether she would prefer to call him 
 "dearest/ or merely "Fred." 
 
 Thus it was that, being a calm, unim- 
 pulsive fellow, he had remained a lonely 
 old bachelor until the mellow age of twenty- 
 five. Then the great miracle happened. 
 He met Molly. One look into her frank, 
 amused eyes, and straightway he forgot 
 everything else, including his previously 
 interesting self. Her he would love so 
 long as he had breath in his body, though, 
 being a calm, unimpulsive fellow, he had 
 not told her so until the third time he had 
 looked into them. 
 
 She had merely laughed at him and said 
 she did not believe a word of it, which only 
 made him the more convinced that they 
 had been meant for each other from the 
 dawn of time. It was not so easy, however, 
 to convince her of this, for she, too, was 
 
 12 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 something of a painter and seemed more in 
 terested in her career for the time being. 
 But when at last the golden moment came 
 when he held her in his arms in man- 
 fashion she too felt sure that they were 
 meant for each other from the beginning, 
 and that therefore they would have to be 
 together to the end. She did not laugh at 
 him now. She wept a little. 
 
 That was the only reason they had con 
 descended to be married. For neither of 
 these modern young persons, it seems, had 
 cherished a very high regard for this well- 
 meaning institution of matrimony, though 
 their ancestors had been addicted to it, it 
 could not be denied (nor did they try to 
 deny it), as far back as the records ran, 
 which was quite far back, as such things 
 run, on both sides. 
 
 Well, it is only in certain low forms of 
 animal life and fiction that this consumma 
 tion is followed by death or "THE END." 
 They did not die. This was not the end. 
 It was only the beginning. That was love. 
 This was marriage civilization s attempt 
 
 13 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 to compromise with nature, which smilingly 
 refuses to take civilization so seriously as 
 we do. Marriage follows love, sometimes; 
 love would follow marriage more often if 
 its neophytes weren t so misguided by those 
 who tell about it or discreetly decline to 
 do so. 
 
 Never having been married before, young 
 Frederic wanted to do the right thing in 
 the right way. He wanted to make more of 
 a success of marriage than of anything he 
 had ever undertaken. And yet, by clinging 
 to the most approved ideals, according to 
 the best social and literary traditions, he 
 had made the disconcerting discovery that 
 even the most perfect thing was imperfect. 
 Or, that he -was. Or else (perish the 
 thought) that she was! 
 
 In after years, if their wedding should be 
 come a marriage (unless in the meanwhile 
 it divorced them) they might possibly be 
 able to stand seeing so much of each other. 
 They might even enjoy it. Such things 
 have been known to happen. But why 
 should they have been led to expect it now ? 
 
 14 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 A mere boy and girl, carefully trained to 
 be uncongenial, utterly unacquainted, but 
 thinking they knew each other well because 
 they had wanted each other much. Did 
 they propose to keep on sighing and dying 
 for blisses and kisses ? Even poets, as a 
 matter of fact and prose, have been known 
 to get over it that over-worked affair of the 
 Brownings to the contrary notwithstanding. 
 For with the best intentions, it is difficult 
 to keep on longing for what one already 
 has. 
 
 And yet a few well-developed longings 
 seem necessary for human progress. Surely 
 we prefer to see all living beings make prog 
 ress, even though married unless they 
 belong to those lower forms of life. Indeed, 
 it is all the more important to do so when 
 one has a wife to protect and cherish. . . . 
 Fred, who had acquired the commendable 
 habit of working hard in the world of men, 
 was longing ardently to get back to work, 
 was sighing hungrily for the fellowship of 
 men, who also worked and talked his 
 own language. 
 
 15 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 III 
 
 The wind had left off crooning and was 
 now beginning to howl dismally about the 
 mossy gables of their paradise. 
 
 "I am afraid the roses along the wall will 
 be bruised," said Molly, the tender hearted. 
 She was so domestic. He believed in having 
 them domestic. 
 
 "Poor little roses," he replied, sympa 
 thetically. She, he thought, was like a rose, 
 a delicate hot-house rose, transplanted from 
 a kind father s home, a tender mother s 
 protection, out into the cold world, and 
 now at the mercy of a strange man. Must 
 she too be bruised and buffeted by the 
 storms of life? No! not while he had a 
 strong arm to defend her, a tongue to lie 
 to her. His dream was shattered but hers 
 should remain. 
 
 Suddenly, as if reading his thoughts, his 
 wife turned and confronted him. "Why 
 are you so silent?" 
 
 "Silent?" he echoed, a little startled. 
 "Why, I was just thinking," he added en- 
 
 16 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 thusiastically "I was just thinking how 
 quiet and nice it was here now that the 
 Winstons are gone and we can have each 
 other all to ourselves again!" He be 
 lieved that he ought to be glad that his 
 guests were gone, so he tried to persuade 
 himself by saying it often. Mental healers 
 work wonders in that way. 
 
 The Winstons, while motoring though the 
 country, had discovered the Carrolls, had 
 made a week s visit, and had made poor 
 Fred realize what a shamefully over-de 
 veloped gregarious instinct he had. It 
 amounted almost to a passion. He caught 
 himself looking back with a sort of senti 
 mental yearning upon that all too brief 
 visit, now over and done for. The fun the 
 four of them had together, the gayety at 
 dinner, the quick talk and laughter! Even 
 breakfast had been objective and enjoyable. 
 And then that blessed car of the Winstons! 
 The good fresh air, the frolicsome fun, the 
 runs to unknown far-away towns, with 
 glimpses of the glad outside world, now so 
 remote and unattainable. 
 
 17 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 "I believe you miss them horribly!" said 
 his wife teasingly, yet with a wistful little 
 look in her soft eyes. "Do you, Fred ?" 
 
 Women are so queer about some things; 
 they must be assured and reassured. " Miss 
 them!" He leaned forward and kissed her 
 white brow. That was the answer a woman 
 likes. He had read it in a book. "I need 
 exercise, that s all. I m used to taking a 
 good deal." 
 
 She patted his hand after the fond man 
 ner of women. "Good old Fred," she 
 whispered. "To-morrow we ll take a long 
 walk whether it rains or not." 
 
 Outwardly he beamed, but inwardly he 
 writhed. Before his marriage he had been 
 an honest, fearless young man, but now, 
 it seemed, he would have to be a liar all 
 the rest of his life a liar to the one he 
 wanted most to be honest with. What a 
 life! What a travesty on that beautiful 
 dream of perfect understanding and mutual 
 sympathy! 
 
 But what a noble hero he was (if he had 
 only known it) to sacrifice himself, and 
 
 18 
 

 THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 even truth, for the sake of the woman he 
 loved! No, it was even more heroic than 
 that; it was for the sake of the woman he 
 no longer loved. Any man, even a black 
 guard, can perform noble deeds for the 
 woman he adores, but to sacrifice himself 
 for the sake of a woman who bores him! 
 It takes a true nobleman to reach such 
 heights. It is quite likely that Fred Carroll, 
 plain American, was nobler far than any 
 of the Christian knights who had sat before 
 that ancient fireplace in the gallant days of 
 old getting drunk but he wasn t thinking 
 about that. He was thinking about the 
 Winstons. 
 
 He wondered why he missed them so; in 
 his bachelor days they had never appealed 
 to him especially. But it had seemed good 
 to have a man about again, some one to 
 slap on the back, some one to smoke and 
 drink and sit up late with, talking shop 
 and gossip by the fireside after the girls had 
 gone to bed; and good to see a man on the 
 other side of the tennis net, instead of the 
 woman who was meant for him from the 
 
 19 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 beginning of time (and the end thereof), 
 some one to whom it was not necessary to 
 serve easily, for whose sake he need not 
 cheat himself in the score; some one with 
 whom it was fun to compete. 
 
 But that was only natural and manlike. 
 The chagrinning recollection, the unman 
 ly truth, was that he had been able, willing 
 nay, glad though married so short a 
 time, to tear himself away from his fair 
 bride and go with Tom on a long tramp 
 over the hills for two whole days! He knew 
 men long-married men who boasted of 
 never having been separated from their 
 loving wives for twenty-four hours. He 
 had rather expected to be that sort him 
 self. . . He suspected now why they boasted 
 about it. Marriage was an endurance con 
 test. 
 
 Such an agreeable change had it been, 
 indeed, to get away from his beloved help 
 meet and have at last not a dainty feminine 
 stroll (hand-in-hand) but a real walk, 
 twenty-five good sweating miles a day with 
 a companion who was not liable to damp 
 
 20 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 skirts or draughts or fatigue such a joyous 
 relief that this unromantic bridegroom ran 
 and jumped and frisked about like a half- 
 broken colt released at last from the chafing 
 double harness. He sang, he swore, he 
 even ah, me ! he even spat upon the neat 
 English highways. Such was the trans 
 forming influence of holy matrimony upon 
 an imperfectly domesticated animal named 
 Fred. 
 
 "I ran across Fred Carroll," Tom wrote 
 to a mutual friend, "with his pretty bride 
 in his grand old place by the sea. She is 
 a good sort just the girl for him. My 
 wife is crazy about her. But Fred is too 
 much married. I had great difficulty in 
 coaxing him away, but I finally persuaded 
 him to leave the girls at home for a couple 
 of days and we took a walking trip at a 
 frightful pace. He is so happily married 
 that he only touched the high places 
 would have done forty miles the first day if I 
 hadn t held him in. But one thing struck 
 me as odd. You know he never used to 
 drink much in the old days, but that night at 
 
 21 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 dinner at an old inn he almost put your 
 humble servant under the table!" 
 
 Life had taken on a new meaning for 
 Frederic Carroll. 
 
 IV 
 
 Once more the long silence of perfect 
 comradeship was broken by Molly. " Dear 
 est, if we hadn t this expensive place on our 
 hands shouldn t you like to go back to the 
 States ?" 
 
 He was startled. Was she reading his 
 mind ? But he recovered himself quickly. 
 "What! leave this paradise? Should you 
 like it?" He could hardly hope that she 
 would say yes. 
 
 " I was thinking of you, dear/ she said 
 sweetly. (A true woman.) 
 
 "Of me!" Again he gave her the ortho 
 dox answer (on her fair cheek this time). 
 She was always thinking of him, God bless 
 her! One is supposed to love them for that. 
 But somehow it was like the chocolate cake 
 she had surprised him with at his birthday 
 dinner. It was awfully dear of her, but, as 
 
 22 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 it happened, he did not care for chocolate 
 cake. (What should one do in such a case ? 
 Fred, being noble, ate three pieces beam 
 ingly and then had indigestion.) 
 
 "How about your work?" she asked in 
 nocently. " If this weather continues, what 
 will you have for that exhibition Tom was 
 talking about?" Clearly something had 
 aroused her suspicions. Or was it his 
 guilty conscience ? 
 
 He made answer without flinching. 
 "Honeymoons come but once in a lifetime," 
 he said, and "Thank Heaven!" he added 
 under his breath. 
 
 Suddenly she turned and searched his 
 eyes with a look that made him tingle with 
 dread. "Fred," she asked, without any 
 twinkling drollery, without any fond smile 
 "Fred, do you really enjoy being cooped 
 up here in this lonely place with me?" 
 (No doubt of it now! Something had told 
 her probably her intuitions; their intui 
 tions are wonderful.) "No, Fred, never 
 mind kissing me; I want the truth. You 
 know we promised always to be honest 
 
 23 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 with each other. Remember, there are to 
 be four more weeks of this, and John, the 
 gardener, says they are more than likely to 
 be rainy. Do you really think you can stand 
 it? Answer me truly, dear!" 
 
 It was the supreme moment of their life 
 together. Her happiness hung in the bal 
 ance, hung on him. Though in a dreadful 
 panic he arose to the occasion and perjured 
 himself like a gentleman. 
 
 "Stand it! Why, Molly, isn t it the 
 dream of my life ? The thing I lived for, 
 worked for, all these years ? " He looked 
 down upon her with a tender pity for the 
 poor, deceived creature. He leaned forward 
 to take the dear, trustful little thing in his 
 strong, protecting arms, and apply more 
 adjectives to her. 
 
 But with a shudder she sprang out of his 
 reach. "Then all I have to say," she burst 
 out impetuously, "is that you married the 
 wrong girl and I married the wrong man! 
 You may be able to stand it, but I can t, and 
 I won t! To you it may be a dream, but to 
 me it s a nightmare. No, don t stop me 
 
 24 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 now. You may as well know the worst. 
 I suppose it will break your heart; it has 
 almost broken mine. I have been fighting 
 and fighting against it, but I have realized 
 it every day since the Winstons left: / am 
 bored to death!" And she gazed defiantly 
 into his startled eyes. 
 
 Oh, how he loved her for those words! 
 But for the moment he was too astonished 
 to say so, even if she had not gone on with 
 out pause, seeming to find "a fierce delight" 
 in rudely awakening him from his dream, 
 in exposing herself in all her shameless wick 
 edness. The words rushed out like water 
 through a broken dam: 
 
 " I am tired of hanging about this dreary, 
 draughty old ruin. I like you more than 
 anybody in the world, but I am tired of 
 seeing so much of you. I am tired of sitting 
 on this hard stool looking sentimentally 
 into the fire. I want to see some one else 
 once in a while. I want to see my girl 
 friends. I want them to see my pretty 
 clothes. They would appreciate them. I 
 want to go home. I want to live like other 
 married girls, in an apartment, if necessary, 
 
 25 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 even a horrid, cramped, vulgar little bit of 
 a one, if it only has a big porcelain bath and 
 plenty of hot water. I could even stand 
 steam heat I haven t been warm since we 
 came here. I want a home of my own, 
 something to do. I m not used to idleness. 
 I m not domestic either, if you must know 
 it. But if I can t paint I must do something. 
 There s nothing here to do all day long 
 except put flowers in vases and look sweet 
 and hear how much you love me. I have 
 heard that already; I can take it for granted 
 now. I want something else. I hate sew 
 ing, I hate embroidery. I only pretended 
 to like it, to please you. These supercilious 
 servants won t let me do anything else, ex 
 cept order the meals and ring for tea, tea, tea! 
 If I so much as touched a dust-cloth Mary 
 would give notice. If I raised the window 
 to air my own bedroom Susan would re 
 mind me with her eyebrows that Lady 
 Harriet didn t do that. I want to go home 
 I want to go home!" 
 
 There was a pause. In fact, a ghastly 
 silence. 
 
 Her husband was in a daze, trying to 
 26 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 adjust himself to this topsy-turvy world. 
 "I I am surprised/ he stammered, and 
 indeed he was. 
 
 "I knew you would be," she said, weep 
 ing now and hiding her face, "but the truth 
 had to come out some time. Think what 
 it means to me! I know I am spoiling your 
 life. You are so noble, so kind, so good 
 but I am falling out of love with you every 
 minute. Fred, I always told you I didn t 
 deserve this great b\-blessing!" and then she 
 broke down and sobbed. 
 
 He looked at her a moment in silence, 
 then said: "And I thought all this time 
 I thought that I was making you complete 
 ly happy!" 
 
 "That is just the trouble," she went on, 
 between sobs of shame; "you are always 
 making me so happy, so uncomfortably 
 comfortable. You are always stuffing sofa- 
 cushions behind my back; but when you 
 leave me I throw the hateful things across 
 the room. I don t love you as you deserve 
 to be loved, and I can t. I m not going 
 to pretend any longer. It s unfair to you, 
 and it s killing me. I d rather separate. 
 
 27 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 I d rather go back to my father s home 
 before it is too late to correct this ghastly 
 mistake. I always said I hated marriage. 
 Well, I m beginning to hate my own mar 
 riage. I hate myself, I hate you!" 
 
 He had not supposed it was quite as 
 ghastly as all that, and, being a fatuous 
 male man, he began to feel genuinely 
 alarmed. "Do you mean that I am not 
 the right one, after all?" 
 
 "I don t see how you can be! If you 
 were I should enjoy all this just as you do, 
 poor dear." 
 
 She, too, had her heavy handicap of 
 "ideals." 
 
 "Molly!" he cried, seeing a ray of hope 
 and taking a bold step toward her, "I am 
 the right man, we are well mated, and I ll 
 prove it." He paused and, drawing him 
 self to his full, proud height, added trium 
 phantly, "7, too, am bored to death!" and 
 then he burst out laughing. 
 
 In dumb amazement she gazed at him 
 with ever-widening eyes, while he plunged 
 on recklessly, and into his voice there came 
 the clear, exultant note of a soul set free: 
 
 28 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 "I am so bored that I can t think, can t 
 work, can t see straight; so bored that / 
 dont even enjoy my meals! Now you know 
 why I ve been so silent, so depressed. You 
 may think you are bored but oh, Molly, if 
 you only knew how I feel!" 
 
 She hesitated no longer, but rushed tow 
 ard him wildly. "Fred!" she cried, also 
 laughing, " how congenial, how perfectly con 
 genial we are!" It does not take women 
 so long to adjust themselves. (Intuition, 
 perhaps). 
 
 He gathered her eagerly into his capable 
 arms. "Molly," he whispered, holding her 
 close, "let us give up these confounded ideal 
 surroundings; let us go home and begin life 
 anew ! " 
 
 There was a moment s interval while they 
 began life anew, without even waiting to go 
 home. 
 
 "And do you really mean," she sighed 
 happily, "that you are sick of mooning be 
 fore this awful fireplace?" It seemed too 
 good to be true. 
 
 "Sick to death of it!" he muttered pas- 
 
 29 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 sionately as he drew her to him again; 
 "your head against my knee always used 
 to put my leg to sleep/ 
 
 "Oh, you darling!" she cried ecstatically, 
 "it always gave me the dreadfullest crick 
 in my neck." 
 
 They laughed and laughed, gazing at each 
 other with new interest, so fascinated that 
 they scarcely seemed aware of the entrance 
 of the austere English servant bearing tea. 
 
 "And you were actually growing tired 
 of kissing me ?" she asked adorably. 
 
 "I was!" he answered, kissing her ar 
 dently. 
 
 "So was I!" she echoed, kissing him 
 contentedly. 
 
 Then, full of "a strange peace," they 
 took their places before the congenial fire 
 place, while the wind howled romantically 
 about the mossy gables of the charming old 
 manor-house. 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 "It all goes to show," said Fred, as side 
 by side they sailed back for their own 
 country, their own tribe, their own work 
 in the world, "it all goes to show that we 
 were meant for each other from the begin 
 ning. Doesn t it, dearest?" 
 
 "Well, at any rate/ said Molly, smiling 
 up into his face, "we are meant for each 
 other to the end. So we d better tell the 
 truth along the way." 
 
II 
 
 THE DINERS-OUT 
 
 SCENES: The Carroll? Town House a "quaint old- 
 fashioned home," though on Manhattan Island ; modern 
 bachelor s apartments (with fascinating Bohemian atmos 
 phere}; the Opera; a Police Station. 
 
 (ONE OF THE COMEDIES OF GREGARIOUSNESS WITH A 
 A CRUEL REBUKE FOR THE COMPLACENCY OF POPULAR 
 BACHELORS. ALSO A WARNING, WHICH WILL NOT BE 
 HEEDED, AGAINST THE COMPLACENCY OF THE HAPPILY 
 MARRIED.) 
 
 I 
 
 IT is to be feared that early in her hazard 
 ous career as a wife Molly Carroll failed 
 to appreciate all of her husband s dear old 
 friends. We refer at present to some not 
 of her own sex. This seems strange, too, 
 since each one of them, according to no less 
 an authority than Frederic Carroll, whose 
 judgment she still respected, happened to 
 be the best fellow in the world. 
 
 But there seemed to be such an alarming 
 number of best fellows in the world. New 
 ones were constantly turning up for dinner, 
 
 32 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 whose names, even, Fred had never men 
 tioned, painters and architects of the Paris 
 period of her husband s past, or mere social 
 acquaintances of his brilliant bachelor days 
 in New York (meaning not the only true, 
 "Literary and Artistic" elect), or old friends 
 of the Carroll family who knew and appar 
 ently cared more about the gossip and 
 family connections of that illustrious clan 
 than Molly did, and seemed to enjoy dis 
 playing that fact. 
 
 Fred, who was passionately gregarious, 
 loved them all. Despite his Great Happi 
 ness he enjoyed having them about per 
 haps because of his Great Happiness he was 
 no longer so scornful and fastidious as when 
 a mere looker on, "an amateur of life." He 
 was now, it seems, a part of the great 
 scheme of things. Love had aroused the 
 godlike quality of man, and he pronounced 
 it all very good. He had had a revelation. 
 There was no longer any distinction of clean 
 and unclean. This may account for his 
 broad-minded approval of brokers, mer 
 chants, and others not of the only true elect. 
 
 33 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 The worst of it was that since these two 
 were now one, his wife was also expected 
 to love all these dear old friends, even the 
 strange, uncouth ones, diamonds in the 
 rough which would never become smooth. 
 She was expected to achieve enthusiasm 
 over them at once, while they waited, as 
 it were; though it was sometimes difficult 
 to give the illusion, especially while they 
 waited for dinner, if Fred had not telephoned 
 that he was bringing them. (He learned 
 better after he became thoroughly broken.) 
 Leading in a grinning, embarrassed best 
 fellow in the world, "Molly," he would 
 quietly announce, as if wanting, under the 
 characteristic Carroll reserve, to say "I 
 have a great surprise for you" and sure 
 enough he had "Molly, this is Sammy I" 
 
 And then he would beam with quiet sat 
 isfaction from one to the other, rejoicing 
 that these two human beings were now to 
 have the inestimable privilege of knowing 
 each other at last, while she would do her 
 best to beam too, wondering meanwhile 
 what Sammy s last name might be (the 
 
 34 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 Carrolls were too reserved), and whether the 
 steak was big enough for three; and Sammy 
 would beam most of all, wondering, in turn, 
 what Fred saw in this slip of a brown-eyed 
 girl to make such a fuss over. For since his 
 marriage Fred had worn a sanctified look, 
 as of one set apart, and shunned the club, 
 except on rare occasions; and then seemed 
 quite benign and deep no longer cynical 
 and facetious, like the unmarried cubs, who 
 did not understand life s full meaning. 
 
 In so many cases, it seemed to her, Fred 
 and his dear old friend no longer found each 
 other so very delightful, having so little in 
 common, except the past rapidly becoming 
 smaller and less significant with the perspec 
 tive of time, but still roseate and precious. 
 However, if they were no longer particularly 
 congenial they steadfastly refused to admit 
 it, and laughed immoderately at each other s 
 jokes, asking, in pauses, eager, unintelligent 
 questions about each other s jobs, in which 
 more than likely they weren t at all inter 
 ested, though they pretended to be. 
 
 It was very amusing and rather pathetic 
 
 35 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 to Molly looking on. Friendship seemed to 
 be more important to men than to women, 
 though she would never admit it to Fred. 
 She sometimes thought that men were 
 really the more sentimental sex, and that 
 women were merely said to be, because men 
 preferred to think so, and because emotion, 
 which is not the same as sentiment, was so 
 much more important to woman, it being 
 her chief stock in the only trade man, as 
 yet, thoroughly approves for woman, though, 
 of course, men didn t call it a trade. They 
 were too chivalric too sentimental. 
 
 The attitude of Fred s friends toward 
 her, now that she was a wife, was also 
 amusing, at times irritating. For she had 
 not yet learned her place. Some of them 
 regarded her with a deeply, but respectfully 
 distant, air of devotion. Others looked at 
 Fred with quizzical pity, though she was 
 not supposed to see it, and upon her as 
 a nuisance, until they became really ac 
 quainted. Then they told her for hours 
 and hours about their love affairs assum 
 ing that she was interested and sympathetic, 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 and so she was, though sometimes rather 
 sleepy until they got wives of their own, 
 and then came, with the wives, an entirely 
 new set of complications. 
 
 Others, who had had unfortunate affairs, 
 seemed full of earnest sentimental appro 
 bation, as if constantly saying "Dear old 
 Fred lucky dog." And still others who 
 had the reputation of being popular with 
 women were effusively gallant, as if they 
 were gay old blades saying "The Ladies 
 God bless em," every few minutes. 
 
 Nearly all of these various friends, how 
 ever, seemed sane and comfortable enough 
 while talking to Fred, but the moment she 
 appeared the atmosphere changed like their 
 facial expressions and they began to exe 
 cute curious mental and physical gyrations 
 of pyrotechnical politeness, exploding oc 
 casionally with a complicated compliment. 
 They didn t enjoy it much more than did 
 she or Fred (who looked vaguely delighted), 
 but they seemed to think that this was the 
 way to perform before the ladies, God 
 bless em, and she being a member of the 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 only truly chivalric sex pretended to like it, 
 as became a dutiful wife and perfect hostess, 
 just as she pretended to be worsted in argu 
 ment sometimes when she wasn t, in order 
 to spare their masculine pride as became 
 the weaker sex. 
 
 She was beginning to see now why it was 
 that so many men in America shunned the 
 society of women unless in love with them. 
 Women were a thing apart from real life, 
 and there was only one way to talk to them, 
 only one use for them. In France, where she 
 spent much of her girlhood, when a woman 
 married she had her fling, her chance not 
 merely at lovers, as so many good Americans 
 thought who had read certain kinds of 
 French fiction but at talk, at conversa 
 tion, at banter, give and take, playing with 
 other ideas than sex ideas. 
 
 But most men at home seemed to think 
 that women, young women, pretty women, 
 shouldn t have ideas at all, and as most of 
 them had none themselves, except about 
 business and sport, there was no real con 
 versation except with those who could talk 
 
 38 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 about Fred s business. It seemed permis 
 sible for women to have opinions about 
 that, because art was a mere luxury and 
 had nothing to do with real life, so most of 
 them thought. Women were supposed to 
 be a mere decoration, as in other semi-bar 
 baric stages of civilization, an expensive 
 luxury which has become a necessity, or 
 a habit, like tobacco; used by some as a 
 sedative, by others as a stimulant. And as 
 she happened to be Fred s costly decora 
 tion most of them seemed to think that 
 they ought to let her alone now, except to 
 admire her and appraise her worth. It is 
 always rather astonishing to young women 
 who have numerous men friends to find, 
 upon marriage, how many of them were 
 potential lovers. . . . 
 
 She told Fred that she wasn t quite sure 
 whether she was a sedative or a stimulant. 
 But Fred said she was a darling, and as his 
 friends continued to treat her as "a cunning 
 little thing," in these early days of learning 
 her place Molly mentally retired, except 
 when a chosen few came to the house, and 
 
 39 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 looked on at the comedy of friendship with 
 amused, detached interest. Sometimes she 
 retired physically. Judging from the un 
 strained note in their voices as soon as 
 she left the room, many of them enjoyed her 
 absence better than her presence. 
 
 II 
 
 Irving Lawton and Horace Beck, the 
 two men Molly was inviting to meet her 
 country cousins at dinner, were dashing 
 young bachelors in great demand. One 
 was long and thin, and made dry, humorous 
 observations. The other was short and 
 cherubic and laughed at them. So they 
 were handy to have about, both in town 
 and country houses. 
 
 Irving and Horace liked being of use to 
 their friends. They were the sort of gay 
 and smiling bachelors, chiefly infesting our 
 cities, who believe it more blessed to give 
 than to receive, and seem ever willing to let 
 their married friends have all the blessings, 
 thus disproving the charge of selfishness in 
 bachelors. Hospitality is too sacred a 
 
 40 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 thing to regard as a mere matter of barter 
 and exchange, of give and take for value 
 received. Irving and Horace were above 
 any such sordid view. Well, since plenty of 
 their married friends were, too, these spright 
 ly young bachelors fared sumptuously. 
 They dined out so often that they saved 
 money enough on meals to pay the dues at 
 more clubs than certain of their married 
 hosts could afford. They had no stable of 
 their own, but they rode thoroughbreds 
 at week-end parties, supplying their own 
 riding breeches. They possessed no auto 
 mobiles, but they often drove their friends 
 cars, talking the language fluently. They 
 owned no yachts, but on the annual cruise 
 of the New York Yacht Club there they 
 were, cutting capers upon the deck. They 
 had no wives, but enjoyed the society of 
 other men s, sometimes proving more amus 
 ing companions than knit-browed husbands 
 who worked more or less hard to pay for 
 all this. In short, Irving and Horace lapped 
 the cream of life without doing any of the 
 milking, and yet some people wonder why 
 bachelors don t marry. 
 
 41 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 "Marry!" as Irving said one day to the 
 delectable and important Mrs. H. Harrison 
 Wells. " My dear lady, my income wouldn t 
 pay for your shoes. I can t think of mar 
 riage." Perhaps this was an understate 
 ment of Irving s income, for Irving was 
 "doing well" for so young a man; but he 
 was one of those who think that all of the 
 very wealthy enjoy flattering references to 
 their wealth. Mrs. Wells did not think 
 much about wealth, not having earned it. 
 She never displayed it consciously. But she 
 thought a good deal about her pretty feet, 
 and always displayed them. So Irving s 
 flattering reference scored after all. 
 
 Then Horace, the fat, comfortable one, 
 added broad-mindedly as he lit one of Harry 
 Wells s famous cigars: "There is nothing 
 I d like better than to have a charming wife 
 like you, and a spacious country-seat like 
 this, and keep it well filled with guests 
 like us. But when you are poor, what is a 
 fellow to do ? " And he chuckled, blowing 
 smoke in complete comfort. 
 
 Some men mope and moan about it and 
 feel sorry for themselves. That is foolish. 
 
 42 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 The right thing to do is to play the man, 
 bear up, and make the best of it, like Horace 
 and Irving. Time and again the Burgundy 
 was not warm enough, but they never ut 
 tered a word of complaint, draining several 
 glasses in tactful silence. If their host failed 
 to send the car down to the station to meet 
 them they philosophically hired a public 
 conveyance, no matter how badly it smelled, 
 and drove up smiling. When the girls 
 the hostess had invited to amuse them were 
 not bright nor good-looking they did not 
 avoid them pointedly, as some men do, but 
 graciously talked to them now and then, 
 and quite forgave their hostess if she 
 wouldn t do it again. 
 
 Irving, the tall one, was quite dis 
 tinguished looking and had a mustache that 
 turned up at the corners. This went well with 
 his way of saying "Aw, aw," when he began 
 his humorous observations, in a voice that 
 went high up in the scale and slid down again 
 delightfully. The ladies told him he looked 
 and talked exactly like an English Guards 
 man. He came from Martinsville, Ohio. 
 
 43 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 Horace was of an old New York family 
 the Becks. Strangely enough, he was not 
 so aristocratic in appearance, manner, or 
 tastes as his room-mate; but when your 
 great-grandfather has smoked a pipe on the 
 stoop of his shop in Wall Street every 
 evening for years and years, in his shirt 
 sleeves, you are not obliged to show how 
 high bred you are it goes without saying. 
 Sometimes, to be sure, Horace tried to bow 
 and talk like Irving, but it didn t seem to go 
 with his face and figure. Besides, Irving 
 did not like it. 
 
 Irving was a literary man. Horace was 
 literary, too that is, he had a job in a 
 publisher s office; but he was literary all 
 the same. He wrote the advertisements of 
 Irving s stories, showing how trenchant, 
 gripping, and full of red corpuscles they 
 were. It is much harder to advertise books 
 than to write them. Ask any publisher. 
 
 Irving wrote lovely stories. They were 
 about perfectly beautiful New York girls, 
 who invariably lived on the most expensive 
 part of the Avenue and always kept brough- 
 
 44 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 ams or limousines waiting outside, whether 
 mother or any of the other girls might want 
 to use them or not. But then, to be sure, 
 each member of the family had at least one 
 apiece. The men in Irving s stories were 
 fine fellows, too. They always had clean 
 limbs well-groomed, clean-limbed Amer 
 ican manhood." They also had silk socks 
 to put upon the limbs, and valets to keep 
 the limbs clean. All of which helped them 
 to do noble deeds for the beautiful girls in 
 that quiet, off-hand manner so characteristic 
 of our distinguished American aristocracy 
 of wealth. These stories, which would give 
 the aristocracy quite an uplift if they had 
 only read them, made not a little stir out in 
 Martinsville, where every one read them. 
 
 Irving made something of a stir himself 
 when he went back home on holidays. 
 The boys hadn t yet learned to wear their 
 mustaches that way in Martinsville. Per 
 haps they were jealous. The girls, too, 
 smiled a little behind Irving s back and 
 wondered how long it had taken him to 
 learn to talk that way; he did not do it when 
 
 45 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 he used to go buggy-riding with them a few 
 years before; but they flocked about him, all 
 the same, and smiled very differently to his 
 face. Women are so much kinder than men. 
 
 It was two of these very girls that Molly 
 Carroll had invited the popular pair to 
 meet at dinner on the eighth. She thought 
 it would be nice for them to see one another 
 and talk over old times. Besides, the 
 bachelors had once been old, if not inti 
 mate, friends of Fred s. 
 
 The young Carrolls, it must be confessed, 
 were not much like the people in Irving s 
 stories. They were more like the people 
 who bought them. They did not live on the 
 fashionable part of the Avenue, or on the 
 Avenue at all. There were no expensive 
 vehicles waiting before the door, not even 
 baby-carriages as yet which are expen 
 sive enough for the majority of those up 
 lifted by Irving s stories. And yet, though 
 not rich nor fashionable, they were "nice" 
 and came of "good people" on both sides. 
 
 They seemed to have no social ambitions. 
 Such things are known to happen, even in 
 
 4 6 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 New York. They enjoyed meeting their 
 friends, but that was because it meant a 
 pleasant time, not because it would get 
 them somewhere. They even enjoyed visits 
 from their country cousins. Some of the 
 nicest New Yorkers have country cousins, 
 it is said. Molly was very fond of hers, and 
 even of some of Fred s. 
 
 They loved Molly, too, though they were 
 rather perplexed by her choice of a "little 
 home" when they came to see her in her 
 "new life/ 5 Instead of choosing a flat in a 
 fashionable apartment-house more or less 
 near the Avenue, with an imposing entrance 
 downstairs containing appropriately dressed 
 diplomats and other expensive furniture, 
 the Carrolls had taken a house, a small stone 
 house, away up near the end of Manhat 
 tan Island, miles away from everybody. It 
 was what is called a "quaint old house," 
 and went well with their doggedly Colonial 
 wedding-present furniture. It had a grass- 
 plot in front and a small garden in the 
 rear luxuries not common in New York. 
 Molly loved it and raised violets. "Those 
 
 47 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 who don t care enough for us to come this 
 far to see us needn t come," said Molly, 
 picking violets. 
 
 Now, though Fred felt sorry for such of 
 his old friends as were not married, he 
 tried not to show it when on those (as yet) 
 rare occasions he dropped in at the club 
 looking sanctified. Nevertheless, he could 
 not help feeling proud of his pretty wife and 
 of his achievement in winning and keeping 
 her, though he tactfully avoided all refer 
 ence to such matters in the presence of poor 
 old bachelors like Irving and Horace, just 
 as, in former times, when he became popu 
 lar and successful he had not let it make 
 "the slightest difference." To tell the truth, 
 he had never cared much for the Irving and 
 Horace type, but they had cared for him in 
 the old dreary days of his early success at 
 least, they had flattered him and sought him 
 out and he did not propose to slight them 
 now merely because he had attained Great 
 Happiness. He took for granted that his 
 society was even more desirable now, with 
 the added attraction of, the one woman in 
 
 48 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 the world. Of recent years he had not 
 seen much of this pair. He was aware 
 that they had become social butterflies, but 
 he did not criticise them for that. It was 
 perfectly natural for those who have not yet 
 attained the real things of life to console 
 themselves, meanwhile, with artificial things. 
 He had once been a bachelor himself. He 
 had strolled through Vanity Fair and come 
 out upon the other side, mellow and benevo 
 lent. 
 
 The premature unworldliness of the hap 
 pily married is a dreadful handicap to true 
 
 success. 
 
 Ill 
 
 "But I tell you we ve got to go up there 
 some time!" said Horace to Irving, who 
 seemed annoyed at Molly s invitation, though 
 she meant no harm by it. 
 
 "We ve always got out of it before," said 
 Irving. 
 
 "But we owe it to poor old Fred! He 
 needs us; he needs stirring up." 
 
 Now, if Horace had been selfish, as bach 
 elors too often are represented to be, he 
 
 49 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 would not have let friendship stand in the 
 way of his own comfort, not even when an 
 old friend is too much married and needs 
 stirring up. They are much misunder 
 stood. 
 
 "Fred s a dear old dub," Irving admit 
 ted, "and his wife seems to be a nice little 
 thing, though she doesn t interest me; but 
 it s such an awful distance to go for din 
 ner!" There are limits to the sacrifices 
 one can make, even in friendship. "They 
 show poor head in burying themselves away 
 up there in the wilds. I can t imagine why 
 they did it." 
 
 "How about those girls from Martins- 
 ville, O. ?" asked Horace Beck, of the 
 Beck family, smiling. " Don t they interest 
 you?" 
 
 "They are good-looking girls," answered 
 Irving loyally; "you d be surprised to see 
 how smart they are they ve lived abroad 
 and all that but I haven t seen anything 
 of them for years and years [ yahs and 
 yahs ]. I scarcely know them now," he 
 added, twisting up his mustache. "Be- 
 so 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 sides, they ll want to talk literature to me, 
 and you know how I hate intellectual wom 
 en." It was a perfectly natural distaste. 
 When you have been making literature all 
 day you want to get away from it at night 
 fall, just as the poor, tired business man, 
 when he goes to the theatre, prefers chorus 
 girls to mere muck-raking or problem plays. 
 
 Now, some people, when they receive an 
 invitation they do not care to accept, simply 
 decline it forthwith, saying: "Another en 
 gagement." Irving and Horace were more 
 honest. They always waited for the other 
 engagement first. Or, if no more attractive 
 invitation turned up, they accepted, with 
 apologies for their unavoidable delay. 
 
 This time, although they patiently waited 
 five days, nothing had turned up except a 
 subscription dance (tickets five dollars) and 
 a charity concert (admission, three dollars, 
 programmes extra), and these causes did 
 not interest them. Honest poverty is no 
 disgrace. Charity should begin at home. 
 
 "Why don t they answer!" Molly was 
 saying. "But it s just like bachelors," she 
 
 51 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 went on; "they never think of any one s 
 comfort or convenience but their own. Do 
 you realize that we have invited those * dear 
 old friends of yours to dine with us three 
 times ? and they ve never so much as asked 
 me to their rooms for tea, as other bachelors 
 do. I don t believe they ve even had you 
 at the club as their guest, though others do 
 that, too." 
 
 Loyal Fred considered this unworthy of 
 his wife. "You know perfectly well," he 
 said, looking hurt, "that they cannot afford 
 to entertain." It was true. There were 
 many drains upon Irving s royalties, Hor 
 ace s salary clothes, club dues, taxis, the 
 apartment-house valet, luncheons at Sherry s, 
 flowers for Mrs. Wells, and the outrageous 
 amount one was compelled to give up in 
 tips every time one went to Aiken or the 
 Adirondacks, or even on a friend s private 
 car. Servants are such parasites. 
 
 " Dear me ! " laughed Molly. " I don t ex 
 pect them to return my invitations, merely 
 to accept them or, if they don t care to 
 do that, to decline them, so I can fill their 
 
 52 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 places. But they won t even do that until 
 it suits their convenience. They com 
 placently take it for granted that we are so 
 delighted to have them that we ll meekly 
 put up with any kind of treatment and think 
 it quite picturesque and interesting so gay 
 and dashing!" 
 
 "Then why do you invite them? They 
 don t ask you to." Fred was becoming 
 indignant, possibly because he, too, was 
 provoked. Wives have a dreadful way of 
 poisoning innocent husbands minds. 
 
 Now, Molly might truthfully have replied: 
 "Because you begged me to, dearest!" but 
 she was too clever for that. "Simply be 
 cause hostesses must have some one to 
 amuse the girls," she said, and, generally 
 speaking, this was even more truthful. 
 "But the joke of it is that bachelors, even 
 the best, believe that girls are invited to 
 amuse them! You see, dear, all the nicest 
 men are married, so we have to put up with 
 what s left. Consequently, the left-overs 
 are invited about so much that they get it 
 fixed in their silly, conceited heads that 
 
 53 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 they are fascinating. It s only that they are 
 bachelors unattached nonentities, hangers- 
 on, sycophants, fillers-up of vacant places 
 the chorus in the comic opera of society. 
 How I d like to show them what we really 
 think of them!" 
 
 "Oh, they ll learn their place fast 
 enough," said Fred after a thoughtful pause, 
 "when they re married." 
 
 Molly did not like that at all. So she 
 showed Fred his place by ordering him to 
 the telephone. "Tell your dear old friends 
 that I must know at once," she said, adding 
 to herself with a curious smile, "Men like 
 Irving and Horace never marry. That s 
 the worst of it!" 
 
 "I wonder if you received a note from 
 my wife the other day ? " began Fred pleas 
 antly, over the telephone. "We thought it 
 might have gone astray." 
 
 "Oh, yes! Yes, we got it yes, indeed!" 
 answered Horace, turning on enthusiasm. 
 " Isn t it odd ? we were just on the point 
 of writing just this minute must have 
 been telepathy!" 
 
 54 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 "I see," interpolated Fred. "Well, 1 
 hope we can count upon you, because 
 
 "But we had a tentative engagement for 
 that evening," Horace went on, sparring for 
 time and beckoning wildly for his room 
 mate, who, being a lazy literary man, was 
 just awake. Fred had elected to call them 
 up and down at their fascinating bache 
 lor quarters in an old-fashioned part of 
 town with a delightful Bohemian atmos 
 phere "a tentative engagement for that 
 evening," continued Horace glibly; "we ve 
 been trying to get out of it. You know, one 
 doesn t like to decline invitations to your 
 house unless one is compelled to, and we ve 
 always had such hard luck before, you 
 know 
 
 "Tell them," whispered Molly at Fred s 
 elbow, "that I can t wait any longer." 
 
 "It s the Fred Carrolls," whispers Hor 
 ace to Irving. "Quick! what ll I tell 
 them?" 
 
 "But are you coming?" asked Fred. 
 
 "We certainly are!" answered Horace, 
 who was rattled, but seemed to be more en- 
 
 55 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 thusiastic than ever. "It will be perfectly 
 bully. Thank you ever so much. Thurs 
 day evening." Then, turning to Irving, 
 who had begun to scowl and shake his sleepy 
 head violently: "Well, what could I do? 
 They had me with my back against the 
 wall. Now, if you only got out of bed at 
 a decent hour you could attend to these 
 things yourself." Room-mates sometimes 
 address each other thus in private, though 
 you d never suspect it of this pair, to see 
 them laughing affectionately at each other s 
 stories in public. 
 
 "Do you want to go away up there on a 
 crowded Harlem train, and eat a dinner 
 cooked by an Irish Biddy and talk about 
 Henry James s style to a couple of strenuous 
 females ?" asked Irving, yawning. He was 
 detaching the interesting appliance which 
 held his mustaches fascinatingly erect while 
 asleep. "Do you want to sit around in a 
 stuffy little parlor and admire the wedding 
 presents?" he went on, becoming more 
 and more eloquently awake. "Do you 
 want to watch poor old Fred Carroll fetch 
 
 56 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 and carry for his wife, like a well-trained 
 dog, and wag his tail and look proud of 
 himself for it ? Do you want to watch them 
 hold hands before everybody, and worry 
 about each other s health, and say: Aren t 
 you in a draught, dearest? Do you want 
 to waste a perfectly good evening on that 
 sort of thing?" 
 
 "No," laughed Horace, who admired his 
 room-mate s style more than Henry James s 
 "No, I don t; but we ve got to now, 
 whether we want to or not. So we may as 
 well make the best of it." He was a philoso 
 pher. 
 
 Now, Molly knew something about din 
 ners, even though she belonged to no clubs. 
 She came of a family given to eating and 
 drinking, and was proud of it. And she 
 knew something about men, even though she 
 was "a nice little thing." She knew, for in 
 stance, that certain of Fred s friends were 
 not so envious of his happy lot as he beam 
 ingly took for granted. But she did not 
 mean to let him know that. She was of the 
 inferior sex. Man is the natural leader. 
 
 57 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 When she first met them Molly had not 
 tried very hard to please the fastidious pair; 
 perhaps because they seemed pleased enough 
 already with themselves. Being a bride, 
 she wanted them to talk about what a won 
 derful fellow Fred was, as friends of the 
 groom should always do. But, perhaps, 
 they in turn believed she knew that already, 
 and, being very young bachelors, they pre 
 ferred to show what wonderful fellows they 
 were themselves, which did not interest her, 
 being a bride. 
 
 Now, however, she was no longer a bride, 
 basking in self-satisfied bliss and a beauti 
 ful trousseau. She was a wide-awake wife, 
 with a helplessly devoted husband to look 
 out for, who might not stay so devoted if 
 she did not look out. Perhaps the bache 
 lor s slights had awakened her; more likely, 
 Fred s unexpected slur on marriage the 
 first he had ever uttered. At any rate, this 
 dinner was not to show off the happiness of 
 their New Life in their little home after 
 all, a vulgar exposure to bachelors, even 
 when interesting but the cleverness and 
 
 58 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 charm of their bachelor friends, and to 
 prove what a pleasant evening they could 
 have at the Carrolls . 
 
 She made Fred drop in at the club for a 
 brace of the bachelor s favorite vintage of 
 Burgundy. "And carry the bottles all the 
 way home yourself, please, dear; as care 
 fully as if they were twins." The wine was 
 not to be shaken into unrecognizability. 
 She bought a copy of Irving s new book. 
 She placed it upon the drawing-room table 
 but not too conspicuously. She took 
 pains to cut all the leaves, a precaution 
 well-meaning hostesses should never omit. 
 She looked up Horace s strikingly printed 
 "fall list" of fiction, red blood and blue, 
 sweet stories and salacious ones; she learned 
 all the titles by heart. If occasion arose she 
 could say: "I know how you hate to talk 
 shop, but 
 
 As for the cousins, she knew they would 
 play the game without coaching from the 
 side lines, having been carefully trained for 
 the particular purpose of pleasing bachelors 
 since earliest infancy. So, reminding her- 
 
 59 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 self to smile whenever Irving was funny, to 
 be thrilled when Horace played his tricks 
 with coins, and even to appear silently im 
 pressed at the carefully casual references 
 they both would make to the grand Mrs. 
 H. Harrison Wells as "Mrs. Harry" with 
 all these aids, such as she used to contrib 
 ute, without conscious preparation, to all 
 men before she acquired one of her own 
 and ceased to struggle Molly expected her 
 little dinner to establish relations upon a 
 new basis as well as to give her cousins a 
 perfectly lovely time. 
 
 IV 
 
 It was an eminently delicious dinner 
 which now at last was ready to be an 
 nounced. The candles in the old-fashioned 
 candle-sticks were lighted. The wedding 
 silver, still new-looking, was waiting in 
 bright expectancy. The cousins had hooked 
 each other up in the back, and Fred had 
 hooked Molly up in the back, and they, 
 too, were waiting in bright expectancy 
 before a welcoming fire in a very old- 
 
 60 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 fashioned fireplace. Some other guests ar 
 rived, entered smilingly, began talking in 
 the vague, amiable manner of people wait 
 ing for dinner and kept on waiting and 
 becoming more vague, less amiable, for 
 fifteen minutes. The bachelors were late. 
 
 "Cars blocked again/ thought Fred. 
 
 "The dinner will be ruined/ thought 
 Molly. 
 
 " I don t believe he ll come at all," thought 
 the cousins. They enjoyed laughing about 
 Irving s conceit and affectations, but, all 
 the same, they were in a flutter over seeing 
 the celebrity, and, perhaps, they would 
 boast about it in Martinsville. Only, they 
 would do it in the form of new stories about 
 his incurable habit of boasting. 
 
 "Aren t you all starved?" asked Molly, 
 rising. 
 
 " Oh, give them five minutes more," plead 
 ed Fred, glancing nervously at the clock 
 wedding present from Cousin George. 
 
 "I m going to investigate," said his wife, 
 and stepped out to the telephone in the hall, 
 the others all listening attentively with the 
 
 61 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 uninterested expression of those pretending 
 to do nothing of the sort. 
 
 According to the boy answering in the 
 apartment-house the two gentlemen had 
 gone out ten minutes before, dressed ap 
 parently for dinner. 
 
 "Ah, simply mistook the hour," said 
 Fred, brightening. 
 
 "The absent-mindedness of genius," said 
 one of the hungry guests, an original chap, 
 and the others laughed, especially the cousins. 
 
 "Those fellows are much given to din 
 ing out," explained Fred loyally; "usually, 
 it s at a later hour than ours. Wait just a 
 little longer, dearest." 
 
 "We might as well," said Molly, sinking 
 into a chair; "the dinner is done to death, 
 anyway and it was such a good one!" 
 
 Half an hour later Mr. and Mrs. Frederic 
 Carroll, their cousins from the country and 
 the other guests sat down not to a delicious 
 dinner, but a warmed-over meal. It was 
 as stiff as their conversation had long since 
 become. The gay bachelors did not turn 
 
 up at all. 
 
 62 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 It so happened that when the last guest 
 had said good-night, telling Mrs. Carroll 
 what a perfectly delightful evening it had 
 been though they all left early Molly 
 walked over to the table, picked up Irving s 
 book with its charming picture of a girl upon 
 the cover, both wealthy and beautiful, and 
 hurled it at the fire, now smouldering and 
 discouraged; an act which the cousins 
 applauded and Fred thought entrancing, 
 though, being an orderly chap, he picked 
 up the book again. "Ah!" she exclaimed, 
 her eyes suddenly caught by something in 
 the evening paper upon which the book 
 had been carefully placed. "This explains 
 it all," she said to herself. An item in 
 that important portion of the day s his 
 tory of civilization known as the society 
 column acquainted the world with the fact 
 that Mrs. H. Harrison Wells also was giv 
 ing a dinner that evening. 
 
 "What s the matter?" asked Fred. 
 " Where are you going?" 
 
 "I m going to find out," said Molly, step 
 ping resolutely to the telephone once more. 
 
 63 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 "Find out what?" 
 
 But she was busy giving a number. 
 Presently the others heard her inquire: 
 " Could you tell me if Mr. Irving Lawton 
 and Mr. Horace Beck are there?" 
 
 The Wellses had almost as many men- 
 servants in their house as Irving had in his 
 stories. "Yes, madam," answered one of 
 them: "but the gentlemen are still smok 
 ing." 
 
 "Then please don t disturb them," said 
 Molly considerately, and hung up the re 
 ceiver. 
 
 "Your two dear old friends," she an 
 nounced icily, approaching her husband, 
 "are dining at Mrs. Wells s. They were 
 asked to fill a couple of places at the last 
 moment, I suppose. They couldn t resist." 
 
 There was a short silence, then: "The in 
 sufferable snobs!" broke out Fred, amazed, 
 aroused, furious at last. "That s the last 
 time they ll ever be invited to my house." 
 He had quite the head of the house manner. 
 The three girls were thrilled by it. Women 
 nearly always love it. 
 
 6 4 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 "Is that Mrs. Harrison Wells?" present 
 ly asked one of the cousins. They weren t 
 much impressed by the name, not having 
 the advantage of living in New York. 
 "Why, we know her! We all became great 
 friends in Florence last winter. She said 
 she didn t know you, dear, but she is a great 
 admirer of Fred s work and wants us to 
 bring you to call." 
 
 "My wife will do nothing of the sort!" 
 snorted Fred. Again the manner, quite 
 magnificent. 
 
 "Very kind, but I really couldn t think 
 of it," Molly began, then stopped, smiled 
 as an idea took shape, and added: :< Yes, 
 I will. We ll go to-morrow!" 
 
 V 
 
 A note, by special delivery, in Irving s 
 distinguished hand, was brought in to 
 Molly at the luncheon-table the next day. 
 It began thus: "We have just discovered 
 our egregious blunder of last evening and 
 are covered with confusion this morning. 
 Can you ever forgive us ? Somehow, we got 
 
 65 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 it into our stupid heads that your dinnei 
 was next Thursday another reason for our 
 delay in replying. During the season so 
 many invitations are sent out so long in 
 advance, you know. . . ." 
 
 "Mrs. Wells s, for instance," commented 
 Molly, reading aloud to the cousins. "But 
 it s dear of him to teach me how to behave, 
 all the same." 
 
 "... That seems to be the only way 
 I can account for marking your dinner 
 a week late on my engagement calendar 
 by my dressing-table. I am always doing 
 these unaccountable things I don t know 
 why. ..." 
 
 "Artistic temperament," suggested one 
 of the cousins. 
 
 "It s a bad habit," said Molly, with a 
 reflective glow in her eyes; "it ought to be 
 broken. Perhaps we can help him break 
 it." 
 
 Now, it is always well to be circumstantial 
 in these matters, and when a bachelor plants 
 his evidence in his bedroom it can hardly 
 be questioned. But it isn t safe to protest 
 
 66 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 too much. Irving was a fiction writer and 
 loved his work. His graceful note went on 
 at some length to express how sincerely 
 they hoped for " another chance sometime 
 to redeem ourselves." 
 
 "Who knows?" said Molly, smiling; 
 "they may get it." 
 
 Earlier in the day, when the cousins 
 notified Mrs. Wells by telephone that they 
 were in town, she interrupted them with an 
 expression of pleasure and proceeded at 
 once to ask if she might not come to see 
 them and their hostess that very afternoon, 
 as she had promised to go on the morrow 
 to the country for a few days. It was so 
 arranged. She came. 
 
 Though the grand ladies in Irving s books 
 were not much given to taking tea in houses 
 above the end of the Park, this one did not 
 seem to feel very badly about it, especially 
 as the tea was good and the house so charm 
 ing. "How did you ever find it how did 
 you think of it ?" she asked Molly, admiring 
 her independence as well as her violets. 
 Mrs. Wells had a good many violets but not 
 
 67 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 much scope for independence in her life. 
 These young people interested her. 
 
 Despite Molly s prejudices against hor 
 net solely due to Irving s innocent prattle 
 the great Mrs. Wells proved a most en 
 gaging person, not merely an impressive 
 personage. Despite the blare of newspaper 
 fame arid even the crime of being a social 
 leader, she had the low voice and simple 
 manners of several generations of breeding 
 in short, she was quite as nice a little 
 thing as Molly herself. It sometimes happens 
 so, even in New York, regrettable as it is to 
 acknowledge it. To tell the truth, she was 
 a shy little thing, though few of the many 
 who examined her through their glasses at 
 the opera would suspect it, seeing her se 
 renely relaxed there in her box, covered 
 (more or less) with expensiveness, against a 
 background of smiling admirers. 
 
 Now, Molly was not only a nice little 
 thing, but a proud little thing, and hereto 
 fore she had never permitted any one to 
 "take her up." This time, however, she 
 was not only willing, but desirous. Yet 
 
 68 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 she quietly played up her cousins and said 
 nothing whatever about her more "impor 
 tant" family connections the mildest form 
 of snobbishness, but the commonest. Molly 
 could be very charming when she thought 
 about it. She thought about it now be 
 cause she was deliberately playing a game, 
 and meant to have some fun out of it. So 
 perhaps Irving would have been more sur 
 prised than Molly was to hear his friend, 
 "Mrs. Harry," say, upon rising to go: "I 
 hope you can spare me an evening before 
 your cousins leave. Mr. Wells must see 
 them, and I d like so to know your husband. 
 I know his work." 
 
 "How kind of you!" said Molly, quite as 
 if she had not expected something of the 
 sort, the brazen little climber. "We have 
 next Thursday free." 
 
 "Why Thursday?" wondered the cous 
 ins, who knew of several other unfilled 
 dates. 
 
 "Let me see that s opera night. But 
 would you mind an early dinner and hurry 
 ing off to hear Farrar afterward ?" 
 
 6 9 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 None of the three girls minded, it seemed, 
 and the engagement was made. "Now, do 
 suggest some nice men to meet your cousins 
 men they would really like to have." 
 
 "Dear me! This will make it still more 
 effective," thought Molly as she replied in 
 nocently: "Well, there s Irving Lawton; 
 he comes from the same part of Ohio. 
 And I m sure they d love to know his great 
 friend, Horace Beck wouldn t you, dear?" 
 And she pinched the shoulder of the cousin 
 about whom her arm rested. 
 
 "Ever so much," said that cousin, while 
 the other one smiled vaguely. 
 
 Only for a fraction of a second did Mrs. 
 Wells hesitate. Perhaps she was tiring of the 
 facetious youngsters. Perhaps she would tire 
 of Molly soon; she was a keen enthusiast, 
 and therefore a fickle faddist. Then she 
 answered graciously : " I ll ask them at once." 
 
 Molly stepped out to the door with her 
 caller a thing never done in Irving s stories. 
 "But please don t let them know we are to 
 be there," she whispered, smiling myste 
 riously. " I want to give them a surprise. 
 
 70 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 Mrs. Wells scented a situation. "I won t 
 tell." She liked situations. "An old flame, 
 I suppose," she said to herself. "I wonder 
 which cousin it is," and away she sped, 
 thinking of other things. 
 
 Then, before Mrs. Wells s car was out of 
 sight, Molly ran to the telephone and called 
 for the bachelors. It was quite exciting. 
 She knew how necessary to her plan it was 
 to get word to them ahead of Mrs. Wells. 
 Good! They had just come in. " I received 
 your nice note," she said. "Yes, we under 
 stood perfectly, and we want you to come 
 next Thursday, as you originally planned. 
 . . . Not at all. It will give us such pleas 
 ure to have you come to our house at last." 
 
 "Because," she added to herself, "we ll 
 be at Mrs. Wells s house." 
 
 VI 
 
 This time the martyrs stuck to their 
 sacrifice, although it required real nobility 
 to turn down the opera and in Mrs. Wells s 
 box, of all boxes ! " It s * Tosca/ too," com 
 plained Irving. "I ve never heard Ger= 
 
 71 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 aldine in it." Some one had been remiss. 
 He had never heard Geraldine in it. 
 
 " Let s excuse ourselves early, as soon 
 as we ve smoked," said Horace, "and rush 
 down in the subway in time for the last act 
 and supper. Up there in the wilds they 
 probably go to bed at ten, anyway." 
 
 "In any case they can hardly object 
 when we tell them what we have thrown 
 over for their sakes," put in Irving with 
 some satisfaction. 
 
 Getting up to the wilds was the problem. 
 It was a frightfully expensive distance for 
 a cab, especially when it was all for others 
 pleasure, not their own; and Horace s build 
 did not go well in crowded cars. But where 
 there s a will there s a way. Irving got one 
 of his inspirations: 
 
 "We haven t had a long, hard walk for 
 days. We need one. It will do us good 
 and put us in shape to eat anything." They 
 took excellent care of their bodies, these 
 two, and that s right. 
 
 "But our evening clothes?" asked prac 
 tical Horace. 
 
 72 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 "Oh, that s so!" acknowledged Irving. 
 "We d have to start up the Avenue before 
 six o clock." And he blushed modestly. 
 
 "Not merely that," rejoined grosser Hor 
 ace, "but after a hard walk I ve got to have 
 a bath and a complete change." That 
 was all too true of Horace. 
 
 But just then came another happy in 
 spiration: 
 
 "Send a bag with our things on ahead by 
 Tommy, the hall-boy! Bathe and change at 
 Fred s. No, they won t mind they ll think 
 it interesting. That s the way to work it!" 
 
 Thus the problem was faced, studied, and 
 solved; and by the time they swung into 
 the home-stretch of their long tramp the 
 two jolly bachelors were in that genial state 
 of physical well-being where a good man 
 with a free conscience feels kindly disposed 
 toward all his fellow-men, and even toward 
 strenuous females. 
 
 "Good old Fred I can remember a 
 time when he knew how to order a dinner," 
 said Irving pleasantly; "let us pray he 
 hasn t forgotten hey, what?" 
 
 73 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 "Let us pray there s enough, whatever 
 she gives us hey, what?" rejoined hun 
 gry Horace, and with a sigh of complete 
 content he added: "There s the house at 
 last!" 
 
 "It can t be," said Irving as they drew 
 near; "it s all dark." 
 
 "It must be," answered Horace; "it s 
 the only stone house in sight." 
 
 Somewhat perturbed they mounted the 
 steps, they rang the bell. 
 
 There was no response. 
 
 They rang again. Same result. 
 
 It was beginning to look serious. "What 
 does this mean?" asked Horace, mopping 
 his brow. 
 
 "Let s investigate," answered Irving ner 
 vously. They went around to the rear. 
 There were no lights. They tried the door. 
 Locked. 
 
 "Are you sure about the date?" asked 
 Irving. 
 
 " Positive," answered Horace. " She said 
 Next Thursday, the very day you men 
 tioned in that jolly you wrote her." 
 
 74 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 There was a pause. They looked at 
 each other, a great fear entering their midst. 
 Horace voiced it huskily: "Irving, there s 
 no dinner here to-night!" 
 
 And Irving spoke: "Here we are miles 
 from a decent restaurant! Horace, I ate 
 a light luncheon to-day to feel fit for ex 
 
 ercise." 
 
 "So did I," echoed Horace as from a vast 
 emptiness. 
 
 It was a tragic moment. 
 
 They gazed at each other like ship 
 wrecked mariners. Like mariners they now 
 began to swear: "A nice way to treat us. 
 . . . Away up here and then forget all about 
 it!" But this was of no avail. It only 
 sapped their strength. In emergencies one 
 must think, one must act. 
 
 "Well, let s go and find a restaurant of 
 some kind," sighed Horace, starting off 
 wearily. 
 
 "Then go and join Mrs. Harry s crowd," 
 added Irving, taking hope. 
 
 "Lord! but our evening clothes!" Hor 
 ace stopped. 
 
 75 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 So did Irving. "We ve simply got to get 
 them," he whispered desperately. 
 
 "But how how?" 
 
 "How! Why, this way," cried Irving 
 resolutely, and he tried the kitchen window. 
 * These old-fashioned houses are always 
 easy." Hope was returning. 
 
 " Good ! " cried Horace as the sash went up. 
 Maybe we can find something to eat, too." 
 
 "Help me up," commanded Irving like 
 a born leader. 
 
 The short one got down on his hands and 
 knees. The long one was standing upon 
 his companion s sturdy back, when a 
 policeman s voice interrupted them: "Gee, 
 but you ve got a nerve" covering them 
 with his revolver "to try to put that across 
 this time o night. Don t move," he added, 
 blowing his whistle for help in case it might 
 be needed. 
 
 Irving threw up his hands, that being 
 the way they did in the stories some of his 
 literary brethren wrote about Western life. 
 Horace knew he could never make a mis 
 take in following Irving s example. But at 
 
 76 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 present it was impossible. Irving was still 
 upon his back. 
 
 "This is very awkward," said the fiction 
 writer. 
 
 "Very," groaned Horace. 
 
 "Sure," said the policeman. 
 
 "We can explain," said Irving. 
 
 "You betcher can," said the policeman. 
 He was feeling their pockets for firearms, 
 while his own swung from one to the other 
 of the guilty pair unpleasantly. "Ama- 
 chures," he said to himself. "Get down," 
 he commanded. "Come on," he ordered; 
 "you two walk ahead oh, putcher hands 
 down they ll get tired. Now turn to the 
 left. You can explain all you want to the 
 sergeant." 
 
 "This is an outrage!" cried Horace as 
 a couple of other policemen joined them 
 unexcitedly at the corner. 
 
 "Who piped yous that the help was out ?" 
 asked their original captor. 
 
 "We are friends of the Carrolls," said 
 Horace with dignity. "We were invited 
 to dine at their house, but 
 
 77 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 "You look like it," replied another po 
 liceman. Horace had been exercising vio 
 lently. 
 
 "Do we look like burglars?" asked 
 Irving in his most distinguished manner. 
 
 "More like a barber, with that Caruso 
 mustache," said the third policeman, and 
 the others seemed to like his low wit. 
 
 "Mr. Carroll himself will prove our 
 identity," put in Horace scornfully. 
 
 "But where are we going to find him?" 
 interrupted Irving in a whisper. "We re 
 not going to stay in a police station all the 
 evening!" 
 
 But it seemed so. The first three or 
 four friends they wildly called by telephone 
 were, like dear old dub Fred, inconsider 
 ately comfortably, no doubt dining out. 
 
 "Might one send a messenger to Mr. H. 
 Harrison Wells?" asked Irving icily of 
 the sergeant. 
 
 The officer did not look up. He merely 
 took out his cigar and spat. "Send one to 
 the President of the United States, if you 
 
 like isn t he a friend of yours, too ?" 
 
 78 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 "We can count upon reaching Harry 
 at the opera/ Irving hastily explained to 
 Horace. 
 
 They sent the message. They waited 
 long for the answer. They became im 
 patient. 
 
 "Let s try Harry on the phone. I think 
 there s one in the directors room at the 
 opera. . . ." 
 
 At last: 
 
 "Is that you, Mr. Wells ? This is Irving 
 Lawton." 
 
 A feminine voice replied: "Mr. Wells 
 has gone with a friend to get you out of 
 your little difficulty." For the messenger 
 had arrived during the previous act, but 
 Harry Wells said, laughing, when Molly en 
 tertainingly explained the situation, that he 
 and Carroll would wait until the intermis 
 sion before flying to the rescue. 
 
 "Oh, thank you, Mrs. Wells!" Irving at 
 the telephone proceeded with smiling grace; 
 "awfully good of your husband so morti 
 fying. Aw, aw, but it serves us jolly well 
 right for not cutting this stupid engagement 
 
 79 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 and accepting your delightful invitation, as> 
 
 to tell the truth, we did last week " 
 
 "This is not Mrs. Wells; this is Mrs. 
 Carroll." Then, in the sweet, innocent 
 tones of "a nice little thing," Molly went on: 
 "We have just discovered our egregious 
 blunder and we are covered with confusion. 
 Somehow, we got it into our stupid heads 
 that you were to come next Thursday. It 
 is so written on the calendar by my dressing- 
 table. During the season invitations are 
 sent out so long in advance, you know. I 
 am always doing these unaccountable things 
 I don t know why." Then, being in 
 terrupted by the uncontrolled laughter of 
 Mrs. Wells and the cousins all of them 
 near enough to be heard and recognized 
 by Irving at the other end of the wire 
 Molly hung up the receiver and the diners- 
 out knew that the party had returned to 
 the box to hear the last act. 
 
 80 
 
Ill 
 
 FREDERIC CARROLL, MONOGA 
 MIST 
 
 SCENES : A modern woman s club (both suffrage and anti); 
 an artist s studio; a wife s heart; her husband s; the 
 other woman s, and so on, concluding with a tableau in 
 the North Woods. 
 
 ("THE OTHER WOMAN" WHO is NOT VERY "UNPLEAS 
 ANT" BRILLIANTLY ILLUMINATES CERTAIN UNFORESEEN 
 OBSTACLES IN THE PRETTY PATH OF ONE ANXIOUS TO BE 
 "JUST AN OLD-FASHIONED WIFE," AND YET COMPELLED TO 
 LIVE IN NEW-FASHIONED CONDITIONS. THEN WE MAY 
 WATCH THE WORKING OUT OF AN OPTIMISTIC INTENTION TO 
 MAKE A REAL UNION OUT OF A MERE MARRIAGE.) 
 
 I 
 
 THE beautiful young celebrity who had 
 come, appropriately adorned, to deliver her 
 message concerning "The Economic Inde 
 pendence of Woman" to this select gather 
 ing of her fellow slaves, also more or less 
 expensively protected from the cold, knew 
 that it would not be easy to shock her 
 present audience into a serious considera- 
 
 81 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 tion of the subject, but she believed that she 
 could manage it. 
 
 It seems that a great many members of 
 the club were keen about the economic in 
 dependence of woman this morning while 
 their husbands were down town at work, 
 for numerous adequately equipped vehicles 
 might have been seen blocking the street 
 without while Muriel Vincent was being in 
 troduced within. She arose, slender and 
 very tall, quite self-possessed (for a slave) 
 and bowed with an engaging smile of amuse 
 ment, of superiority. There was a flatter 
 ing silence. The variously becoming formal 
 gardens stopped fluttering, the ornitholog 
 ical exhibits became as stationary as if un 
 der glass cases at stuffy museums instead 
 of resting appropriately upon complicated 
 coils of hair growing upon or belonging to 
 delicately scented ladies interested in eco 
 nomic independence. Then in a delicately 
 modulated voice, with a fastidiously languid 
 manner, as if not much impressed with what 
 she had to say, Muriel began: 
 
 "The difference between a wife and a 
 
 82 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 mistress is that a mistress is supported by 
 a man who loves her, and a wife by one 
 who does not. And that one of these wom 
 en is respected for what she does, and the 
 other is despised. We who are women have 
 decreed which is which. Well, we ought to 
 know!" 
 
 Among the many who had come to have 
 their minds improved, not having any more 
 serious use for them until after luncheon, 
 some merely smiled appreciatively at the 
 naivete of the epigram, at the captivating 
 manner with which the charming young ce 
 lebrity emitted it. Otherwise they were not 
 much concerned, being so thoroughly ac 
 customed to having their minds improved. 
 Some who were not so advanced, but 
 wanted to be and did not know just how, 
 smiled still more appreciatively. Others 
 looked on with vague, simpering, doll-like 
 faces, not understanding nor caring so long 
 as they were seen there with the rest. A 
 small sprinkling were shocked, but they 
 were not advanced at all, except in years. 
 
 One there was who neither smiled nor 
 83 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 raised her eyebrows nor missed the point, 
 but listened attentively, not altogether com 
 fortably, gasping a little, but maintaining a 
 detached, twinkling interest. She was a 
 new member, young, blithe, cheerful "a 
 cunning little thing," as she was pronounced 
 by older members, "a little thoroughbred" 
 by Mrs. H. Harrison Wells, who had pro 
 posed her for membership. Her name was 
 Molly, and she was not used to hearing 
 things of this sort (as yet). But she was 
 interested, and, like the women under half 
 the big hats in the room, she was thinking 
 about the man she had married, as women 
 always do, Muriel knew, when marriage was 
 discussed or else about the men they might 
 have married. That is what the other half 
 of the room was thinking about. Perhaps 
 that is why Muriel allowed a pause. 
 
 "There are other differences," the lect 
 urer admitted in the same carelessly grace 
 ful manner of letting her truths drop, like 
 pearls, from an abundant store. "A mis 
 tress, if she is not loved or supported to her 
 satisfaction, can leave her employer for a 
 
 8 4 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 better position without notice. Her lover 
 knows it. A wife cannot leave without con 
 siderable notice and her husband knows 
 that. On the other hand, a mistress is com 
 pelled to bestir herself, to be alive, alert, to 
 employ her God-given faculties for she 
 must please to live; whereas a wife need 
 not. She can live without pleasing. She 
 has her legal rights/ Hence she degener 
 ates, becomes fat and stupid 
 
 ("I m not fat," thought Molly; "I m 
 not stupid.") 
 
 " or else she cultivates slenderness and 
 frivolity, and corrupts the ideals if not the 
 morals of nice young men, who learn to 
 despise her and the sex they would like to 
 
 revere." 
 
 This also missed Molly, as it happened, 
 though she knew a woman it hit, in the 
 same row. 
 
 Some of them considered this sheer im 
 pudence, coming from Muriel, for they 
 knew her. "She s a disappointed woman," 
 thought others, "that s why she is so bitter." 
 Perhaps it was true. Some people, especial- 
 
 85 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 ly women, it is said, never think about any 
 thing they haven t felt. Why should they ? 
 What would it profit them ? Well, at any 
 rate, there was a spiteful comfort in this view 
 of Muriel s views for certain of these ladies, 
 who considered themselves " idealists, " be 
 cause they believed what they knew was 
 not true and claimed credit for it. So, not 
 liking what she made them think about their 
 own marriages, they now began thinking 
 about hers, and liked that better the usual 
 way in such discussions. 
 
 "Dear me!" smiled those happily mar 
 ried, "how little she really knows about it!" 
 That was undoubtedly true. Muriel saw 
 happy marriages so seldom that she hardly 
 recognized them any longer when she passed 
 them. 
 
 "A half-dozen children would stop all 
 this nonsense," thought one of the older 
 ladies, fanning vigorously. That might be 
 true too. The "old-fashioned wife" seldom 
 had time to think. And she had even 
 less opportunity to speak what she really 
 
 thought. Were they always sweet thoughts ? 
 
 86 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 But Muriel only smiled with amusement 
 and went on with her lecture. She had 
 them all listening attentively now and that 
 was what she wanted. " Pique interest with 
 your opening sentence. Arouse curiosity 
 with your second," was one of Muriel s 
 rules. She was a writer lady. She wrote 
 about sex and society. Some of her present 
 audience had laughed at her books, others 
 had cried over them, but all had read them. 
 
 It is true that she had tried the career 
 which most of them were practising, more 
 or less successfully in fact, she had tried it 
 twice, to give it a thorough test. She did 
 not think much of it. It had failed both 
 times, owing, perhaps, to the insolvency of 
 her partner. So she had abandoned it for 
 the present and riddled it with her pen in 
 stead. In this career she was not only 
 free economically, but free also to wallow in 
 the luxury of self-expression. Few of her 
 hearers were so blessed. They had hus 
 bands they feared or respected, or even 
 loved. They had children to consider, or 
 positions they valued. So they took it out 
 
 87 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 in reading books occasionally, and attended 
 lectures like this, thus indulging in the lux 
 ury of self-expression vicariously, quite as 
 they took massage instead of exercise in 
 some cases; and wrote checks instead of 
 working in the East Side, which was so ill- 
 smelling. 
 
 Molly Carroll had no children, no posi 
 tion to speak of, and but little fear of pub 
 lic opinion. To be sure, she had a husband 
 she adored, but suppose he no longer adored 
 her ? Suppose he wanted to but couldn t ? 
 . . . Well, the new member s mind was open 
 for improvement. 
 
 The lecturer was q-uoting the United States 
 census reports showing that one out of every 
 twelve marriages ends in divorce "And 
 God only knows," she added, "how many 
 of the other eleven remain in the ghastlier 
 state of the undivorced merely through fear, 
 poverty, expediency, or sheer kindness." 
 (It made the idealists squirm, and the old 
 ladies fan furiously. Facts often do. They 
 should be suppressed when they are "un 
 pleasant.") "But, after all, why should the 
 
 88 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 modern marriage turn out differently?" 
 Muriel proceeded, "especially the American 
 marriage. You belong to the leisure class, 
 your husbands to the working class. Mesal 
 liances are seldom successful. You allow 
 your husbands to inflict the curse of idleness 
 upon you, making drones of you because it 
 is no longer necessary for you to be drudges; 
 toiling that you may play bridge, char 
 ity, intellectuality and other polite games 
 toiling harder that you may play more lux 
 uriously. This is not altogether the snob 
 bery of a nation of parvenus; it is not al 
 together due to your own inherent ideals, 
 but to the adventitious ones imposed upon 
 you by your well-meaning providers. They 
 think it chivalry and you let them think 
 so. It is not their fault; they are mere 
 thoughtless boys they have no time to 
 think. But you have. Perhaps you don t 
 like to. Well, the time has come when you 
 must. For see the result: They are crea 
 tive and grow; you are consumers and de 
 generate. They are productive; you are 
 
 seldom even reproductive. They mature as 
 
 89 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 men ; you stagnate as overgrown, overdressed 
 girls, fulfilling no more useful function than 
 the sandwich-man on the street walking 
 advertisements of your employer s solvency. 
 You are not really persons at all, but things, 
 reflexes of man s semi-barbaric ideals, or 
 namental slaves, vampires, blights, destroy 
 ers of what you profess to love and prom 
 ise to obey, hindering and hampering by 
 disillusionment and expense the individual 
 growth as well as the social usefulness of 
 those whom you have the glorious privilege 
 of serving and guiding as helpmeets and 
 life partners." 
 
 Muriel s voice had risen a little. She 
 paused now and added quietly, "And yet 
 you wonder why he does not love you as he 
 promised at the altar! That promise which 
 is supposed to bind you together is the 
 very thing that puts you asunder. Love 
 may be divine, but marriage, as it is prac 
 tised and preached, is not even human. 
 It is inhuman." 
 
 Molly s frank brown eyes which had been 
 opening and closing rapidly now sparkled 
 
 90 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 with mirth. Muriel had overshot her mark. 
 The art of understatement had been for 
 gotten in her vehemence, thus affording 
 certain of her hearers a sort of comic re 
 lief. It was as when their husbands were 
 attacked in the muck-raking magazines. 
 Those stalwart captains of industry could 
 usually find some misstatement or overstate 
 ment which gave them a welcome excuse for 
 laughing off all the rest as "grossly exag 
 gerated." But though Molly was glad to 
 laugh, and could find much, for her comfort, 
 that was specious in Muriel s argument, the 
 "unpleasant" fact remained that she and 
 her husband were growing farther apart 
 every day, and that while Fred worked hard 
 for money, her only serious occupation was 
 spending it. There seemed the less excuse 
 in her case because there was so little to 
 spend and because her husband needed no 
 walking advertisement of his money-getting 
 ability, not being in a money-getting occu 
 pation. He was a painter, and the measure 
 of an artist s success is not supposed to be 
 the amount of money he makes. "Dear 
 
 91 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 me," thought Molly, twinkling, "I m not 
 even a sandwich-woman!" And so she 
 smiled again and missed the next five 
 minutes of Muriel. 
 
 This view of marriage was not exactly 
 the one Molly had been brought up with 
 nor Fred either, for that matter. But if 
 we give our offspring more or less practical 
 education for every relation in life except 
 the most important and practical of all, we 
 must not be surprised if they turn after a 
 while for instruction to such accessible sources 
 of knowledge as novels and lady lecturers. 
 For the question sometimes becomes press 
 ing and important. Molly had been trained 
 from birth for just one thing, and that was 
 to be a bride. She had made a great success 
 at that, but she was no longer a bride. 
 She was now a wife, and she knew as little 
 about her occupation as about being a 
 mother. Not being a mother, she had con 
 siderable time to study her present occu 
 pation. 
 
 She had been led to believe that "if you 
 
 find the right one," and if "you really love 
 
 92 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 each other/ then all the rest followed as 
 naturally and merrily as a marriage bell. 
 She had found the right one. So had Fred. 
 Theirs was notably a love match. In short, 
 they believed that they would get along to 
 gether to the end, because they couldn t get 
 along apart at the beginning. They had 
 wanted each other tremendously, and so 
 when they got each other completely, they 
 thought they would never want anything 
 else. But this, it appears, was a mistake. 
 
 "The one touch needed," Muriel was 
 now saying, "to drag this down from the 
 comparative dignity of comedy to the base 
 ness of vulgar farce is conscientiously sup 
 plied by its victims: While utterly apart 
 they pretend to be together for fear the 
 world will see them honestly acknowledg 
 ing what the world already knows namely, 
 that one or the other or both of them are 
 heartily tired of it and wish that it had never 
 happened." 
 
 (Molly was biting her lip. She did not 
 believe that any one knew that Fred was 
 tired of it as yet.) 
 
 93 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 "But when you hold him so close to the 
 grindstone by day and the hearth-stone by 
 night, allowing him to see no other woman 
 except in your disquieting presence 
 
 (Molly dropped her eyes, but no one no 
 ticed her.) 
 
 "when you make a slave of him down 
 town and a page of him up town, you must 
 not be surprised that sheer weariness grows 
 into irritation and irritation into despera 
 tion, with the final result that while he ap 
 pears with you in public he disappears with 
 out you in private." 
 
 (Molly looked up. "Fred doesn t do 
 that!" she rejoiced, but again she consid 
 ered her calling, missing some of the speak 
 er s views upon it. . . .) 
 
 "Whatever may be the new marriage/ 
 Muriel went on, for she seemed inclined 
 to admit that the institution had come to 
 stay, in some form or other, "men and 
 women will never get together on a sane 
 and lasting basis of mutual interest, under 
 standing, and respect, as life partners, until 
 women become economic entities as few 
 
 94 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 of you here are, or else you could not waste 
 this valuable portion of the working day 
 in hearing me earn my fee." 
 
 ("She must be a very ordinary person!" 
 thought Molly, who was "well bred.") 
 
 "In short, there can be no real marriage 
 worthy of the name and a help to civiliza 
 tion, save on a basis of political, social, and 
 economic equality. We have given the ex 
 periment of making men and women as 
 different as possible a fair trial. We have 
 finally differentiated them more than the 
 male and female of any branch of the 
 vertebrate kingdom. It is lovely for love- 
 making but miserable for marriage. Sup 
 pose we try the opposite experiment, of 
 making them at least as much alike as the 
 male and female Hottentot." 
 
 (" But I don t believe in woman suffrage!" 
 So that settled this argument for Molly 
 and some of the other old-fashioned wives, 
 who therefore refused to heed Muriel s 
 illuminating distinction:) 
 
 "Not for identity of function that is con 
 trary to nature; but equality of opportunity 
 
 95 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 for following and performing the traditional 
 feminine share of the work of the world 
 which is according to nature, and is accorded 
 all natural animals even the highest, until 
 man s new-fashioned improvements remove 
 woman s old-fashioned opportunities from 
 the home; where, nevertheless, man s un 
 improved sex ideals would keep woman se 
 curely chained to a soft, silken throne from 
 which she can neither descend nor ascend. 
 "For man s sake as much as for wom 
 an s," she concluded, "must this silly, 
 pretty, paralyzing ideal of sweet feminine 
 futility be abandoned; for the sake of 
 mothers and the producers of men who are 
 to enter a practical world must a more 
 practical sphere be substituted for this worn- 
 out, decivilizing, nature-defying throne of 
 impotence. But," she broke in abruptly 
 with her audacious though rather charming 
 smile, "it is merely as wives that I address 
 you now. You cannot retain his interest 
 in you when you are incapable even of in 
 telligent interest in his work, which is dearer 
 to him than you are, as it ought to be if he 
 
 96 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 is a man, and not a mere bridegroom. You 
 cannot command his respect until you are 
 entitled to your own. And if you hope to 
 hold him, without respect, merely by the 
 tricks of the only trade most of you have 
 learned, then he will seek a new bundle of 
 tricks after he has tried and tired of yours 
 with the result which one beholds to-day 
 on every hand" she paused and swept her 
 audience with a quiet smile "a great 
 many attentive eyes, most of them disillu 
 sionized." 
 
 And now as the speaker bowed and re 
 tired, gathering up the manuscript of her 
 carefully wrought epigrams, there might 
 have been observed the familiar phenomenon 
 of exchanging glances and non-committal 
 smiles from under the wide-spreading hats 
 now suddenly in fluttering motion. Every 
 one was curious to see how every one else 
 took it and anxious to reserve an expression 
 of her own opinion until the opinion of her 
 fellows had been expressed. Consequently, 
 except for a few who were quite advanced, 
 no opinions were vouchsafed, otherwise 
 
 97 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 than by raised eyebrows and indulgent 
 smiles. Most of them did not like it, but 
 they could not answer it. Muriel was horrid. 
 They could all say that. She was "un 
 pleasant." They had come to be massaged, 
 and now were scratched. Muriel was a cat. 
 
 Molly, when it came her turn to be pre 
 sented to the distinguished guest of honor, 
 received two hands and a more personal 
 glance than most of the women had been 
 favored with. 
 
 "Are you by any chance the wife of 
 Frederic Carroll, the portrait painter?" 
 asked Muriel with smiling interest. 
 
 "His vampire," nodded Molly, looking 
 with amused, mocking interest into the 
 brilliant eyes, slightly pencilled, searching 
 hers. "You know his work?" she added, 
 ignoring all that had been said about the 
 failure of wives in the anticipated zest of 
 hearing her husband s success acclaimed 
 before these other wives. It was sweet to 
 hear him referred to as "the portrait paint 
 er." Most of them regarded Molly as the 
 "bright little wife" of "a young artist." 
 
 08 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 "He hasn t exhibited much of late, has 
 he?" asked Muriel. " But I used to know 
 him very well before he was your hus 
 band." 
 
 "It must have been," said little Mrs. 
 Carroll demurely. She felt the usual sensa 
 tions of a young wife confronted by a wom 
 an who had once known her husband 
 "very well." 
 
 "No," she added, "he hasn t had anything 
 to exhibit of late. You see," she explained 
 in the same quiet, amused manner, "he has 
 had to go back into illustrating, now that 
 he has a destroyer on his hands." 
 
 Muriel laughed musically. "Such a de 
 lightful destroyer," she said as she turned 
 to tell the next wife how glad she was to 
 meet her. "Do look me up, Mrs. Carroll," 
 she called after Molly. But Mrs. Carroll 
 pretended not to hear and passed on. 
 
 And now having improved their minds, 
 the other variously beautiful and expensive 
 blights went on with life where they had 
 left off before Muriel had told them what 
 to do with it; perhaps a little more dis- 
 
 99 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 satisfied in some cases, a little more com 
 placently self-satisfied in others, but with 
 no definite intention of modifying the lot to 
 which fate had assigned them. 
 
 It seemed that the new member, however, 
 had come to a parting of the ways. So we 
 shall have to follow her, unfortunately, in 
 stead of those who glided off in limousines 
 to play bridge with their more or less gen 
 erous providers earnings; to attend Ibsen 
 classes or their babies; to go to hair-dress 
 ers or to men friends who really appreciated 
 them; to study political science or to render 
 reports upon the sanitary conditions of the 
 East Side calculated to shock chivalric polit 
 ical bosses into doing something contrary 
 to the financial interests of the bosses boss 
 es (who were the husbands of some of 
 these helpmeets) ; or to aid the women shirt 
 waist strikers, who were remiss in not hav 
 ing acquired enough sweet, feminine indi 
 rect influence of their own while acquiring 
 an honest living outside of woman s only 
 sphere. 
 
 TOO 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 II 
 
 The young Carrolls had the potential 
 ities of a very good partnership, and if they 
 had not yet found themselves, it was not 
 due to a lack of orthodox ideals. Perhaps it 
 was because of them. 
 
 With the pleasurable sense of "sacrific 
 ing a career" for love, Molly had thrown 
 over her maiden dreams of " doing some 
 thing" in order to "be something," a com 
 plete wife. That was the irony of it, she 
 thought now, as she walked home, her brain 
 in a whirl. She remembered the beaming 
 approbation of the older generation when 
 she made this announcement. Marriage 
 was the only career they believed in for 
 women, and their ideal was the Old-Fash- 
 ioned Wife. 
 
 But, even with the best intentions, it is 
 difficult to be an old-fashioned wife in a 
 new-fashioned apartment. There must have 
 been something in what Mrs. Vincent said. 
 The methods of the former generation sel 
 dom fit the conditions of the present gener- 
 
 101 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 ation no wonder, when they were evolved 
 from the conditions of the former! The 
 older generation seldom thinks of this, and 
 the rising generation seldom thinks at all. 
 It only feels. Hence we have comedy, some 
 times tragedy, when feelings lead them into 
 situations requiring thinking to get them out. 
 
 Try as she might, Molly could not make 
 her ordinary housekeeping consume more 
 than an hour and a half of her day. To be 
 sure, she also did all the other orthodox 
 things, so far as she was able. She darned 
 Fred s socks. She even gave her bedroom 
 furniture a fresh coat of white enamel with 
 her own efficient young hands. "You see, 
 Fred, I haven t forgotten how to paint/ 
 and he answered with his delightful laugh, 
 as she knew he would, and a kiss, as she 
 hoped he would, which also was quite or 
 thodox. What more should a true woman 
 want ? Not much more, perhaps, not for a 
 while at least, not while she could be sure 
 of that and baskingly blind to all else. 
 
 But she could not very well spin and 
 weave, because spinning-wheels are horri- 
 
 IO2 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 bly expensive, and Fred needed the only one 
 they could afford in the studio for back 
 grounds for illustrations of stories about 
 old-fashioned wives. If she had tried to 
 brew simples of herbs in this refined apart 
 ment-house the other refined tenants would 
 have complained of the odor, and the 
 "South American generals" who guarded 
 the refined glass-and-iron grille entrance 
 would have mounted the stairs and put the 
 Carrolls out. And that would have been a 
 pity, for they had only recently moved in, 
 their quaint old house having finally proved 
 to be too quaint and too far up Manhattan 
 Island, both for their business and pleasure 
 in life. It was too far from Molly s friends; 
 she was becoming a popular young married 
 woman. It was too far from Fred s art 
 editor s; he was becoming a popular illus 
 trator. Besides, if Fred s work took them 
 abroad, all they had to do was lock the door. 
 The expense of a care-taker was saved. 
 
 Well, there is one old-fashioned function 
 of wifehood which modern improvements 
 have not yet taken away from women, and 
 103 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 that is child-bearing; though, to be sure, 
 modern industrial improvements have made 
 child-rearing pretty expensive for men, es 
 pecially such as earn a livelihood by the 
 sweat of their own faces, not those of em 
 ployees. The young Carrolls had talked 
 a good deal about how they were going to 
 bring up their children. They talked about 
 it no longer. . . . 
 
 So as Molly could not very well sit still 
 and wait all day in their happy home to 
 meet Fred with a kiss, when he returned at 
 nightfall, wearied with the cares of the 
 world, she was forced to occupy herself out 
 side the walls of her happy home, and with 
 interests foreign to her husband s. What 
 else was there for her to do ? Fred did not 
 want her in the studio; it was not in ac 
 cordance with his inherited conception of 
 a wife a woman to set on high and wor 
 ship, a divinity to come home and say 
 one s prayers to, a helpmeet to share one s 
 thoughts, one s life. 
 
 As time went on, however, he told her 
 fewer of his thoughts, consulted her less 
 104 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 about his work. Naturally, since with the 
 kindest intentions he had carefully put her 
 out of both. She was still sympathetic, but 
 she no longer understood. "Why trouble 
 your little head about it?" became his at 
 titude. She was his wife. She should be 
 cherished and protected. 
 
 Then when he felt, with the supple sym 
 pathy of his sort, that she was conscious 
 of a certain lack, he straightway declared, 
 "When I lock my studio door I want to 
 forget my work." Home, he said, was too 
 hallowed to drag one s shop into it; the 
 fireside was sacred, "even though it is 
 asbestos/ he added smiling. Her girlish 
 ignorance he now thought quite charming; 
 it was so "feminine." For, your truly ac 
 complished sentimentalist has adjustable 
 ideals; when the stern facts do not fit them, 
 make your ideals fit the facts. Women, 
 he said, must just be a beautiful influence. 
 You see, the psychic side is so much more 
 developed in woman fine thing, this psychic 
 influence. 
 
 So, though better qualified than most 
 105 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 wives to be a life partner as well as a love 
 partner, she conscientiously stifled those 
 aptitudes and became a "cunning little 
 thing" instead. She had quaint, amusing 
 ways, was good at mimicry, a charming 
 hostess; her little dinners were famous. 
 Having now no other function in their 
 menage than that of professional amuser 
 and caterer, she accordingly spent the rest 
 of the time in catering to her own amuse 
 ment. She had recently persuaded Fred to 
 let her join a morning sketch club. He did 
 not fancy the strenuous studio type of 
 woman they were so often sloppy but he 
 laughed and gave in, since she wanted it. 
 This helped to kill another hour of the day, 
 against her lord s return, and gave her some 
 thing she could call her "work," and gave 
 him something else to smile at with indul 
 gent fondness. After all, it is well to keep 
 them occupied harmlessly, and sketching is 
 a pretty fad. Otherwise, she might have 
 become a suffragette. 
 
 In short, Molly lived very much as before 
 
 marriage^ except that then she had exercised 
 
 1 06 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 her mental faculties enough to develop 
 them healthfully, and that now she enjoyed 
 the added luxury of a husband who, though 
 he no longer adored her, still adorned her to 
 the best of his ability, regretting that he 
 could not do it as well as she so richly 
 deserved. In return she practised "vicari 
 ous leisure" for him, and vicarious maternity 
 for a number of dirty children on the East 
 Side. 
 
 This, surely, is an orthodox occupation 
 for a lady. It was what Fred s mother and 
 grandmother had done along with a great 
 many other things, which could no longer 
 be done within the home, as Muriel had in 
 timated. He beamed approval at his wife s 
 unselfishness. He not only approved, but 
 paid for it. He paid for it in money, which 
 he did not value, and in ambition, which he 
 valued highly. His breezy beginnings as a 
 precocious young portrait-painter, not so 
 full of power, perhaps, as he believed, were 
 full of promise. The older men had been 
 watching him with flattering interest. But 
 unlike some forms of art, you can t sit down 
 107 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 and paint portraits of people, no matter how 
 talented you may be, unless they want you 
 to do so; no more than a young lawyer can 
 try cases until he gets them. It is like the 
 actor s art or the architect s. Opportunities 
 must be achieved as well as the skill to 
 improve them. 
 
 Now, the Carrolls had escaped that curi 
 ous social ostracism which society is in 
 clined to accord impetuous young persons 
 who uphold it by marrying and which 
 sometimes hurts their perplexed feelings 
 when they find pleasant paths, open and 
 welcome to those riding alone in single file, 
 now barred to the same guileless pair in 
 double harness. The Carrolls, we rejoice to 
 repeat, were not unsuccessful socially. Im- 
 pecuniosity is sometimes a social asset in 
 "interesting people," and Molly s social 
 instincts had been awakened by one or 
 two experiences earlier in her career as a 
 wife. Since then she had "shown good 
 head," as even Irving Lawton would testify, 
 who was an expert in such matters, being a 
 
 writer of society fiction. The trouble was 
 
 108 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 that Frederic Carroll, portrait-painter, now 
 had to make an income for two, whether he 
 "cared for money " or not. Therefore he 
 hadn t time to meet the demand for filling 
 up country-places or ballasting yachts; and 
 accordingly his talents became in less de 
 mand for immortalizing on canvas the 
 slender forms and alert features of the wives 
 and daughters of our captains of industry 
 than when a detached young bachelor just 
 back from the other side and "very inter 
 esting" to women. He gradually aban 
 doned precarious portrait-painting entirely, 
 and did pretty girls for the magazines, with 
 straight noses and irreproachably smart 
 clothes, to illustrate Irving Lawton s smart 
 stories, so that Frederic Carroll s wife might 
 have similar clothes and improve her mind 
 at a fashionable club, and the minds of 
 other people s children in the less fashion 
 able quarters. 
 
 She had sacrificed her own individuality 
 for marriage, why should not he offer up a 
 few sacrifices upon the same orthodox altar ? 
 It is a social institution, not an individualistic 
 
 IOQ 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 luxury. Even painters, who cannot very 
 well exploit the public, should be pub 
 lic-spirited. Every one has that privilege. 
 Therefore, they had no right to complain. 
 They uttered no word of complaint. For 
 that matter, as time went on, they uttered 
 fewer words of any kind. They still dressed 
 for dinner in each other s honor, but there 
 seemed to be less and less to say as they sat 
 there, calling each other "my dear." . . . 
 
 Indeed, they seemed to be separated by 
 the very thing that had brought them to 
 gether, their difference in sex and all that 
 it entailed in the way of custom, tradition 
 and second-hand ideals. So long as that 
 difference was the paramount attraction it 
 arched the chasm between them, like a 
 rainbow; but when this should evaporate, 
 then the chasm only would be left. . . . 
 And so at last there came for her the hour 
 which she had always feared and half ex 
 pected from the golden moment when the 
 man she loved told her that he loved and 
 wanted her. He loved her no longer. This 
 he did not tell her, but she knew, and his 
 
 no 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 boyish attempts to keep this knowledge from 
 her and from himself were almost sweet 
 in their awkwardness. He bestowed gifts 
 upon her and thoughtful attentions, spent 
 more money than he could afford. It used 
 to be because he adored her; now because 
 he did not. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Well, they had mutual respect left, and 
 sympathy, and even admiration. Would 
 that have to go too ? 
 
 Now, though Fred s wife still remained 
 upon the high place he had made for her, 
 the woman he admired most in all the world, 
 it was not so easy to remain upon the high 
 place he had made for himself! For in 
 stance though still married to the woman 
 he admired most in all the world he was 
 strangely moved to admire others, too, 
 whom he had not married at all! And 
 yet if he ceased to be an admirer of beauti 
 ful women, how could he make admirable 
 pictures of them ? And then how could he 
 support the beautiful and altogether admi- 
 iii 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 rable one he had married ? But the worst 
 of it was that, being something of a realist 
 and very honest, he was tempted to let them 
 know it, after a manner he had long since 
 abandoned forever. 
 
 This would not do at all. For when you 
 are lucky enough to find the one woman in 
 the world, as he had done, God bless her! 
 it is well known that ever afterward you are 
 scarcely aware of the existence of any other 
 women in the world except by their long 
 hair and clothes. He had lived up to this 
 high ideal of himself and of true marriage 
 quite confidently at first, bestowing only the 
 most benign impersonally gallant attention 
 upon all others, including certain others 
 who had once known him well, and still 
 knew him rather better, perhaps, than he 
 knew himself. They refused to take him 
 seriously as a completely married man, which 
 was unkind. 
 
 "You are suffering from a bad attack of 
 matrimony," they told him smiling. 
 
 "You don t appreciate me," he replied, 
 "but then you never did" with such a 
 
 112 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 reproachful smile in his ardent young eyes, 
 which seemed only to amuse them the more. 
 It was discouraging to a man of high ideals. 
 
 Alas! he loved them all. He wanted 
 them about. He liked them separately, he 
 liked them in the mass, a half a dozen at 
 once, himself the centre, talking rapidly while 
 they beamed upon him, bringing out his 
 best. All his life he had been a lover, be 
 ginning with a boundless passion for his 
 kindergarten teacher who kissed him when 
 he left her for other teachers, other loves. 
 And now it looked as if he might always be! 
 a dreadful prospect for a man with a wife 
 who trusted him and was entirely too nice 
 to deceive! 
 
 He had been led to suppose that when 
 once your former loves all resolve them 
 selves into one grand, enduring passion for 
 a wife, then all your former faults and 
 fickleness are shrivelled into nothingness 
 by marriage, the great solvent, and you 
 arise on the wings of true love to wondrous 
 heights, a new, different, better man and 
 here he was the same old idiot after all. 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 It is a comfort to us to remember that all 
 this must have been entirely due to the 
 iniquitous artistic temperament of which 
 we read so much in books. No other hus 
 bands, it is well to realize, are anything like 
 this. The " plain business man," may not 
 be so exciting, but we are glad to believe 
 that he is always business-like and true to his 
 contract. Think of those eleven excellent 
 American marriages which don t end in 
 divorce. 
 
 Well, if the smouldering fires of youth 
 flared up at times, one must put them out. 
 Youth was past. He had had his fling. 
 He was married now, owned, possessed, 
 laid upon a shelf which he had chosen 
 for himself and there he must remain, 
 sighing occasionally for what might have 
 been, making the best of what was, keeping 
 out of mischief if possible, or, failing that, 
 out of print; thus serving society, offering 
 a good example to other young persons, who 
 in turn could also go blindly into marriage 
 and find out for themselves and likewise 
 
 serve society. . . . 
 
 114 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 Down this cynical highway of the world, 
 misnamed on its stencilled sign-post, "Mar 
 riage," dreary with the dust of many who 
 had gone before, monotonous with the simi 
 larity of undeceiving masks, this spirited 
 young pair of innocents, chained together 
 but out of step, was blindly headed until a 
 woman named Muriel, who had been cry 
 ing by the road-side, threw off her mask and 
 laughed at the comic procession. 
 
 IV 
 
 Molly was going to her husband s studio, 
 something she rarely did. She had arrived 
 at a decision, and being a woman of spirit 
 she was determined to announce it without 
 delay. For one thing, she had decided that 
 she could not for another day endure the 
 indignity of being an economic nonentity! 
 It was bad enough when your husband loved 
 you, but when he did not well, there could 
 be just one thing worse than her present 
 pitiable state, and that was her probable 
 future state, after she had grown fat and 
 stupid, let us say. So as she was of no use 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 to him, and as she could not be an economic 
 entity, not knowing how, she had decided 
 to tell him in a friendly way that she was 
 going home to her father. They could still 
 talk as friends. They were friends. There 
 were to be no hysterics. She would put it 
 altogether on her own selfish grounds, for 
 that was the way to manage Fred; if she 
 tried to prove to him that she was wrecking 
 his life, he would only laugh at her, take 
 her in his arms and kiss her. The days of 
 their unhallowed kisses were done. . . . 
 
 Her peroration would be this: "Fred, 
 would you share the income of any friend 
 of yours, however large the income or dear 
 the friend ? Why, it is unthinkable to you. 
 Well, so it is to me." Then she would say 
 good-by without any hysterics. 
 
 She was perfectly convinced she was 
 right. It was an irrational knot. It was 
 better to untie it before the knot became 
 fast with children. She was glad now, oh, 
 so glad, that she had no children. She and 
 Fred were free to separate. It was right 
 to separate. It would be wrong not to. 
 
 116 
 
But as it happened she did interrupt him, though not at his work 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 It was half dark when she arrived at the 
 studio building, so she knew that she would 
 not interrupt anything more serious than 
 the cleaning of his brushes. 
 
 But as it happened she did interrupt him, 
 though not at work. It seems that he had 
 finished his work, and there, seated beside 
 a pleasant open fire, were her husband and 
 a woman. It was Muriel Vincent. 
 
 She was making him a cup of tea while the 
 driving rain beat upon the skylight over 
 head. Molly recognized one of the numer 
 ous tea services she had received as wedding 
 presents. Fred was leaning back in a long, 
 low chair rolling a cigarette with his deft 
 fingers, and seemed to be quite contented 
 with his lot. There was something in the 
 mutual attitude of these two which sug 
 gested that the scene was as familiar to them 
 as it was novel to Molly. 
 
 Fred, arising briskly for a lazy man, at 
 tempted an introduction, stopped, seeing 
 that it was unnecessary, both women ex 
 plaining why at once. 
 117 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 "I had no idea I was to have this good 
 fortune so soon," sang Muriel easily. 
 
 "Nor I," said Molly, brightly returning 
 the look. 
 
 Muriel in the shadow smiled as she 
 watched the girl s face. "A conventional 
 little thing," she thought. "This will do 
 her good." To Muriel all wives in good 
 and regular standing were conventional 
 little things. 
 
 Strangely enough, instead of the calm 
 dignity with which Molly commanded the 
 studio in her imaginary interview with her 
 husband, she suddenly felt neither calm nor 
 dignified, nor did she think for the moment 
 of saying good-by forever. Nevertheless, 
 she held herself in hand and played the 
 game pretty well for a conventional little 
 thing who had had no experience with 
 husbands who "disappear in private," as 
 Muriel had put it in her lecture. 
 
 "How comfy you look!" was what she 
 said aloud to them; to herself she said, "I 
 
 might have guessed it!" 
 118 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 "Won t you try this one?" said Fred, 
 offering her a great, tall Italian chair quite 
 as if she were a distinguished stranger. 
 She had helped him bargain for that chair 
 once when in Genoa. He brought her a 
 footstool, too. He seemed quite desirous 
 of making her also "comfy." 
 
 "You are just in time," said Muriel, 
 bending over the tea things. 
 
 "For what?" asked Molly with a smile. 
 
 "For tea," said Fred. 
 
 "Oh," said Molly. 
 
 "May I make you a cup ?" asked Muriel. 
 
 "Thanks, I ve had my tea. I merely 
 dropped in to escape the storm. Isn t it 
 a dreadful storm?" 
 
 To this the others amicably agreed, and 
 then there was a little pause, Muriel smiling 
 with unseen relish. She loved this sort of 
 thing, perhaps because she was a novelist. 
 "Don t you think you d better have another 
 cup ? " she asked. 
 
 "Do," urged Fred, "it s awfully good 
 
 tea." 
 
 Strong or weak?" Muriel inquired. 
 
 119 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 "Pray don t trouble/ said little Mrs. 
 Carroll, quietly seating herself at the table, 
 "I can make it myself." This seemed 
 eminently permissible. It was her own 
 tea service. Muriel had not even been the 
 donor of this wedding present. Hence, 
 Muriel did not object. 
 
 There was another little pause, which 
 Muriel alone enjoyed. 
 
 " Where in the world is the sugar?" 
 Molly asked her husband. 
 
 "I ll get it," said Muriel rising. 
 
 "Please don t trouble," said Molly with 
 an amused smile, "Fred will find it." 
 
 "But I don t know where she keeps it," 
 said Fred, and then he remembered too 
 late that it is always best to think before 
 speaking. 
 
 "Oh, I see," said Molly, and then, be 
 cause she felt the crimson in her cheeks, 
 began to laugh a little, for that seemed the 
 only thing to do, and Fred laughed, too. 
 Then Muriel, filling one of Molly s wedding 
 presents with sugar, laughed most of all. 
 They felt so much better then that they 
 
 120 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 talked about other things, though they 
 thought about only one thing. 
 
 "May I show the head to Molly ?" asked 
 Fred with a sudden inspiration. 
 
 "Oh, you have been doing Mrs. Vin 
 cent s portrait?" Molly inquired. She 
 knew that it was an inspiration, but she 
 felt relieved. 
 
 The head was an interesting study, and 
 Molly said so. The brilliance was there, the 
 superficial charm, the glitter and a cer 
 tain wistful desire for better things. Fred 
 was not a bad psychologist, when he let 
 himself go and only felt. It was when he 
 tried to think that he ran into trouble. 
 Molly was not so much in awe of the 
 celebrity after seeing Fred s view of her. 
 Like so many who are impressive in public, 
 she was not at all impressive in conversa 
 tion. But she was dreadfully good looking, 
 and Fred treated her with the easy assur 
 ance of old friendship, fondness maybe. 
 
 "He knows me too well," said Muriel, 
 gazing upon the canvas, with an interest 
 ing shrug. "It s a frightful expose. I shall 
 
 121 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 never let any one else see it." She rippled 
 from one picturesque pose to another as she 
 spoke. Molly watched her passively, think 
 ing of many things, the lecture, for instance 
 "the grind-stone by day, the hearth-stone 
 by night." 
 
 Fred was getting out other canvases. 
 "You ought to come oftener," he said to 
 Molly. "I ve lots of junk here." 
 
 "Perhaps I ought." She smiled. Muriel 
 saw the smile, saw the point, appreciated both. 
 
 "Muriel has been advising me to finish 
 up some of this stuff," he went on from the 
 corner where he was blowing dust off old 
 sketches. "It s mostly rot, but it s awfully 
 good of her to take an interest in it. Don t 
 you think so, Molly?" 
 
 "I once loved your husband madly," 
 Muriel remarked with elaborate careless 
 ness, "but he would have none of me." 
 
 "What atrocious taste," said Molly with 
 a side glance at the portrait. 
 
 "I thought so at the time," Muriel re 
 plied. "But I don t now," she added, 
 with an appreciative look at Molly. 
 
 122 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 Fred s young wife turned slowly and 
 looked at Muriel with an air of calm, de 
 tached interest. "Dear me," she said to 
 herself, "she seems to think she can afford 
 to be nice to me!" 
 
 Muriel noted the look and her eyebrows 
 shot up as Molly turned away. She was 
 somewhat taken aback. She was amused, 
 but aroused. Fred displaying canvases 
 against chairs and table legs did not know 
 that with two brief glances a gauntlet had 
 been thrown down and taken up, and that 
 he was the prize of contest. 
 
 "I must be going on," said Mrs. Carroll, 
 fastening her gloves. " Good-by, my dear," 
 to Fred. "So nice to have seen you," to 
 Muriel. "I am at home on Wednes 
 days." 
 
 "Thanks," said Muriel, a little surprised. 
 For a conventional little thing, that was not 
 a bad exit speech, thought Muriel, remem 
 bering her own invitation to call, unheeded 
 by Molly at the club. 
 
 "Are you going to some place where you 
 don t want me tagging on?" asked Fred. 
 123 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 There was a quizzical smile on his wife s 
 face as she said one little word, "Home." 
 
 Fred laughed, and Muriel flashed a look 
 of admiration. Muriel loved subtlety. 
 
 "Won t you come, too?" Molly asked 
 her, as Fred turned for his hat, as if quite ac 
 customed to leaving Muriel in possession. 
 
 Muriel shook her head. "Thanks," she 
 said, going to the door with them, "I live 
 here." 
 
 "Here?" 
 
 "In this building across the hall." 
 
 "Ah, yes." There was a faint breath of 
 contempt in Molly s tone, which annoyed 
 Muriel the smug superiority of a wife. 
 
 Bidding their guest good-by in the cor 
 ridor, Mr. and Mrs. Frederic Carroll walked 
 home together, remarking upon the after 
 glow down the canons of the cross streets, 
 an effect they had often admired together, 
 being one which everybody on coming to 
 New York discovers afresh, and informs 
 New York of it, considerately. It was espe 
 cially fine now after the rain, so they dis 
 cussed it animatedly while both thought of 
 
 124. 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 something else, and each knew what the 
 other was thinking about. . . . And yet 
 here was a pair who had a sense of humor 
 they often told you so. 
 
 Always a fickle and variable thing is 
 woman. Here were added excellent reasons 
 for untying the irrational knot another 
 woman making tea for him, helping him 
 in his work, brightening his gray horizon; 
 a beautiful woman, too! and Fred was a 
 worshipper of beauty. Yet the knot was 
 allowed to remain. 
 
 If to be an economic nonentity were bad 
 enough when happily married, and still 
 worse after a husband has lost interest in 
 his wife, surely it was worst of all, an intol 
 erable disgrace, when he has begun to 
 show interest in one who wasn t his wife. 
 Previously she had loved and respected 
 him; now she was inclined to hate and de 
 spise him, and yet instead of saying good-by 
 forever she wanted to cling to the unworthy 
 I2 5 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 deceiver for, no doubt, a corresponding period 
 of time. . . . 
 
 Somehow the vaunted sense of humor 
 which the modern generation prates of with 
 such humorless incessancy does not seem 
 to help much when it is needed most. The 
 important emotions do not stop to consult 
 humor. They have their way with us quite 
 as in the old days before the distressingly 
 overworked phrase was invented. 
 
 Little Molly was confronted by a force 
 greater than herself, imperious and quite 
 irrational. It was sweeping her off her feet 
 in the insolent manner of the real things of 
 life, few of which are conspicuously rational. 
 What we think about them in our little 
 minds is interesting to us, but of no great 
 consequence to them. 
 
 It is for some great racial purpose that 
 this oft-maligned instinct of jealousy persists 
 along with its all-praised parent, love. Per 
 haps this girl would now awake and become 
 a woman, perhaps she would even make 
 a man of her husband but that de 
 pends! 
 
 126 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 Throughout the sleepless night following 
 the innocent little scene she had interrupt 
 ed in the studio, this somewhat civilized 
 young person was led by her uncivilized 
 emotions into depths she had not dreamed 
 of. She even, toward morning, saw herself 
 accepting so happy to accept whatever 
 portion her lord would grant her, if only he 
 kept her near. Many a wife, she knew, 
 had learned to adjust herself to a husband s 
 past not only, but to a present as well, 
 shutting her eyes to what she must not see, 
 forgiving what seemed unforgivable because 
 unable to keep her little share of the world 
 without forgiving. 
 
 Oh, what a chance she had missed! 
 Another was now helping him in his work 
 (" which is dearer to him than you are," 
 Muriel had said in her lecture, "as it ought 
 to be if he is a man and not a mere bride 
 groom") another was reviving his stifled 
 ambition, filling a place in his dreary, dis 
 appointing existence and the place was 
 hers, his wife s. She had lost it, and it was 
 her fault, not his. She had allowed herself 
 127 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 to become a "cunning little thing/ a doll, 
 an expensive plaything; he was tired of 
 this plaything and now wanted another. 
 "When a woman ceases to be a luxury to a 
 man she becomes a nuisance unless by 
 that time she has made herself a necessity." 
 Those words, scarcely heeded at the time, 
 came back to her now, and they too, by 
 an ironic coincidence, had been uttered by 
 Muriel! . . . 
 
 Well, by dawn the paroxysm had passed, 
 as paroxysms have a way of doing in many 
 a little apartment, while the yet new-looking 
 wedding presents confidently wait to be 
 dusted. With the clear daylight she looked 
 the matter in the face to see what could be 
 done about it. She would not mope and 
 moan and break her heart. She was not 
 that sort. There was plenty of latent spirit 
 in this girl. Nothing had ever happened 
 to bring it out. Few women are loafers by 
 nature, as are so many men. Women have 
 seldom had a chance to loaf until modern 
 times, and it is to be noted that even in 
 
 their clubs they have not completely mas- 
 128 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 tered the art. They must have programmes 
 for improving their minds. 
 
 Since she could not do without him, she 
 resolved to get him back. She knew that 
 she could make a fuss, and he would do his 
 duty, rather than hurt her. But she did not 
 want duty. She wanted love. 
 
 How could she get that, with her little 
 quiver-full of charms, all known, all worn, 
 matched with that opulent other ? She 
 knew that her man was no inexperienced 
 weakling, but she also knew how the very 
 meretriciousness of Muriel s allure, so mad 
 dening to contemplate, "interested" men 
 who had been kept too close to "the grind 
 stone by day and the hearth-stone by night." 
 Whether "the other" would deem it worth 
 while to exercise her exotic arts did not 
 occur to Molly. A young wife always be 
 lieves her husband worth while, perhaps 
 because she found him so; just as she al 
 ways thinks her husband particularly sus 
 ceptible, for, again, had not she found him so ? 
 
 First of all she would never let Fred 
 know what she had gone through. For she 
 129 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 was aware that there is nothing so ugly and 
 disillusionizing as an exhibition of jealousy. 
 That was why she stayed in her bedroom 
 until after he had breakfasted and gone 
 whistling to the studio, thinking perhaps of 
 tea time. He would have seen her red 
 eyes and perhaps have guessed the rest. 
 He doubtless suspected her already. 
 
 She repressed another natural feminine 
 impulse. She might easily make him jeal 
 ous. She could flirt with the first available 
 male she found, and her husband would 
 come running back to put the poacher off. 
 That device was employed by some women 
 and most playwrights to produce an illu 
 sion of happy marriage; the estranged pair 
 rushed passionately into each other s arms 
 and stayed there until the curtain went 
 down. But she was not sure that this 
 would keep him long from stealing away 
 again to gaze at the forbidden fruit, perhaps 
 to pluck it this time. Fred was quick as 
 a woman in such matters; he might see 
 through this sorry little ruse and despise 
 her for it. At any rate, she would despise 
 130 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 herself for it. She was sick of the "tricks 
 of her trade/ as Muriel had called them. 
 No, she wanted him to come back to her of 
 his own accord, because he preferred her 
 to all others. She wanted all or nothing a 
 large order for a cunning little thing. 
 
 VI 
 
 Fred had painted Muriel s portrait, and 
 when it was finished she had remained to 
 do his in a story about monogamy. It 
 began, "Some are born monogamous, some 
 achieve monogamy, and some have monog 
 amy thrust upon them." The second para 
 graph was like unto it: "But when a 
 man is polygamous by nature, monogamous 
 by contract, and fascinating by tempera 
 ment there comes trouble when success 
 arrives with women in its train." 
 
 Fred did not know that she was writing 
 a story about him. But he was not sorry 
 that she saw fit to continue her visits even 
 after the canvas was finished. She seemed 
 to know a good deal about his trade and 
 he needed some one with a fresh eye to 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 show his work to, and talk it over with; 
 particularly some woman, because no man, 
 even the most devoted friend, will look so 
 long, listen so patiently as even a casual 
 woman friend, and this one happened to be 
 an old friend of whom he had not seen 
 much of late years since she became suc 
 cessful far more successful, as it happened, 
 than he was, despite her tribute in her story 
 about him. Maybe that was why he failed 
 to recognize it when published. Muriel 
 concocted notable heroes. No wonder the 
 women loved her works. 
 
 Fred did not think much of her books, 
 but he liked her looks, and said so. He 
 thought her stories absurd and told her 
 that, too. "You always write at the top 
 of your voice when you write about men," 
 he said, chaffing her. But she did not seem 
 absurd when she was with them, nor, by 
 the way, did she talk to Fred at the top of 
 her voice in his studio. She knew a good 
 deal about men. She knew more about 
 men than she cared to tell. Men were her 
 
 metier. 
 
 132 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 Poor Muriel, she was by nature one of 
 those same "idealists." For that matter, 
 every one is by nature. She covered it up 
 with a glittering shield of cynicism, perhaps 
 to defend herself. Scratch a live cynic and 
 you ll find a dead sentimentalist. Muriel 
 was not dead. Though she had received 
 some of the hardest raps a woman can 
 suffer and yet live, she always sprang up 
 again, crying, "I believe! I believe!" 
 Surely, there is something noble in this. In 
 regard to men she was cynical only about 
 those men she knew. She still had faith in 
 those she did not know, hence she sought 
 to know many, and Fred happened to be 
 the one at present about whom she chose 
 to wrap her pretty colors. 
 
 He had the fascinating "reserve" of 
 those who can t talk so attractive to chatter 
 boxes a "deep, strong nature," she called 
 it in her earlier stories, for Fred had been 
 the hero of more than one of them. This, 
 combined with a fastidiously appreciative 
 way of regarding her in his "reserved" 
 silences, made him quite delightful to 
 133 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 Muriel, who could not help wanting to 
 arouse him; he was so big and clean and 
 fine, and seemed so provokingly sure of 
 himself, with his smiling air of raillery, as 
 if saying, "Oh, I ve been through all that 
 sort of thing, you know. Nothing can touch 
 me now/ She knew that he was not so 
 crude as most American men, but compared 
 to certain men she had met in various parts 
 of the world and in quite various circum 
 stances he seemed sweet and boyish. But 
 he did not know this. He still had a great 
 deal to learn, and she had reached a place 
 where innocence appealed to her again. He 
 interested her very much, and she regarded 
 him with that frank curiosity as to his mar 
 ried happiness which women who have 
 once known them "very well" manifest in 
 other women s husbands. She wanted to 
 draw him out on that question. He only 
 drew back. That was a matter he did not 
 care to go into with her, nor with any 
 body. He could not go into it with dear 
 little Molly. So it seemed unfair to go in 
 to it even with himself. He refused to 
 134 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 think about it, like many another good, 
 kind husband. 
 
 Good, kind husbands always interested 
 Muriel. She enjoyed watching them out 
 of the corners of her long eyes while travel 
 ling. She diagnosed Fred s case at once, 
 and his ostrich-like attempts to be a "set 
 tled-down, married man" almost made her 
 laugh in his face, it was so amusing. But 
 rather pathetic too; she knew what some of 
 his former colleagues in Paris had expected 
 of him as a painter, and she deemed him 
 worthy of better things than turning himself 
 into a dull money-making machine for main 
 taining a menage which no longer charmed 
 him, she fancied, as much as the club he 
 no longer habituated. Dining at clubs with 
 his fellow craftsmen would have been, at 
 any rate, more profitable to him, and there 
 fore to his "helpmeet," but he could not do 
 that without neglecting her. Therefore he 
 dined with his lawful wife, according to the 
 prescribed custom, either at home, or in the 
 company of common friends. Muriel had 
 seen the same process going on with others, 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 not only in the arts, but in the professions 
 and business. Men need diversion at the 
 end of their day s work, and the reason 
 many married men of whom one would 
 never suspect it "went into society/ stupid 
 as it was in America, was that there was 
 no other place to go. 
 
 She was rather sceptical about any man s 
 remaining happy in marriage. She inti 
 mated as much to Fred. "Well, you ought 
 to know," he said. So she did not try 
 again very soon. She was far beyond 
 being hurt by such references. Muriel only 
 laughed. But she respected the reproach 
 and admired him for delivering it. So 
 many men that Muriel met, especially 
 young ones, like him, enjoyed the "misun 
 derstood" role, and she was apt at playing 
 the "sympathetic" part, if they were worth 
 while, though usually she despised them 
 afterward. 
 
 To Muriel it was still a source of wonder, 
 
 rather pretty, almost virginal wonder, that 
 
 men, these great, hulking, predatory males, 
 
 so intense and oblivious in the pursuit of 
 
 136 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 business or sport, should take women so 
 seriously, should become so intense and 
 predatory in the pursuit of females. And it 
 was still a source of feminine zest to make 
 them feel that way. She was not so wicked 
 as some wives preferred to think; she was 
 not in the least "heartless," as some men 
 declared. She wanted the power and the 
 glory of loving and being loved; only she 
 did not happen to be of the mother type. 
 Surely civilization has its uses for her type 
 too, just as for men who are not " domestic," 
 though civilization always hates to admit it. 
 She said she was glad to be of use to him 
 in his work. She said it with a twinkle in 
 her superb eyes which made Fred s flutter 
 and fall down to his palette, to his work 
 again. But she meant it. For even her 
 type is glad to aid and comfort the stronger 
 sex in its battles with the world. They ve 
 got to be, as things are arranged for them 
 by the gallant sex, which tells them how 
 much they enjoy self-sacrifice. Well, as a 
 matter of fact, she did help and hearten 
 him, though as the portrait progressed they 
 137 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 talked about other interesting matters too, 
 such as themselves and each other. 
 
 Her assumption of superior knowledge of 
 life he ignored or laughed at, harking back 
 to the old days when she was a mere girl 
 and he was a man. He still bullied her 
 and (alas!) she still liked it. "As a matter 
 of fact/ he said, "you have never really 
 lived/ though that, of course, is just what 
 you think you have done. You have only 
 experimented. You have never got into 
 the game. You have never become part 
 of the real fabric of life. You have only 
 looked on." 
 
 "And you have found the real thing? 
 Is that your point?" 
 
 "My point is that you have missed it/ 
 he retorted, carefully choosing a brush from 
 the little brown jug at his elbow. 
 
 "Well, it s instructive to look on at 
 those who have found it. Is that why you 
 have me abound ? You wish to do me 
 good?" 
 
 "It s because you re so good to look at," 
 he replied with a return of the youthful 
 138 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 heedlessness of former days, which amused 
 and pleased her. 
 
 "Well, keep on looking, if you think it 
 will do you good." 
 
 "Oh, I will, I will," he bantered. "I m 
 not afraid." 
 
 "So I have heard you say," she an 
 swered, continuing to smile at him. 
 
 He stopped painting and looked up. 
 "Dear me, Muriel, do you think you are 
 tempting me?" he jeered at her pleasantly. 
 
 "How can I when you are perfectly hap 
 py?" she answered after a pause. 
 
 He kept on painting. 
 
 " Do you know, I believe I could play the 
 devil with you if I wanted to." She laughed 
 delightfully, bending to look into his eyes. 
 
 He was perfectly willing to let her think 
 so, as long as he knew she was doing noth 
 ing of the sort. And if at times a certain 
 well-known impulse arose, to follow where 
 she led the old instinct for pursuit and 
 capture, with its recklessness and regret- 
 he pulled himself up short with the thought, 
 "That s so, I don t do this sort of thing 
 139 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 any more." It was not because he did not 
 want to that high ideal of himself had 
 crashed long ago but because he had no 
 right to. He had a wife. He had promised 
 to love her. Such promises, naturally, do 
 more harm than good when the appalling 
 discovery is made that they cannot be kept. 
 But the promise to cleave to her was a 
 mere matter of will. He had lots of it. 
 That promise could be kept. It must be 
 kept. So he went on painting. 
 
 " Did it ever occur to you that it s a pretty 
 good thing to keep your self-respect?" he 
 asked one day in the light manner with 
 which serious things are tossed out by the 
 generation which worships Humor and fears 
 its god. "It s one of the few real satisfac 
 tions left us by civilization." 
 
 "The great art," gibed Muriel, "the real 
 civilization, is to do anything you want and 
 yet keep your self-respect. The thing you 
 want is the thing you need! 
 
 "That s all right," he retorted pointedly, 
 "for any one whose capacity for self-de 
 ception is unlimited." 
 140 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 " Which corresponds," rejoined Muriel 
 glibly, "with the capacity for conceiving and 
 achieving great things. The trouble with 
 you, Fred, is that there is a big man inside, 
 only you won t let it out. Copy-book 
 maxims are for copy-book minds. Timid 
 souls always look to tradition, convention 
 and authority. The mob couldn t see any 
 thing else, if it tried. It couldn t do any 
 thing else, even if it could see. But big 
 men have to make their own laws, or else 
 they won t make big successes." 
 
 " Fine! " He laughed. " Muriel, you re 
 a wonder! " 
 
 Yet Fred thought there was some truth 
 in this. Most men are easily convinced 
 that there is a pretty big thing inside. And 
 the joke of it is that they are generally 
 right about it ! 
 
 It was all rather silly and very attractive. 
 She was beautiful and somewhat naughty, 
 and he was still quite young. . . . 
 
 Molly s unexpected visit put a new com 
 plexion upon all this. 
 
 141 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 VII 
 
 He did not want to think about his mar 
 riage, but now he was obliged to. Mischief- 
 making Muriel had caused both these in 
 genuous young people to stop and think. 
 What a pity! If it weren t for these muck- 
 rakers the Carrolls and other well-meaning 
 reactionaries might remain dormant and 
 docile, piously calling themselves "con 
 servatives" and doing their sober best to 
 conserve a well-arranged collection of empty 
 shells, which have acquired the dignified 
 tone of time, prettily polished by the ha 
 bitual handling of the generations which 
 thrived and grew strong on the vital sub 
 stance formerly found therein. . . . 
 
 He did not want to hurt his tender little 
 wife. She was too fine and sweet for small 
 worries of this sort, however groundless. 
 She was his wife, and he wished to protect 
 her. Could that be why he had not men 
 tioned Muriel s recurrence in his orbit 
 and in his studio ? He did not believe in 
 talking shop at the dinner-table. The home 
 142 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 was sacred. "When I lock my studio door 
 I want to forget everything in it." 
 
 By nature he was a fearless, honest 
 young man with gallant defiance of the 
 world in his steady eye. He was tenderly 
 fond of his mate, and would have preferred 
 to talk to her, just as he would have pre 
 ferred to love her to distraction, if he could. 
 But, since it is one of the interesting 
 taboos of this artificial cult, that a man 
 married to one woman should never see 
 very much of other women, he could not 
 bring himself to talking about it to his 
 wife, for they were both pious devotees of 
 the cult. The theory seems to be that if 
 a man loves his wife, how can he care 
 enough for other women to see much of 
 them ? or if he has grown tired of seeing 
 too much of his wife, how can he be trusted 
 with other women ? For women are fe 
 males and, therefore, males can have but 
 one real use for them. The implication 
 may not be very flattering to our so-called 
 civilization, but we have to take our semi- 
 barbaric conventions as we find them, and 
 143 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 make the civilized best of it, or the decivil- 
 izing worst. This worthy young man was 
 making the best of it by accepting a little 
 surreptitious solace from a woman whom 
 in his free and fastidious bachelor days he 
 had been inclined to ignore or avoid, there 
 being so many others he was free to see, 
 and she being one of those who "always 
 made him tired." He was making the 
 worst of it by saying nothing about it to 
 his wife, whom he had promised to cherish 
 until death would them part. 
 
 The portrait of Muriel was brought out, 
 not to hide behind it, but to comfort Molly 
 with it. He had nothing to hide, except a 
 little "mutual helpfulness" and a little inno 
 cent play, which the world prefers to sus 
 pect when grown men and women play it, 
 though they are better able to take care of 
 themselves, it would naturally seem, than 
 youths and maidens in whom we beamingly 
 encourage it. 
 
 Fred had done nothing to be ashamed of. 
 Nor was he likely to make his wife "unhap 
 py" so long as she trusted him. Her de- 
 144 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 pendence appealed to his honor, his loyalty, 
 his sentiment, like the helplessness of a 
 child, if not to his heart. He would gladly 
 have died for her; but living with any one 
 person was a bore. He wanted her to be 
 happy, to have everything. At the ex 
 pense of nearly everything he really wanted, 
 he was giving her everything except the 
 one thing essential to justify and glorify all 
 the rest, and this he could not give because 
 it was gone. 
 
 So it is just as well that Molly did not 
 make a disillusionizing fuss. And if she 
 had tried the ancient trick of flirting with 
 another man he would not only have kicked 
 the poacher out; he might have followed 
 him out in disgust. He still believed in 
 her, even if his belief in himself had been 
 shaken by the disillusionizing crash of that 
 peculiar promise to love. Molly s happi 
 ness was in a perilous place. 
 
 Well, now that he stopped to think about 
 it, he thought clear to the bottom, or be 
 lieved so. It never occurred to him that 
 Molly had been thoughtlessly selfish and 
 145 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 indulgent. Had she not given up her 
 cunning idea of a "career" for marriage? 
 She seemed to be doing the right things in 
 the right way, quite in accord with the prev 
 alent conception of a dutiful wife. She was 
 an excellent manager. She was quite eco 
 nomical compared with so many wives. 
 He had to urge her to buy pretty clothes. 
 She was sympathetic when he overworked 
 and told him he mustn t do it. She was 
 constantly concerned over his giving up his 
 serious work. "But I warned you!" she 
 said prettily. "You would marry me!" 
 Naturally, he did not care to remind her 
 of his youthful hopes and ambitions. That 
 was one reason why he had stopped talking 
 shop in the home, which was sacred. 
 
 Therefore, since it could not be her fault, 
 God bless her! it must he his. For when 
 this delicate relationship went askew among 
 their friends wasn t it always the fault of 
 one or the other ? or, as the gossips some 
 times decided, with still more sententious 
 head-wagging, "There was fault on both 
 sides." 
 
 146 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 It never occurred to them that falling in 
 love with some one else was not the cause 
 of unhappy marriages, but the result. It 
 never occurred to the onlookers, and seldom 
 to the victims, that it might be the fault 
 of neither, nor of any human being, but of 
 the very human institution they had tried 
 to uphold amid conditions of civilization that 
 sometimes render it intolerable to the in 
 dividuals concerned and unprofitable to 
 civilization, which is still more concerned. 
 Calling it God s holy ordinance does not 
 seem to make such unions holy. Monog 
 amy is surely right and reasonable for the 
 race at present, and is probably not so 
 unnatural as the Muriels think. So it 
 seems rather a pity that it should be ren 
 dered as difficult as possible by marriage, 
 the very institution which is supposed to 
 foster monogamy and the race. Yet the 
 archaic customs and many of the quaint 
 conceptions of this well-meaning institu 
 tion seem to hinder instead of help monog 
 amy. To be sure, it is a great comfort 
 to make the Deity our scapegoat when 
 147 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 these Frankenstein monsters of ours turn 
 and rend their inventors, though a bit blas 
 phemous withal. 
 
 But those who see it seldom say so and 
 why should they ? The unhappily married 
 would seem to be talking about themselves, 
 and are properly discredited. The happily 
 married are afraid they would seem to be 
 talking about themselves, and are properly 
 discreet. Whereas those who are not mar 
 ried at all would seem to be talking about 
 " something they know nothing of," and are 
 properly disregarded. 
 
 Thus the comic conspiracy of silence is 
 ably sustained on all sides, and those who 
 break it do so at the peril not only of them 
 selves, but of those, it may be, who are 
 dearer. For he (more particularly she) who 
 says that marriage might as well be im 
 proved, is apt to be accused of attempting to 
 destroy the necessary institution, and those 
 who hold their peace can usually call it duty 
 or being brave. For we fear our ruthless 
 monsters. Sometimes we even love them. 
 Why not ? They are ours; we made them. 
 148 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 All creators are prejudiced in favor of their 
 own creations. 
 
 So it is no great wonder that one out of 
 every twelve more or less concientious at 
 tempts to play the game according to 
 Frankenstein ends in defeat, nor that so 
 many of the eleven other pairs of players, 
 whether they cheat each other or not, 
 enjoy jests in popular songs and situations 
 in successful farces (which would not be pop 
 ular or successful unless enjoyed) founded 
 upon the failure of that relation in life 
 which should be as beautiful and sacred as 
 motherhood, which it involves. 
 
 But all such stuff is so unpleasant. There 
 are many good people in the world, why not 
 tell them so; they like to be reminded of it. 
 There are many beautiful things in life; it is 
 pleasanter to say so, thus making the world 
 a better and more beautiful place for our 
 having been in it. The way to cure all evils 
 is to shut our eyes to them. If there be a 
 little muck in the home, don t rake it; the 
 home is sacred. Draw the blinds, keep out 
 the tell-tale light. Sweep the dust of genera- 
 149 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 tions, and the disease germs it has bred, 
 under the pianola where no one will notice 
 it (for a while longer) and play rag-time. 
 That is the way to make good cheer and get 
 an uplift, thus helping one another to be 
 truer, stronger, more honest men and wom 
 en, for the glory of God and the nation s 
 service. The Church is the place to preach, 
 whether many of us go there now or not. 
 When I attend the theatre I want to laugh. 
 All this dreary modern talk only delays the 
 action and destroys my daughter s beautiful 
 ideals, which she inherited with a spinning- 
 wheel from her great-grandmother, who was 
 a perfect woman if there ever was one. 
 
 Well, young Fred was not thinking 
 about the institution of marriage few of 
 them do but about his own marriage. 
 Such outrageous views were hardly a part 
 of his enlightened training for the most im 
 portant and far-reaching undertaking of life. 
 He blamed himself for being a brute (which 
 he wasn t), and let it go at that (which was 
 unfortunate). But if he hadn t been a 
 brute he thought he would have stayed in 
 150 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 love with his agreeable little wife who 
 had given him her all just as girls who 
 are romantically rescued from a watery 
 grave should fall in love and stay so with 
 their noble rescuers, no matter how their 
 tastes, aspirations and lives may part after 
 the great accident. 
 
 But since he was a brute, what was the 
 use of pretending to himself to be any 
 thing else ? That is the trouble with care 
 fully inculcating silly ideals in our young. 
 When false ideals are found out, unhypo- 
 critical persons are apt to abandon not only 
 the poor little cracked ideals, but their poor 
 little cracked selves and better ideals. As 
 Molly said nothing about her discovery in 
 the studio he began to think that she sus 
 pected him of being a brute. And as he 
 indignantly considered the circumstances 
 too trivial to dignify with discussion, a 
 curious psychic phenomenon now appeared: 
 Those past casual meetings with Muriel 
 took on a desirability they never held before. 
 The absurd superimposed notion that her 
 presence in his studio was questionable lent 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 a glamour to it, the charm of romance, 
 totally lacking until now, altogether impos 
 sible in the old days of his bachelor free 
 dom when he could pick and choose. 
 
 He was not in love with Muriel. This 
 was no "grand passion." The majority of 
 these sorry little affairs do not become 
 even passions, if left undisturbed by the 
 world, like the innocent associations of the 
 unmarried. But once give them the allure 
 of forbidden fruit, then curiosity is aroused 
 to gaze upon it, even though not a kind of 
 fruit they would naturally choose to eat. 
 This sometimes involves clandestine meet 
 ings, as things are arranged for many of 
 them, with the adventurous zest of sharing 
 a delightful secret and the rest follows 
 naturally, or rather quite unnaturally, but 
 often quite unfortunately. 
 
 Fred Carroll was no stripling, and he 
 had known Muriel all his life. He had 
 never thought of such a thing as being in 
 love with her. So why should he rudely 
 put her out of his studio, where she was 
 doing no harm and considerable good ? 
 152 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 And if his wife chose to insult them by 
 being suspicious and proudly silent, he was 
 sorry, but that was not their fault. Even 
 though married he had some rights. The 
 sacredness of his own personality should 
 not be invaded. . . . 
 
 Thus we behold a nice little pair, well- 
 mated by nature for nature s purposes, well 
 equipped by inherent characteristics for a 
 civilized union which might be beautiful 
 to them and beneficial to the race, now being 
 driven toward the rocks of ruin and waste 
 by the adventitious characteristics of the 
 modern marriage. It was not because they 
 failed to believe in its exactions; they be 
 lieved in them firmly. It was not due to 
 any infraction of its laws; they cherished 
 them fondly. Marriage itself was divorcing 
 Fred and Molly. What God had joined to 
 gether man was putting asunder. 
 
 Man did it, of course, in the name of God, 
 because that is the way man likes to do 
 things. But how it must amuse the great 
 Humorist, the tender Forgiver of our sins! 
 
 153 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 VIII 
 
 That is "all very well in theory, but we are 
 practical." Such a view of marriage does 
 not excuse this young man in our shocked 
 eyes for playing with other men s wives, or 
 ex-wives, especially now when recognized 
 by him as dangerous; most especially while 
 allowing his own true wife to trust him. 
 Some of our conventions may be absurd, but 
 we must have grooves for running an un 
 wieldy society, and no one can build his own 
 without consulting society. Ought he not 
 to leave Muriel ? 
 
 Precisely the conclusion he came to with 
 in twenty-four hours without even waiting 
 to consult Muriel about it. Copy-book 
 maxims may be for the mob, but so, it 
 seems, is marriage. He had married. He 
 must dot his i s and cross his t s or leave 
 the class. . . . 
 
 He found that her presence in his studio, 
 
 now that her portrait was finished, had 
 
 been causing a little gossip in other studios. 
 
 He condemned the gossips to Hades. He 
 
 154 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 didn t care what they thought. So long as 
 his conscience was clear, why should he ? 
 But it was so unfair to Molly. Her coming 
 to the studio had also been noted and men 
 tioned, humorously, by a woman who 
 painted in the same building. 
 
 "Oh, cut it all out," he said to himself 
 with a shrug of distaste for the whole ridic 
 ulous situation. "It s the only thing to 
 do." Another shrug. 
 
 A good young husband, you see; he was 
 going to flee temptation and thus strengthen 
 his Character. A model marriage; neither 
 business nor pleasure should stand between 
 him and Duty. Perhaps he will now go 
 home to his lawful wife, confess all, and 
 be forgiven in a tender scene of domestic 
 comedy: "Darling, I have been a brute." 
 "No, dearest, it was all my fault," "But 
 you were so sweet and patient, precious." 
 "But you were so brave and strong, sweet 
 heart." And then the happy pair in con 
 cert as the curtain falls : " Hereafter we shall 
 both be mutually forbearing and considerate, 
 patient and self-sacrificing"; thus making a 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 happy marriage, approved by society and 
 useful to civilization. And in each other s 
 arms their senses might beguile their minds, 
 for the time being, into believing that 
 nothing of the sort could ever happen 
 again, and that this was true love and true 
 marriage. At any rate, it would be truly 
 legal whether truly love or not, and so we, 
 the spectators, could rejoice at the triumph 
 of the proprieties and go back to our happy 
 homes saying, " Yes, it s a pretty good world 
 -after all!" 
 
 Well, that would not be such a bad end 
 ing, if we could only believe it to be the 
 end if only the curtain would stay down 
 about as good a solution, perhaps, as we 
 should expect for this problem of nature s 
 which civilization has never assimilated 
 (and probably never will entirely), and so, 
 being sick of it, declines, with an invalid s 
 inertia, even a frank attempt to assimilate 
 it, preferring petulantly to swallow it whole 
 like a pill, with a sugar-coating of unwhole 
 some sentimentalism. . . . 
 
 But that was not to be the end in this 
 156 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 case. Fred did not go home and confess. 
 He was not given to confessions one rea 
 son, perhaps, being that he was too con 
 siderate. It would not be nice to make in 
 sinuations against Muriel, and it would be 
 a shame to make his young wife realize that 
 she had a brute for a husband! There was 
 nothing worth confessing. He simply at 
 tached himself to his wife and his work, and 
 kept out of Muriel s reach for nearly a week 
 after the precipitating episode. 
 
 They happened to enter the studio build 
 ing together. They went up in the ele 
 vator together. "I haven t seen you for 
 ages," she said with gracious conventionality, 
 quite as if nothing had happened and noth 
 ing had. " Where have you been hiding?" 
 
 He smiled at her phrase. Hiding ? Did 
 she think he was afraid of her ? She did 
 not (as yet). "Oh, Molly and I have been 
 trotting around to tea-fights, drumming up 
 trade," he answered lightly, but feeling 
 more interest in her nearness, strangely 
 enough, even more admiration for her 
 clothes, than usual. They stepped out of 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 the elevator together. "My wife was good 
 enough to be impressed with the thing I did 
 of you. So she is trying to work some of 
 her friends rather disgusting, but, as she 
 says, they work us to amuse them, so why 
 not?" He seemed to want Muriel to ap 
 preciate that his wife was not merely a 
 cunning little thing. 
 
 " Portraits, you mean ? " she said with 
 sympathetic interest. "Have you landed 
 any sitters ? " 
 
 "No." They walked down the corridor 
 together. " I seem to be out of the running." 
 
 "I think I ve got a commission for you," 
 she said with simple friendliness. "May I 
 make you a cup of tea ? " 
 
 "Thanks, ever so much," said the painter 
 briskly, "but I m horribly busy." 
 
 "Let me know when you ve finished your 
 work and I ll tell you about it." 
 
 They had reached her door. Fred was 
 unlocking it for her. He began to chuckle. 
 "I m thinking of barring you out of my 
 studio entirely," he said lightly. "It s 
 making talk." 
 
 158 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 She turned^ and looked at him. He 
 avoided her eyes. "Fred," she began, "has 
 your wife " 
 
 "No," he interrupted with a resentful 
 sneer, "she s not that sort." He was 
 amazed at Muriel. 
 
 " has your wife Wednesdays at home, 
 did she say? You silly!" Muriel laughed 
 at him. "Of course she is not that sort. 
 I could see that even if she hadn t asked 
 me to call. I want so much to know her 
 well." He had thrown open the door for 
 her. "You won t come in?" she asked. 
 
 "Thanks, I m busy." 
 
 She did not urge him, but within the open 
 door she turned and smiled at him again. 
 "Are you one of those amusing little men 
 afraid of What will people say ? ?" 
 
 "I wasn t aware of being afraid of any 
 thing," he remarked with dignity. 
 
 She walked out to him with even more 
 dignity, then suddenly shaking her head un 
 der his face, " Booh!" she said bewitchingly. 
 
 He laughed with her at himself, flushing 
 a little. 
 
 159 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 She burlesqued a tragic attitude. "Are 
 you going to put me out of your life ? " 
 
 "Sure!" he replied, smiling easily, and 
 stepped across to his own door. 
 
 " How exciting! " called out Muriel, laugh 
 ing gayly. 
 
 He pretended not to hear. 
 
 Both doors closed. 
 
 Well, at least he wasn t afraid of letting 
 her think him afraid, if she wanted to. He 
 was glad that it was over. And he kept 
 away. It was not easy. He had acquired 
 the habit, like smoking. He did not realize 
 how it had grown upon him until he had 
 to break it. She was both a stimulant and 
 a sedative. He missed her in his work. 
 He missed her in his play. The daily 
 grind had begun to tell at last, and the 
 need, strong in natures like his, for fun, 
 sparkle, excitement, was storming within 
 him. It is an organic need; joyousness is 
 a necessary ingredient; but he only sub 
 stituted exercise and more work for it. He 
 did not mind hard work. He had always 
 
 worked hard, just as he had always played 
 
 1 60 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 hard, though he often said, after the man 
 ner of fond husbands, "If it hadn t been 
 for that little woman I never would have 
 amounted to anything." He had believed 
 it at first. He still repeated it occasionally. 
 He wanted her to believe it, every one to 
 believe it including himself. 
 
 But it was being borne in upon him that 
 he was amounting to very little. At the 
 present rate, how could he ever amount to 
 much? It was all right to give up fun, 
 success, everything for marriage. He had 
 held to that orthodox tenet of the faith. 
 But suppose your marriage is not a success. 
 Why, then you haven t anything. This 
 made it hard to keep the faith. 
 
 Marriage was beginning to look like a 
 cage to him. He had been. lured in by the 
 bait of love, and now, having devoured the 
 bait, he could only beat his wings against 
 the bars and sigh for the freedom to soar, 
 which he had not valued until seen through 
 the locked door, bruising himself and pitying 
 his mate, who had entered gladly with him 
 when he too was glad and both were blind. 
 
 161 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 Well, self-pity was a weakness he de 
 spised. He shook it off, and dropped in at 
 the club at tea hour, substituting cocktails, 
 like many another honest fellow whose 
 marriage was not turning out very well, 
 though none of the crowd knew nor was 
 curious. 
 
 Alcohol helped a little, good-fellowship 
 more. Those who don t like their cages, 
 he thought, have no right to kick. They 
 can t get out but they oughtn t to have gone 
 in. You may be blind with hunger, but 
 don t eat if you prefer not to be caught. 
 As a matter of fact, that precisely was the 
 way an increasing number of these fellows 
 one met at clubs seemed to look at it now 
 adays, even those who said "You lucky 
 dog!" sighing, comfortably by the broad 
 fireplace, which was not made of asbestos 
 at the club. At least, they did not satisfy 
 their soul-hunger in conventional cages, 
 viewed and approved by society! It was 
 an interesting subject. Carroll was learn 
 ing to smile at it with good-humored cyni 
 cism, like the rest. Meanwhile he saw no 
 162 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 more of Muriel, and treated his wife with 
 polite and tender devotion, painfully per 
 plexed at her continued, but now appar 
 ently cheerful, obliviousness to what she 
 had discovered only a week or two ago, 
 though to him it seemed longer. By and 
 by his wings might become tired, or atro 
 phied by disuse. He might even become 
 habituated to his well-furnished cage. That 
 is the way wild birds are domesticated. 
 Canaries like it. ... 
 
 But such worthy intentions as Fred s are 
 not like swearing off tobacco or alcohol, a 
 matter of individual will. In these greater 
 concerns contending wills are to be reckoned 
 with. He had not reckoned with Muriel s, 
 nor with Molly s either, as we shall see laten 
 Muriel s will was felt first. 
 
 Within a fortnight after making his well- 
 kept resolution Fred found, one morning 
 in his studio, a note addressed in her dis 
 tinguished hand. It gave him a thrill which 
 bade him beware. "No, you don t, you 
 delightful devil!" he laughed, tearing it 
 
 open eagerly all the same. 
 
 163 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 But it was merely to inform him briefly 
 that an acquaintance of hers was "dying 
 to have her neurasthenic face and limp 
 figure painted by Frederic Carroll. She is 
 coming to have luncheon with me to-day. 
 Drop in at half after one and see if she 
 interests you enough. She is vulgarly rich, 
 and I think it may lead to other com 
 missions." " Neurasthenic " was the word 
 just then; it s old-fashioned now. 
 
 "Oh, she ll interest me all right," laughed 
 Fred. This was a chance he could not 
 afford to miss. Hope of amounting to some 
 thing revived. He could put his heart into 
 the work he loved. He could become wholly 
 absorbed, oblivious to all other passions. 
 This endless succession of carefully done 
 pot-boilers occupied only as much of him as 
 "fancy-work" exacted of a certain type of 
 old-fashioned wife, not yet extinct. He 
 went to the meeting eagerly, hardly thinking 
 now, the predatory male, of Muriel. 
 
 He did not think of Muriel until he ar 
 rived there. Then he thought of nothing 
 else. She was alone. The neurasthenic 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 friend had sent word "at the last moment" 
 that the pleasure would have to be post 
 poned. So Muriel told him. "And I have 
 such a good luncheon waiting, too!" she 
 said with apparent annoyance. "But no 
 matter. I can coach you to handle her 
 vanity better before you meet her," laughed 
 Muriel, leading the way. "Your sitter will 
 keep, even if my luncheon won t." 
 
 And she proceeded at once, as they sat 
 down opposite each other, to tell him inter 
 estingly all about her neurasthenic friend. 
 The friend was bona fide; so was the desire 
 to have Fred paint her. She had been fas 
 cinated by the dashing portrait of the stun 
 ning Mrs. Vincent, now in the latter s pos 
 session, and by the subject s enthusiasm 
 over his work. Fred was delighted and 
 grateful. Ambition soared for the moment; 
 fame looked down and smiled from afar. 
 
 And if the resilient artist nature now ex 
 panded until quite capable of compassing 
 the world, the moral nature of the man was 
 generous enough to give just credit to this 
 old friend of his youth! What a good sort 
 165 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 she was, such a woman of the world, so 
 serene and superior to any pouting pique 
 over his rude neglect of her. He thought 
 he had known her all his life; but he felt 
 that he really knew her now for the first 
 time. And, as is usually the case when one 
 suddenly " discovers " a member of the op 
 posite sex, there came with it a delicious 
 thrill of amazement. "Why didn t I appre 
 ciate this girl long ago! " he said to himself, 
 meaning "before too late!" though he 
 would not say that even to himself. 
 
 Also, the luncheon was delicious. But 
 somehow or other he became ill at ease 
 during the intimate process. He had 
 never felt embarrassed with Muriel before. 
 He had lunched with her often; there was 
 nothing in that; but not since the new and 
 unhealthy complexion put upon their inno 
 cent relations by Molly s innocent visit to 
 her husband s studio and by her husband s 
 innocent refusal to discuss it or make a 
 mountain out of a mole-hill. The fact that 
 it was forbidden now to be lunching alone 
 with Muriel made it conscious, delectable, 
 166 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 dangerous. All the past years of indiffer 
 ence were betraying him. He had to hold 
 himself in check. He had to do some more 
 of that detestable thinking about himself. 
 Such a nuisance to be married! Could he 
 never be natural without being wrong ? 
 
 He expanded a little over the coffee as 
 she had known he would. Muriel had never 
 tried very hard to charm him before. She 
 was trying to do so now, just to see what 
 would happen. She was no longer the 
 crude enthusiast he had once known and 
 patronized. Nor had she forgotten his 
 wife s superior look of disdain. Muriel had 
 laughed good-naturedly, but, it may be 
 recalled, she had lightly taken up the little 
 gauntlet. Why not ? 
 
 Fred gravely, authoritatively, commended 
 her expert knowledge of the civilized art of 
 eating. 
 
 "Oh, it s always a pleasure to feed em," 
 said Muriel with a daintily derisive smile, 
 as if trying to say it as grossly as she could, 
 "especially men who appreciate the good 
 things of life. You don t give me a chance 
 167 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 as often as some of the others do," she 
 added languidly, to remind him that there 
 were others. She played with the fact for 
 a moment her first arrow. It glanced off 
 harmlessly. It did not disturb him in the 
 least; it repelled him rather. She recalled 
 that he had always been perversely insen 
 sible to jealousy. It was part of the same 
 innate fastidiousness which had kept him 
 out of more mischief in his youth than had 
 stern moral warnings, making hideous vice 
 sound more attractive than it could ever 
 really hope to be. 
 
 " But then, to be sure," she began afresh, 
 "you have put me out of your life, haven t 
 you, Fred?" She laughed idly. She knew 
 how to laugh. So few women do; even 
 those who don t gurgle or cackle. "How 
 have you enjoyed keeping my baneful influ 
 ence out of your life? Have you grown 
 strong now ?" 
 
 She was making it all playful and easy. 
 "Oh, I ve tried hard to bear up without you 
 in my life," he said, adopting her note. 
 He no longer had the upper hand. "I ve 
 
 168 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 really been too horribly busy to play with 
 you or any one else," he added indifferently. 
 "I see. I wondered what was the rea 
 son." She shot a merry, good-natured 
 glance across at him from between her two 
 long, well-modelled, rather heavily jewelled 
 hands which framed her face as she sat 
 there closely opposite to him, her elbows 
 resting indolently on the table. It was 
 studied indolence, and he knew it. But 
 she did it so well! She was so confoundedly 
 stunning, and so confoundedly aware of it. 
 He earnestly intended to dislike her who 
 was now forbidden, as earnestly as he in 
 tended to love his wife, who was required. 
 But a man cannot will himself to do either 
 of these things. It was only producing op 
 posite results, alas! He wanted to dis 
 arrange her studied pose. The way he de 
 sired to do it was by crumpling it up in his 
 arms, and bringing a new light into her 
 mocking eyes. Dear me! he wouldn t do 
 that! What shocking impulses pop into 
 the heads of even the best of the stronger 
 sex at times. Possibly their generous self- 
 169 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 restraint is not fully appreciated by the 
 weaker sex. Fred merely watched her cau 
 tiously as she rippled to another interesting 
 pose; one arm down now, hand extended 
 to caress her coffee cup, while one of the 
 long, pear-shaped ear-rings, flicked by a 
 tinkling ring in passing, swung back and 
 forth for a moment, flashing high lights. 
 "Was that the only reason you avoided 
 me ? " she asked smiling not alluringly, 
 but, confound her again, with humorous 
 candor. Her woman-of-the-world poise was 
 disconcerting. He had forgotten how to 
 meet it of late years. That s the trouble 
 with neglecting an art. 
 
 "Not at all," he replied brusquely, trying 
 for the upper hand, as formerly; "I don t 
 care to know any one too well not even 
 my beloved self!" He made a significant 
 grimace. "Sometimes, you know, you bore 
 me dreadfully, Muriel dear." The bully 
 ing note was safest He felt superior again. 
 
 "Is this one of the times ?" 
 
 He nodded. "Especially when you smile 
 
 that way." He laughed at her. 
 
 170 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 She kept on smiling "that way" without 
 the movement of an eyelash until his more 
 or less critical gaze shifted, which made her 
 laugh at him, although he was merely look 
 ing for a place to drop his cigarette ashes, 
 as he made clear by his silently ostentatious 
 action. 
 
 Now, Muriel was not a cruel siren. She 
 had a big ego, but a big heart too; they 
 often go together, though they sometimes get 
 in each other s way. She played her game 
 fairly, whenever she could; she shot only 
 on the wing; as fairly as her game can be 
 played. If, for example, he had let her 
 know, humbly or humorously, why he had 
 kept so sedulously out of her now disturbing 
 presence, if he had acknowledged that he 
 was licked and had begged for mercy as 
 was often done by young men, and older 
 ones who wanted to feel young; but who 
 can blame any man, a member of the 
 stronger sex, the natural leaders, for not 
 caring to acknowledge that to an old friend! 
 Especially idealists like Fred, who hate the 
 
 truth and yet are not cowards, never asking 
 171 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 quarter from others or from themselves. 
 Moreover, in this case there was that well- 
 cherished loyalty to his precious, if not 
 perfect, wife. Such a confession to Muriel 
 would have been a reflection upon Molly s 
 charm, an enormity intolerable to contem 
 plate. All of which goes to prove how im 
 possible it is to love two women at the same 
 time and yet keep faith with both and with 
 one s self, even in these innocent preludes 
 to the grand symphony. True love is mo 
 nogamous, whatever marriage may be. 
 
 He turned his eyes away from her. She 
 was too artificial. He looked again; she 
 was too attractive. "It never occurs to 
 you," he went on, overworking the bully 
 attitude, "that I see through your poses, my 
 dear Muriel. Why don t you let go and be 
 natural for a change ? just once, to see how 
 it feels." 
 
 "Why should I," she returned imper- 
 turbably, "when you are admiring me so 
 much this way?" She did not change the 
 pose of a finger. 
 
 "Perfectly shameless!" he railed at her, 
 
 172 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 avoiding her gaze; "utterly abandoned! 
 You always have made me rather tired, 
 you know." 
 
 He looked about the room indifferently, 
 sniffed expertly at her dark, heavy hangings, 
 trying to make it all sound like the gay 
 banter of former days. 
 
 She made no reply. It was not necessary. 
 She was quietly letting him entangle himself. 
 She sensed what was going on within him, 
 fully now, and she responded to it with the 
 glow and glory a woman knows when she 
 first feels her power over a member of the 
 stronger sex. The gentlest, the kindest are 
 likely to enjoy it, even, it is said, when they 
 don t respond differing therein from most 
 men; the brutes don t enjoy being wanted 
 by those they don t want! The new light 
 had come into Muriel s feminine eyes with 
 out the aid of Fred s manly arms. 
 
 Feeling her silence, hoping he had not 
 gone too far, he turned to her uneasily 
 Her quiet gaze had not left his face. Her 
 eyes, half-smiling, fully comprehending, and 
 altogether gorgeous, put him in a sudden 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 panic. He arose abruptly. "Well, this 
 isn t turning out pot-boilers, is it?" he 
 said in a brisk, business-like manner. " I ve 
 got a model waiting an expensive one. 
 Have to pay him whether I m there or not, 
 you know. Thanks for the good feed." 
 
 He looked at his watch, holding out his 
 other hand to say good-by, preparing him 
 self for the contact. 
 
 She did not take his hand, but a light, 
 detaining touch fell upon his arm. It made 
 him catch his breath and recoil, tingling. 
 He was not prepared for that. "I d so like 
 to pull you out of that drudgery," she said 
 with simple friendliness and she meant it 
 too. She did not increase the pressure on 
 his tense muscular arm. But she felt it 
 quiver. "I have still another possible com 
 mission for you." With her other hand she 
 motioned him to his chair. "May I tell 
 you about it ?" 
 
 He looked at the hand on his arm. She 
 
 withdrew it. "Still another job, eh ? You 
 
 are something of a corker," he said with 
 
 grateful admiration in his voice. But he 
 
 174 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 remained standing. "Let me know when 
 you land it, will you, please?" He turned 
 to go. 
 
 "No!" she flung out. 
 
 He turned in surprise at her tone. 
 
 "Why should I?" she asked. 
 
 She had arisen, but she did not come near 
 him. She sensed the delicacy within his 
 physical bigness, just as she appraised the 
 tenderness that lay unawakened beneath 
 his assumed blatancy. It made him diffi 
 cult, but therefore delectable. Once taken 
 into camp what a dear lover ! Muriel had 
 never experienced much kind considera 
 tion in her experiments; perhaps she de 
 served a little. She turned and looked out 
 of the window. "I am anxious to help you 
 win out, of course," she said with friendly 
 dignity, "but, Fred, I really can t say I 
 enjoy being snubbed every time we meet." 
 She looked hurt, her pride offended. 
 
 "Snubbed!" 
 
 " Let me know when you land it. : She 
 imitated his brusque tone and shrugged her 
 shoulders. 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 He was amazed and concerned. "But I 
 only meant oh, I explained all that before. 
 Surely you understand." 
 
 "I understand perfectly! You are tired 
 of having me around, so you use the worn 
 out, cowardly pretext that it is making 
 talk as if you and I cared!" 
 
 "But it is making talk. I do have to 
 consider such things, even if you don t." 
 
 "Yet you never come to see me here, 
 where there need be no one to talk no 
 gossiping models to bear tales to other 
 studios." 
 
 "Why, Muriel! you mustn t misunder 
 stand things in that way! But I mustn t 
 come here, I simply mustn t and I won t; 
 that s all." He turned to go. 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 He had no answer. "Oh, this is so un 
 fair!" he broke out with a sweet appeal in 
 his distressed eyes which thrilled her. 
 
 "Now don t pretend," she chided, coming 
 nearer, "that s it s because you re afraid of 
 
 me. 
 a 
 
 Who said I was?" The stronger sex 
 
 176 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 snowed its courage by drawing back a little 
 from her advance. 
 
 "You ve made that abundantly clear," 
 she went on. :< You ve done nothing but 
 laugh at me, jeer at me, calling me a poseuse ! 
 Oh, you ve shown me what you think of 
 me!" 
 
 "Why, Muriel! You know we ve always 
 slammed each other. You mustn t take it 
 seriously, Muriel, dear." 
 
 She hesitated, uncertain what arrow to 
 shoot next. 
 
 " I ll admit that I tried to have a little fun 
 with you," she said, dropping her eyes. 
 "I couldn t help trying to upset your stat 
 uesque calm. You don t think very badly 
 of me for that, do you, Fred ?" She looked 
 up and smiled almost timidly. 
 
 "No, of course not." He laughed gently 
 at her. " But you see, my dear, you can t 
 do it. Not with me." 
 
 "I do see it now," she answered, nodding 
 
 with engaging humor. "I underestimated 
 
 you. You were too much for me." She 
 
 made a despairing gesture. "The joke is on 
 
 177 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 me again!" This time when she took a 
 step toward him the stronger sex stood its 
 ground. "Fred, ever since I was a little 
 romantic fool of an impressionable girl you 
 have been a sort of hero to me. I suppose 
 you know that." 
 
 This arrow did not pierce his armor, but 
 it served to make him throw it off, feeling 
 safe. "Let s not talk rot, Muriel, dear. 
 We re too old." He turned to leave. 
 
 "Oh," she burst out, "I don t mind your 
 using me for your own interests! I m only 
 too glad to slave for you, if it will help you 
 in your career. I want you to have success, 
 to have everything; but then to have you 
 despise and hate me for it!" She stopped 
 abruptly, with something like a sob. Her 
 dewy eyes gazed at him, her tender mouth 
 drooped pathetically. "It s a little too 
 much." She seemed to attempt a whimsi 
 cal smile, as if bravely determined not to 
 make a scene, but bowed her beautiful head 
 and turned away as if defeated, he after her. 
 
 For it was a little too much for Fred too. 
 
 "You don t think that of me!" he burst 
 
 178 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 out in a panic, amazed at the indictment, 
 his tenderest, his best sentiments now 
 aroused. " You ve been a brick! I ve been 
 a brute!" 
 
 "You have always despised me/ she 
 sobbed. "You despise me now!" 
 
 "I don t!" he cried, frantic. 
 
 "You do! I can feel it." 
 
 "You can t you mustn t!" 
 
 She now retreated, he advanced. 
 
 She stopped and raised her brimming 
 eyes to his as if to speak, but only broke 
 down and wept beautifully a most diffi 
 cult thing to do. This arrow found the 
 vulnerable spot, pierced him, transfixed him 
 quivering. 
 
 "You poor little thing!" he cried in a 
 richer, warmer voice than she had ever 
 called forth before, and then at last she 
 felt herself gently seized. A capable arm 
 enfolded her pliant shoulders, and as she 
 struggled (with such futile feminine might!) 
 to be free of him, another strong arm im 
 prisoned her gloriously. She heard soft 
 
 murmurings. Her head sank (helplessly) 
 
 179 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 upon his goodly shoulder, settled there, and 
 now ceased to struggle like a captured bird. 
 And then, with her cool hands upon his 
 hot face, as she raised her eyes and lips to 
 meet his frankly, he stopped of all places 
 to stop! "What are we doing!" he gasped, 
 atremble. He released her as suddenly as 
 he had seized her. "I m so sorry!" he fal 
 tered, and turning, he stumbled out of the 
 room, slamming the door. (She should not 
 have ceased so soon to struggle with this 
 predatory male.) 
 
 Was he sorry for this "poor little thing," 
 who thought he despised her ? Or, for the 
 other poor little thing who thought he loved 
 her. Perhaps he was sorry for both poor 
 little things at once. Even if the stronger 
 sex can not love two women at once surely 
 there can be pity for more than one. The 
 kinship may be distant enough for that. 
 
 Muriel listened a moment to make sure 
 whether he was coming back (as they some 
 times did at once) then catching a glimpse 
 of her excited face in the mirror, she began 
 to rearrange her beautiful and expensive hair. 
 1 80 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 "Naughty, naughty!" she said shaking 
 her head at the self-revelation in the glass. 
 "That was so unfair! But he deserved it, 
 the darling, and it will do him good." 
 
 Perhaps, though this is hardly a proper 
 thought, it would have done him more good 
 if he had kissed her and made a clean job 
 of it. Still, it does not always turn out that 
 way. . . . 
 
 "Why, I do believe," she went on, more ex 
 citedly now, though applying powder where 
 it was needed, "he ran away in order to 
 spare me! Oh, the dear lamb! the sweet 
 boy! the chivalric gentleman! He wished 
 to spare me!" 
 
 But it made her love him. And somehow 
 it made her blush. She saw the blush in 
 the mirror. She was touched to find that 
 she could still blush. She loved herself for 
 it, and loved him more than ever. She 
 would do much for him after he stopped 
 running away. Tears came to her eyes. 
 She had few illusions about herself; she 
 feared that she would make him miserable, 
 but she felt that she could make him suc- 
 181 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 ceed. Such men need a woman for the 
 purpose. And this one was not at present 
 delivering lectures to ornamental slaves upon 
 Economic Independence. The immemorial 
 habit of the sex still persists even in the most 
 advanced examples of the new woman. 
 Muriel broke down and sobbed like an old- 
 fashioned one. 
 
 Meanwhile Fred, forgetting the expensive 
 model waiting in his studio, was gulping 
 down deep breaths of cool, outside air, as 
 he strode powerfully up the street toward 
 home, his heart still clanging and echoing 
 within him, like a fire-engine returning from 
 a hard-won victory with the devastating 
 elements. 
 
 He was still blinded from the smoke, con 
 fused by the clamor. He did not know how 
 it had all happened. He only knew that 
 he loved her now, that he must have her; 
 only that and, incidentally he must not! 
 "This thing cannot go on this way! I 
 can t keep it up." The maddening per 
 fume of her hair still called to him insist 
 ently; the sting of her soft, scented hands 
 182 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 still tingled his hot cheeks. He bit his lip 
 till it bled. 
 
 Well, hadn t he won the preliminary 
 skirmish with distinguished bravery ? He 
 might have plumed himself on that. He did 
 not. There was that in him which sang 
 paeans of victory for the vanquished side. 
 It was the conqueror and it was the more 
 relentless for the temporary check. He was 
 struggling against something stronger than 
 he was. He wanted her; she wanted him. 
 That supreme fact stood its ground, jubi 
 lant, exalted, god-like. 
 
 He had kept out of her way; what good 
 had that done ? She was too near, too 
 dear. She was now involved in his work, 
 in his life. Calls had been made at his 
 home and returned at hers a blinding 
 thought. He lengthened his stride, as if to 
 run away from it. It kept pace with him, 
 like his shadow. He was headed for 
 "home." So was it. 
 
 Well, since he now knew what manner of 
 man he was, why not make a clean breast 
 of it, let his wife know, too, what manner of 
 183 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 man he was ? She ought to know. Why 
 wait, like a weakling, until in honor bound 
 to tell ? Perhaps she would help him pre 
 vent what he dreaded terribly and desired 
 terrifically. 
 
 Could he keep Muriel s name out of it ? 
 She had not requested him to confess for 
 her! But even so, it would involve why, 
 it involved the whole world, apparently ! 
 These things cannot be individual affairs, 
 not in gregarious existence. 
 
 The thought of deliberately informing his 
 wife in cold blood comparatively cold 
 was unspeakably difficult. But it would 
 have to be a choice of evils in any case. 
 He had heard of such methods of honorable 
 procedure. The straight decency of it had 
 always appealed to him. And to Molly. 
 They had discussed such possibilities, of 
 course, like all true lovers, in the simple 
 days when he was a true lover. 
 
 But what would be the result ? He knew 
 
 her fine feelings, her pride. Naturally, she 
 
 would not wait for the end. She would 
 
 pack up and leave, like the high-minded, 
 
 184 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 high-spirited girl he admired. He should 
 not expect nor want her to remain. The 
 scandal among their friends and families he 
 did not dwell upon; mere outward respect 
 ability was an empty shell, too unimportant 
 to be considered by those who, like Molly 
 and himself, placed decency above decorum. 
 But suddenly he stopped short in his 
 stride toward home and this honorable plan 
 to destroy it. What would become of her ? 
 She had nothing to substitute for what he 
 was destroying. It was so ordained for 
 old-fashioned wives. She was dependent 
 upon him for her status in life. She had 
 no other reason for existence; nor even any 
 independent means of existence, as a mat 
 ter of practical, every-day fact! She was 
 "just a wife." In effect he would be turn 
 ing her out of her home, her sphere, sending 
 her back to her father s care (some of them 
 haven t even that refuge) in order that he 
 might pursue the woman and the work of 
 his choice without let or hinderance! The 
 honorable plan suddenly took on an aspect 
 so dishonorable that he wondered how such 
 185 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 a caddish thought had dared enter his con 
 fused mind. He stumbled on mechanically, 
 instinctively perhaps, toward his home. 
 
 There seemed no decent way to be honest, 
 no honest way to be decent. . . . 
 
 And that is how some such nice, respect 
 able men with high ideals learn in time to 
 deceive their waiting wives and even the 
 suspicious world. 
 
 " It s this foolish little habit of confessing 
 that causes most of the trouble in married 
 life. It is so cruel to confess." That had 
 been tossed out once while he was painting, 
 and scarcely listening, by Muriel smiling 
 idly. 
 
 IX 
 
 Alas, for the romance of passion and 
 tragedy! Just when the stage is set for it, 
 with dim lights and low music, some bun 
 gling player misses his cue, spoils the oft- 
 rehearsed effect, and changes the atmos 
 phere to plain human comedy, justly ab 
 horred by those sentimentalists who call 
 themselves idealists. They may be good 
 
 186 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 themselves, but they derive delight from 
 observing the badness of others. Well, it 
 is, indeed, an interesting business, the most 
 interesting in the world, since it gives a 
 dramatic twist to what is already interesting 
 enough inasmuch as it accounts for our 
 being in the world. But they don t fancy 
 the tempo or matter-of-factness of comedy. 
 Even farce is preferred by many of them, 
 it being pleasantly unreal, as a rule, and 
 moving with a tickling rapidity which pre 
 vents thinking. Provided, of course, the 
 farce be not vulgar. 
 
 The lonely, lovely, long-suffering leading 
 lady was the one to miss her cue in this 
 piece. She happened to be at home when 
 her good man came in. It was too early to 
 be busy with teas and such work. "Why, 
 Fred dear, you have cut your lip! How 
 did it happen ?" 
 
 He caught his breath, making a rasping 
 sound, as of one in great agony. 
 
 "Oh, you poor child! how it pains you!" 
 and she insisted upon bathing it with warm 
 
 water and boric acid to prevent dangerous 
 
 187 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 infection although he tried to run away 
 and vowed that it did not hurt at all, and 
 begged her not to be concerned on his 
 account. It was such a little thing a mere 
 scratch. The Carrolls always belittled 
 their ailments to others, and " hated a fuss." 
 There was no real damage done, he declared. 
 
 Yet she made a fuss, and filled the wifely 
 function tenderly. 
 
 The hard walk home in the out-door 
 breeze had aired his manly shoulders (fortu 
 nately), where Muriel s scented hair had 
 rested. But it had not aired his mind. It 
 was hardly a clear or a happy mind now. 
 The civilized instincts are so inconvenient. 
 The tender yearning pity he now felt for 
 his wife, along with self-reproach beyond 
 expression, surely was akin to love! Still 
 the fact remains, that running down and 
 severely bruising a deserving but distant kin 
 of the opposite sex while driving your own 
 car does not necessarily constitute a suf 
 ficient basis for a boundless passion, or even 
 a successful marriage. Merely for bound 
 less remorse and perhaps an unsuccess- 
 
 188 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 ful marriage. Love cannot be given for 
 value received. Love is not moral nor im 
 moral. It is unmoral. 
 
 Man, however, is moral. " I ve just been 
 lunching with Muriel Vincent," he began 
 boldly. Was it coming ? or was he merely 
 to make a compromise with his conscience ? 
 That sometimes helps wonderfully, as for 
 instance when they say, "If you only knew 
 how unworthy I am!" and then pass it off 
 with a few vague generalizations. 
 
 " Did you have a good time ? " There 
 was nothing to learn from her tone, what 
 ever she may have gathered from his. She 
 and Muriel had this much in common, they 
 both belonged to the weaker sex. 
 
 "She s secured me a commission to do a 
 portrait. She she s very kind and inter 
 ested." 
 
 "A portrait! I m so glad." And Mrs. 
 Carroll added: "That s splendid. Did I 
 tell you I had gone to call upon Mrs. Vin 
 cent?" 
 
 "She told me." There was a little pause. 
 "The fact is, you ve never mentioned her at 
 
 i8g 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 all, you know except once to speak of 
 portraits since you met her in the studio 
 that day. You remember?" 
 
 It appeared that Molly remembered. 
 " But neither have you, Fred." 
 
 There was another pause. (Hold the 
 picture. Count five.) Each was waiting 
 for the other. She had her reasons for 
 making him take the cue. She was stage 
 manager as well as leading lady in this 
 play. She had constructed some such scene 
 as this for days, not to speak of long nights; 
 but comedy is delicate work and she had 
 waited. She was still waiting. 
 
 " By the by, Molly, you and I don t look 
 at these things in the stupid way of some 
 people, I hope." 
 
 She had found out what she wanted 
 not all, but enough. She took her cue now, 
 and her answer surprised him, but her 
 matter-of-fact manner surprised him more. 
 "Of course not," said Molly blithely. "A 
 man should feel that he can have all the 
 friends he wants even though he does hap 
 pen to be married." Then, laughing to 
 190 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 cover a quaking heart, "Fred, you don t 
 suppose I could suspect you of anything 
 wrong! I know you too well. Though I 
 may as well confess," and here she made a 
 girlish grimace, "I am horribly jealous. 
 Your Muriel is wonderful. You must cul 
 tivate her. She is coming to dinner next 
 Thursday." For Molly herself, it seems, 
 had also been cultivating her. And then 
 Molly, not Fred, changed the subject gayly. 
 
 Muriel came to dinner, and smiled as she 
 drove home. This, she thought, was merely 
 a blind from which to watch the poaching, 
 an old device, often employed by conven 
 tional little things. It made the game more 
 difficult, but more interesting. 
 
 But for a conventional little thing Molly 
 began throwing these two together a great 
 deal, and was keeping most obligingly out 
 of the way. "Fred hates to have me 
 around," laughed Molly, "when he talks to 
 women. Threesomes are always such a 
 bore don t you find them so ? " Mean 
 while, she was telling Fred that he must 
 see more of Muriel. "It will do you good," 
 191 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 she urged with most engaging candor. 
 "You have tried to be a stolid husband. 
 The pose does not suit you, my dear. Let 
 go and be yourself. Express your own 
 individuality/ as Muriel calls it; live your 
 own life/ Molly s gift of mimicry at this 
 point made Fred blush, though why should 
 he blush for Muriel ? 
 
 "Another thing, Fred," his wife added 
 wisely, "hereafter I want you to dine at the 
 club once a week. You are getting out of 
 touch with your friends. You need it in 
 your business. Oh, don t worry about me. 
 I need it too. I ll dine at my club, or with 
 my brother. Don t you think it s bad for 
 people to see too much of each other ? 
 Especially when they rather like it. But 
 I don t care to dine with any one person in 
 the world every day of my life not even 
 witty, old dad. It s unnatural. It s wrong. 
 It s never required, except in marriage. I 
 suppose it s because originally people could 
 not trust each other." 
 
 Fred laughed and almost loved her for 
 it. It reminded him of those happy days 
 192 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 which they had taken so tragically during 
 their honeymoon, when she told him how 
 he bored her. He had loved her for that. 
 
 After all, she was the only woman who 
 had never "made him tired." 
 
 " What s got into you lately, Molly?" 
 He still considered her a cunning little 
 thing. He had much to learn about his 
 wife. It would be interesting if not too 
 late. 
 
 "Oh, I ve been talking to Muriel. She 
 knows all about men." (Only a half-blush 
 this time.) 
 
 It was not to be a noble, self-abnegating 
 sacrifice. She felt vaguely but keenly how 
 the land lay. Husbands deceive their wives 
 sometimes, but themselves oftener. You 
 don t suppose she meant to leave him now, 
 just when he needed her most! She would 
 stand by him for his own sake, but also for 
 her own. For, it seemed, she too needed 
 him most, and she meant to get him back. 
 This could not be done in one act and a 
 tableau. It would be a gradual process. 
 Her expedient was the simple one of facing 
 193 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 the facts of life as they really are, not as 
 they might perhaps be in some world as 
 yet uncreated. 
 
 She too had thought, as well as felt, about 
 their marriage and whither it was tending- 
 thanks to Muriel s words, whatever we may 
 think of Muriel s deeds. She knew that he 
 could never love Muriel, whether he did or 
 not. She had taken Muriel s measure at a 
 glance, and she knew this man better than 
 Muriel did, better than he knew himself. 
 A wife who attends to her job, summer and 
 winter, cannot help knowing her husband 
 better than he knows himself. She was not 
 such an idiot as to make him fall in love 
 with Muriel by snatching him away from 
 her. On the contrary, she proposed to try 
 Muriel s own receipt, convincingly outlined 
 in her lecture, arid subsequent talks: "Give 
 a man freedom." Why not freedom per 
 haps to love his own wife ? For his sake, as 
 well as her own, she would not bar the cage 
 door, but fling it wide open! Sometimes it 
 is not the cage but the door that maddens 
 them. Meanwhile she was preparing to get 
 
 194 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 back in touch with his life, his work; to be 
 come a vital part of his existence, not a mere 
 detached encumbrance, a " necessity," not a 
 mere "luxury." Well, here was work wor 
 thy of this wife s highest talents at present. 
 Economic, social, and political readjust 
 ments to meet changed conditions she now 
 believed in fervently thanks again to Mu 
 riel. But that would have to wait awhile, 
 like most dreams. Those who care to, can 
 laugh at her now. 
 
 This unexpected move was as puzzling 
 to Muriel as it was surprising to Fred. 
 Molly was taking the matter out into the 
 light, out of the morbidness of secrecy into 
 the free sunshine of fun and frolic; tear 
 ing off the mystery, the surreptitiousness. 
 Would the charm go, too ? 
 
 "Muriel is dying to take you on," said 
 Molly. "She s so crazy about men." She 
 could not restrain that soft scratch at a 
 woman she feared and hated. 
 
 "You little cat!" laughed Fred. "Don t 
 be silly." For a moment he felt the strange 
 disrelish that he used to experience when 
 195 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 as a boy his mother urged him to be "at 
 tentive" to the daughters of family friends. 
 One invariably detested them. She was 
 making him feel ridiculous which was pre 
 cisely as she intended. A man between 
 two women is always ridiculous, though he 
 doesn t see it. Sometimes it is dangerous 
 to let him see it. But every man is a law 
 unto his better half. 
 
 For Molly it was not always an easy part 
 to play, with a smiling face and quick- 
 beating heart. But she hoped, and kept 
 silent, trying to believe that if she lost him 
 by freedom he was not worth winning 
 otherwise. Meanwhile, she had begun to 
 insinuate herself into his work, gathering up 
 the old threads of common interests, talking 
 the old dear language, carefully studying the 
 exhibitions, but keeping most of the time 
 out of his studio. 
 
 "Fred, why don t you exhibit some of 
 your recent illustrations in the fall when 
 we come back?" she asked him. 
 
 Fred smiled. It was the "why trouble 
 
 your little head about it?" expression. 
 196 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 "Who wants to look at black-and-white?" 
 he asked. 
 
 " Every one at yours." 
 
 Again he smiled indulgently. Fond wives 
 always overrated their husband s impor 
 tance. It was rather cunning. "All right/ 
 he said to dismiss the subject. "I ll ask 
 Myers if he can give me a gallery." 
 
 "Why not MacPherson ?" 
 
 He smiled again. "You don t under 
 stand such matters, my dear. MacPherson 
 wouldn t dream of taking me on." 
 
 "He told me to-day that he would," 
 Molly answered quietly. 
 
 "What! Have you why, Molly!" 
 
 But though he did not like the thought of 
 dainty little Molly s interviewing art deal 
 ers, he could not very well refuse to exhibit 
 at MacPherson s. And he could not help 
 being pleased, and told Molly so, while she 
 glowed and was glad. This was not eco 
 nomic independence. It was better. It 
 was the mutual dependence of common in 
 terest. Muriel could not have done that, 
 
 gloated Molly. She would not have taken 
 
 197 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 che trouble. It was not to her interest to 
 stay awake at night planning things to do 
 for Fred. It was to a wife s. A wife stood 
 or fell in the world beside her husband, as 
 things are arranged for most of them at 
 present. It is still a man s world, even in 
 these threatening days! 
 
 Oh, if she could only win back the place 
 that she had lost! She saw now what 
 might be done there, supplying the quali 
 ties he lacked, bringing out and guiding 
 those he had, making herself indispensable 
 to him, as he in turn was indispensable to 
 her something more substantial, this, than 
 a pretty colored rainbow. There was no 
 longer a chasm between them merely a 
 woman. Muriel must be destroyed. 
 
 To be sure, Muriel might not look at it 
 in that way. 
 
 The spring came, and Molly was mak 
 ing herself of use to her husband in other 
 ways than about the studio, though he no 
 longer objected to her helping him there, 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 unless it interfered with her fun. Then the 
 "why trouble your little head about it?" 
 attitude returned, and he bade the cunning 
 little thing to run out and play. 
 
 As for the other matter, he could not very 
 well take advantage of his wife s trust in 
 him. He did not believe in himself, but 
 so long as she believed in him there was 
 nothing to do but behave himself. She 
 was such a good little sport, so fair and 
 square and unsuspecting; such a cheerful, 
 sunny, civilized little lady, "all uncon 
 scious," so he thought, of the danger to 
 which she was innocently, ignorantly sub 
 jecting him. But if these irresistible infat 
 uations can be resisted while the neglected 
 wife or husband is in the room why not also 
 when alone at last ? 
 
 For she would not let up on bringing 
 them together! Even though he tried to 
 make her let up in subtle ways which 
 would not, so he thought, arouse suspicions 
 of his motives. Indeed, this gallant member 
 of the stronger sex even sought refuge at 
 times with quaint Molly by the hearthstone, 
 199 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 which is sacred, even when the fireplace is 
 asbestos. For Fred, as it happened, was not 
 made of asbestos. 
 
 Molly now believed that she could win 
 him back, but she would not clutch him 
 and hold him from the other woman. She 
 scorned capture by " the tricks of the only 
 trade most of you have ever learned." She 
 had learned better things from Muriel her 
 self. 
 
 She did not propose to witness self-sacri 
 ficing and sighing, later, for what might have 
 been; she intended to make him see that 
 his wife was the one he loved, not Muriel. 
 The glamour was still there, the fascination 
 of the unknown, the unattainable. The 
 reason so many men and women think 
 they would have been happier married to 
 the other one is because they never mar 
 ried the other one. Molly could not very 
 well arrange a trial marriage for this pair, 
 but perhaps that was not necessary. She 
 evolved a plan by which, she hoped, Mu 
 riel would destroy herself and make Molly. 
 
 The Carrolls were going off on a vacation 
 
 200 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 next month, up in the North Woods, and 
 they were telling their guests about it at 
 a dinner Muriel attended, looking enig 
 matic and resplendent. "You see, he s 
 never had a vacation, poor lamb, since the 
 summer we were married. I ve gone off 
 and visited my people and his; but he has 
 stayed on here in the heat of the city, turn 
 ing out work. Even when we ve been in 
 Europe he has never got completely away 
 from his work." 
 
 Fred smiled in a deprecatory manner, but 
 he liked it. They always do. 
 
 "So, when he refused again this time, 
 there was nothing for me to do but go 
 ahead and telegraph the guides. And now 
 he must go, whether he wants to or not." 
 
 The guests, including Muriel herself, 
 thought they knew why he did not want 
 to go. The cunning little wife was going 
 to remove him from temptation. Some of 
 the Carrolls friends who had been looking 
 on during the winter had remained silent, 
 though solicitous. Others had shown their 
 friendly interest by spreading the report, 
 
 201 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 saying: "Where there s so much smoke 
 there must be fire." So by this time all the 
 Carrolls acquaintances, and some who were 
 not acquainted, were watching, some with 
 alarm, others with amusement, all with 
 relish. 
 
 Muriel, who sat very high and straight 
 when she was dining out, smiled down upon 
 Molly. She could not resist displaying her 
 potency and the fear of it. "What fun 
 you ll have! Won t you take me, too?" 
 she asked, stepping gracefully into Molly s 
 trap. 
 
 "Will you come?" cried Molly with 
 genuine eagerness. "Oh, how nice!" And 
 it was arranged at once between them. 
 Fred meanwhile pretending to talk shop to 
 the woman on his left, while he, like her, 
 listened to Molly with astonishment. 
 
 Muriel considered it sheer bravado. The 
 young wife wished to say to her and to the 
 others, "See, I m not afraid!" Muriel 
 made up her mind to accept in earnest. She 
 was no longer amused with the conventional 
 little thing. She was becoming rather an- 
 
 202 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 noyed. Molly seemed so complacently sure 
 of her husband. And Fred seemed to be 
 growing sure of himself again. 
 
 "You didn t mean that ?" asked Fred as 
 soon as the door closed on the last guest. 
 
 "Why not?" asked Molly guilelessly. 
 "She s such a dear friend of both of us 
 
 now." 
 
 "She won t enjoy camping," said Fred 
 scowling. 
 
 Molly knew that. It was one of the rea 
 sons why Muriel had been invited, though 
 not the only one. "Oh, she told us when 
 you were in the other room that she adored 
 nature. " 
 
 Fred did not laugh. For an intelligent 
 girl, Molly seemed very short-sighted. What 
 others thought about him had never troubled 
 him much perhaps not enough. But now he 
 had a wife to look after. He did not want 
 her friends to pity her. " Think what people 
 will say," he reminded her reluctantly. 
 
 "Oh, but we don t look at these things 
 in that stupid way," quoted Molly. 
 
 It would seem that her husband, how- 
 203 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 ever, was beginning to look at things in 
 a very stupid way, for he protested to 
 Muriel herself. 
 
 "So you don t want me?" she asked 
 standing before him, smiling. 
 
 "No, I don t want you." Why could he 
 not shake off this sultry infatuation! 
 
 She only laughed at him. "But you 
 do ! " She reproved him delightfully, and as 
 if to shake him (perhaps) she lightly took 
 him by the shoulders, then stopped. "You 
 mean that you re afraid of me!" she said 
 in a burlesque whisper, searching his eyes. 
 
 "So you ve often told me," he replied, 
 bravely returning her gaze, but trying not 
 to think about her. 
 
 "That settles it," she said, flushing 
 slightly, "I m coming. We ll see." 
 
 So she came and saw. 
 
 "My, what won t that girl do next!" 
 asked certain of the lookers on. 
 
 "Is Molly blind?" 
 
 "No, but she can wink." 
 
 But they were only lookers on. They 
 
 seldom understand. 
 
 204 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 XI 
 
 It was the last day of Muriel s visit at 
 the Carrolls camp. The climate or some 
 thing did not agree with her, and so she 
 was leaving earlier than had been expected, 
 much to Molly s disappointment, it seems. 
 Fred, too, protested politely. In all the 
 ten days he had never once been out of 
 Muriel s sight. Molly saw to that. 
 
 Muriel was not at her best camping (as 
 Molly had known). She "adored nature," 
 but not in the raw. The only kind of camp 
 ing she had ever done was at certain Adiron 
 dack "camps" which contained footmen 
 and formal gardens. This was different. 
 There was but one guide, an old friend of 
 the Carrolls named John, who was willing 
 to do anything, but expected the "city 
 sports" to do their share. Since Muriel was 
 a guest, Molly and Fred did Muriel s share, 
 because she did not know much about life 
 in the woods. 
 
 Molly did. She was good in camp. 
 
 "You are the only woman I ever knew/" 
 
 205 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 Fred had once said, "who isn t a nuisance 
 in the woods." That was the summer they 
 became engaged perhaps it had some 
 thing to do with their becoming engaged 
 and a girl does not forget much that is said 
 to her during the summer she is engaged. 
 At any rate, it had everything to do with 
 their being there now, midst the poignant 
 memories awakened by the sparkling out 
 door air with the reminiscent odors of the 
 clean pine forest. Odors are often powerful 
 allies in certain kinds of war where all is 
 fair. 
 
 But camping did not seem to suit Mu 
 riel s long, attenuated style, and the sun 
 played havoc with her beautiful nose. She 
 could not drape herself becomingly upon 
 the rocks, as with the Italian chairs in the 
 soft candle-light of the studio. And the 
 exotic perfume of her delicate presence, 
 once so maddening to this man, now seemed 
 rather out of place. He was a fastidious 
 chap. 
 
 And then, too, she talked at breakfast! 
 That was something Molly had long since 
 206 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 learned would never do when Fred was 
 around. She talked interestingly, but it 
 wouldn t do. See those clouds/ she 
 would say, "like disappointed hopes." 
 
 "Yes, indeed," said Fred, without look 
 ing up. "Any more flapjacks, Molly?" 
 He was unshaven and his cravatless flan 
 nel shirt was open at the throat a gross 
 creature. 
 
 " You cannot retain his interest in you/ " 
 quoted Molly from Muriel s lecture, and 
 giving the gross creature food, " when you 
 are incapable of intelligent interest in his 
 work/ She did it with such good-nature 
 that Muriel laughed. She was beginning to 
 see through Molly, but she was beginning 
 to like her perhaps for that reason. World 
 ly wise Muriel was a good sport, even if not 
 a good sportswoman. Fred was no longer 
 on the wing. There is such a thing as a 
 closed season even for husbands. Could it 
 be that this one was falling in love with his 
 wife ? 
 
 After that morning the Carrolls distin 
 guished guest took breakfast in her tent. 
 207 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 "I am so absurdly slow about dress 
 ing, my dear, that unless it is an awful nui 
 sance 
 
 "Not at all," said Molly, "Fred will be 
 delighted to bring your breakfast to you. 
 And he will be only too glad to get up and 
 heat some water for you before breakfast, 
 if you like. Won t you, dear?" 
 
 "Yes, indeed," said Fred. 
 
 But Muriel preferred to have John, the 
 guide, perform these functions. Her toilet 
 was complicated, and required plenty of 
 hot water and time. (Molly understood.) 
 So Muriel tipped John, thus hurting his 
 feelings. John used to crouch upon his 
 haunches before the camp-fire in the even 
 ing and gaze upon her for minutes at a 
 time in mute contempt. He had never 
 seen anything quite like this before. He 
 did not care for it. Perhaps his prejudice 
 tinged the whole camp. The prejudices of 
 guides are apt to do that. 
 
 Fred was all right by moonlight on the 
 lake, unless he was too sleepy after being 
 
 out-doors all day, but the trouble with 
 
 208 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 Fred was that he had not been in the woods 
 for years and he was consumed with a 
 barbarous lust for taking innocent life. 
 His manner was no longer bullying with 
 Muriel, he had become suspiciously gal 
 lant, extravagantly polite. "Oh, we are 
 going to have a soulful time together up 
 here," his manner said "but just wait 
 till I catch a two-pounder." He had once 
 been an expert fly-caster. He d forgotten 
 how much he loved it. These predatory 
 males! They love women, but battle and 
 the chase come first; then soft femininity 
 for the warrior s hour of relaxation. What 
 else are they good for ! 
 
 He took Muriel with him to some of the 
 near-by streams, while Molly obligingly went 
 far away to the good streams with John. 
 The good streams are always far away. Mu 
 riel could not stand the journey. She did 
 not know how to sit in a canoe, much less 
 paddle it, and she was bored, quite bored. 
 She began to think she ought never to have 
 come to this wild place. After all, the Car- 
 rolls were not her sort. They were so child- 
 209 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 ish together. She was beginning to think 
 of them as a conventional little couple after 
 all. They had so many silly little jokes and 
 family references. Families are such a bore. 
 
 Molly was making ready to start for 
 Round Pond with John. " You and Muriel 
 can guard the hearth-stone I mean the 
 camp-fire," she said. Fred was helping 
 her sort out flies, enviously. Muriel was 
 gazing out upon the lake, her hands clasped 
 behind her head, tall, erect, enigmatic the 
 very pose in which Fred had painted her. 
 " Molly," he whispered boyishly, "why 
 can t I go along?" He hadn t had a day 
 with her since they arrived in camp, and, 
 as we have already remarked, he was ten 
 derly fond of his precious if not perfect wife. 
 
 " Muriel," she replied. " Threesomes are 
 such a bore! Besides, she could not stand 
 the long carry." 
 
 "Why can t you stay with Muriel just 
 once," he laughed. 
 
 "Why, Fred, she s your guest!" 
 
 "Oh, no. You invited her." 
 
 "For your sake, Fred." 
 
 210 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 "Well, it doesn t seem right for you to 
 leave her on the last day of her visit. It s 
 not nice." He said it humorously, but he 
 hoped she would take the hint. 
 
 "Oh, you can entertain her. Talk about 
 nature. You haven t grown tired of her 
 so soon, my dear!" 
 
 "No, of course not," he answered and 
 little Molly was big enough to admire this 
 chivalric lie. "But you see," he went on, 
 with a frank laugh, "I ve done nothing but 
 entertain her from morning till night ever 
 since we arrived, and now she s sick of it, 
 and so am I! Let the poor girl have one 
 pleasant day before she leaves! You haven t 
 done your share. You ve been skipping out 
 and having a good time and getting all the 
 fishing. I want some fishing too. That s 
 what I came for, you know. It s selfish. I 
 didn t think it of you!" 
 
 "Fred! Fred! I didn t think this of you! 
 Cheer up, dear. There s only one day 
 more, then we ll be together alone, dear. 
 Besides, you are going to see enough of me 
 next winter but not too much," she added 
 
 211 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 to herself. "We re going to get a studio 
 apartment and economize. You are going 
 to swear off illustrations, and become a 
 great painter and so am I," she also 
 added to herself. 
 
 When conditions fit neither the old-fash 
 ioned wife nor the new, perfectly, one must 
 mix a little of each and compromise with 
 conditions! Molly was efficient but no one 
 person, it seems, can make a gregarious 
 world over anew, and put all the reformers 
 out of a job. 
 
 "What are you two children quarrelling 
 about? 5 asked Muriel in her delightfully 
 modulated voice, as she "swam" toward 
 them gracefully, her hands still behind 
 her head. "I never supposed I d find you 
 quarrelling." 
 
 At this Molly bent lower over her fly- 
 book. "Ask Fred," she said. 
 
 "Oh, the devil!" growled Fred, and he 
 hurried down the bank to bail out Molly s 
 canoe. 
 
 "He s as cross as a bear to-day," said 
 Molly, busily unreeling her line and testing 
 
 212 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 its strength. "Do cheer him up when I 
 am gone, Muriel. If you can t, who can ?" 
 
 Fred, on the little dock, holding the canoe, 
 watched her approach, carrying the rod 
 which he had taught her to handle better 
 than most men. She looked like a mere 
 girl in her short khaki skirt as she stepped 
 briskly toward him, supple, alert, full of 
 verve and grace. 
 
 Ignoring the hand he held out to her, she 
 stepped nimbly into the canoe, into the 
 centre of it, with apparent thoughtlessness. 
 Then taking up her paddle, as John took 
 up his, "Good-by, my dears," she said, 
 "take good care of each other. I ll not be 
 back till sunset. Muriel, help yourself to 
 my cold cream, if yours is all gone. Help 
 yourself to anything of mine you can use," 
 and away she went, paddling swiftly. 
 
 The two prisoners gazed after her in si 
 lent alarm, both self-conscious, dreading to 
 meet each other s eyes, longing for cheerful 
 Molly s return. Muriel was no longer a 
 welcome luxury, and as Molly had inter 
 fered with her being a necessity, she had 
 213 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 become disquietingly like a nuisance. To 
 her Fred had simply become another disap 
 pointment like all men, when once you 
 know them well enough. Muriel was out of 
 the procession. And yet those who only look 
 on from the grandstand have their uses. 
 They enjoy the advantage of perspective. 
 Observe this young pair falling into line. 
 Who whistled them into step ? Who showed 
 them where to march ? And yet it is quite 
 possible that they would fail to thank her ! 
 . . . Molly s canoe disappeared behind the 
 point. The two marooned mutineers be 
 came more conscious of each other s pres 
 ence. "May I not get you a sofa-cushion ?" 
 asked Fred politely. 
 
 "No, thanks," Muriel replied musically, 
 "I must pack." 
 
 When Molly returned, the two congenial 
 old friends were sitting side by side talking 
 animatedly about the sunset. But she ob 
 served with a smile that there was an open 
 book beside Muriel. And when Molly 
 drew nearer she discovered another book, 
 beside Fred. Well, we must all keep up 
 214 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 appearances in this conventional world. 
 But you mustn t blame Molly for abruptly 
 running off to her tent to laugh at these 
 respectable people. 
 
 When at last the hour of departure came, 
 welcome to all, including John, groaning 
 under Muriel s mountainous duffle bag, 
 Mr. and Mrs. Carroll stood upon the little 
 dock and waved good-by to their guest, 
 retreating in good order, colors flying, giving 
 and receiving little jokes as if nothing had 
 happened; smiling inwardly at them and 
 at herself; defeated but not depressed and 
 so out to view the procession once more. 
 
 When at last her canoe disappeared be 
 hind the point, Molly heard her husband 
 breathe a sigh of relief, and she smiled in 
 dulgently, as when a mother hears her dear 
 child waking up from a bad dream. The 
 little comedy was ended. The field was 
 now clear for the greater task still unfinished, 
 to make a real union of what had merely 
 been a marriage. It was a good place to re 
 sume, here where they had made their false 
 start. There was much to be done, but 
 215 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 she had it in her own hands now. Man 
 proposes marriage; woman disposes of it. 
 
 Fred had turned eagerly to talk of fishing 
 plans. But he had been arrested by the 
 look on his wife s half-turned face. He was 
 still gazing at it in amazement as compre 
 hension flashed across his own. Then with 
 the mingled sensations of a man awakening 
 to the great fact that his wife understands 
 him better than he does himself alarm, 
 respect, amusement, and solid comfort 
 " Molly! you little wretch!" he cried, sheer 
 admiration for her breaking through shame 
 and all the rest, "I see it now!" 
 
 They turned and confronted each other 
 with new eyes, understanding and un 
 ashamed, while laughter crowded out their 
 old polite artificiality. For him it was the 
 moment of clear vision. He saw what a 
 stupid thing their marriage had been, what 
 a goodly thing it might be. And as that 
 pleasant vista opened out before his seeing 
 eyes the sickly half-gods took their whim 
 pering flight with the fog and murk of illu 
 sion. Then came rushing back the God- 
 216 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 given flame of love, fusing soul and senses 
 as in the blind days before this guileless 
 pair had lost each other s hands in the 
 man-planted maze of marriage but now 
 the splendid flame surged, white and clear 
 and unafraid. He caught his rosy mate 
 and held her close in their mad, glad, good 
 renewal, the tenderest of passions. 
 
 When Fred spoke it was to say: " Molly, 
 it isn t that I was such an ass that sur 
 prises me, but that you considered me 
 worth pulling out!" 
 
 She looked up, tender, merry, and wise. 
 "Oh, I will always pull you out/ she said. 
 
 217 
 
SECOND PART 
 THE HOUSE OF CARROLL 
 
IV 
 
 THE COMEDY OF HOME- 
 BUILDING 
 
 SCENES: First, chiefly in the clouds of sweet illusion. 
 Second, down to earth also sweet, but solid. 
 
 (SEVERAL YEARS HAVE ELAPSED, AND THE CARROLLS 
 HAVE BECOME YOUNGER AT LEAST THEY APPEAR IN A 
 
 NEW LIGHT, AS TOGETHER THEY FACE THE PRESSING 
 PROBLEM OF ESTABLISHING A NEW HOME FOR NEW CAR- 
 ROLLS. THEY ARE ABLE TO GET SOME FUN OUT OF IT.) 
 
 I 
 
 THEY had begun building their house to 
 gether on paper years ago, before they really 
 had any use for one, not yet being together, 
 and discussed interior arrangements with an 
 exterior calmness which scandalized Aunt 
 Bella, who also was not married. She lived 
 alone with mid- Victorian ideals in a stiff, 
 old brownstone house which had steps lead 
 ing up to a high stoop outside and silver 
 knobs on sombre walnut doors within. She 
 did not understand the younger generation. 
 
 221 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 For that matter, these two members of 
 the younger generation had not understood 
 each other though they thought they did 
 nor the building of homes, except that theirs 
 (on this point they were clear) would be 
 quite different from Aunt Bella s. For that 
 is the way with home-building and younger 
 generations, as may be learned from "The 
 Master Builder." . . . 
 
 The wonderful house of their dreams 
 was to be in the country the real country, 
 not the suburbs, though, preferably, near a 
 golf links. It was to be long and low and 
 lovable, rather than tall and towering and 
 impressive. It was to cling close to the 
 ground, but to shun the public highway. 
 It was to nestle under a benign old tree or 
 two which would like to have it there but 
 would not shut out the view of the distant 
 sea. It was to stand or rather rest upon 
 a gentle terrace, somewhat run down at the 
 edges, and to be surrounded by an old wall, 
 somewhat mouldy in the shaded corners. 
 Over the whole thing were to be clambering 
 vines and the tone of time something which 
 
 222 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 could hardly be purchased for a new house, 
 even if they had plenty of money. But it 
 cost no more to dream it thus, and in time 
 they might acquire both the house and 
 the mellow atmosphere of home. They had 
 plenty of time. 
 
 Being a painter, he was given to mak 
 ing sketches in odd moments of interesting 
 details of the exterior quaint doorways, 
 with only one step up into the house; placid 
 gable-ends, with groups of chimney-pots 
 emerging from among the branches of the 
 caressing trees in a manner to make one 
 want to see the rest. (Perhaps, after all, 
 they did want people to see their house 
 some people.) She, on the other hand, 
 was not only "so artistic," as some of her 
 friends called it, but also a "splendid 
 housekeeper," as even those who disliked 
 her, admitted. Why should not the two 
 "feminine" qualities go together? Molly, 
 at any rate, was expert at planning interiors, 
 very practical ones, composed almost en 
 tirely of fireplaces and bath-rooms. So it 
 is easy to see what an excellent life partner- 
 223 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 ship theirs was, and they had great fun for 
 years and years planning the house that was 
 to be, and fighting about it but seldom. 
 
 His fun was chiefly in designing some 
 thing beautiful, an ability which she could 
 appreciate; hers the more elemental and 
 lasting joy of home-making, a quality which 
 he admired in women and which the biog 
 raphers of bunnies and birdies would prob 
 ably cite as a development of the primal 
 instinct of nest-building. However that 
 may be, no woman is really happy so men 
 have said, and men know all about them 
 until she has a home of her own, with 
 babies and a lot of odds and ends to stow 
 away in attics. 
 
 Attics and closets she dreamed about 
 and gloated over more than any other part 
 of the house, even more than fireplaces and 
 bath-rooms. " It will be such luxury," she 
 said, " after all these years of existing, not 
 really living, in apartments at home and 
 in trunks abroad." 
 
 So, while he in imagination was down in 
 
 the wine cellar (to be constructed after an 
 224 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 original design of his own) laying away Bur 
 gundy to grow old and mellow with the 
 house and themselves, she in imagination 
 was up in the garret laying away clothes 
 which were already old. And while he was 
 designing entrancing groups of low lattice 
 windows with hollyhocks peeping in, she 
 was planning sunny nurseries with babies 
 peeping out. 
 
 Then together in imagination they would 
 meet half-way say by the broad hall fire 
 place to receive a houseful of congenial 
 guests for the week-end. The instinct of 
 hospitality was strong in both of them, but 
 it took a long time to agree upon the motto 
 for the stone mantel. She wanted a line 
 from Horace, and he wanted something 
 modern, because so many modern guests 
 wouldn t understand Latin. 
 
 "But we could translate it for them," 
 she said, pushing back her pretty wavy hair 
 soberly. 
 
 That was not his idea of art or hospital 
 ity, but he only chuckled, because Molly 
 225 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 was always interesting when she said foolish 
 things in that demure manner. 
 
 So they compromised upon a couplet in 
 old English, though, as it turned out, there 
 wasn t any mantel-piece in the hall, and the 
 one in the living room proved to be of wood, 
 and the couplet was never carved because 
 he wanted to do it himself, but somehow or 
 other he never got around to it. Meanwhile, 
 before the house was even begun, some of 
 the friends they were entertaining in im 
 agination so lavishly died or married and 
 ceased to be friends. 
 
 But the house continued to grow on paper, 
 until from beginning as a modest cottage it 
 became a mellow manor house, very simple 
 and intelligible in its long, low lines, quite 
 devoid of ornamentation, but beautiful in 
 " mass and proportion." There were mean 
 dering wings running out on either side, 
 with seeming artlessness, ending in a spa 
 cious studio at one end and a trim stable 
 yard at the other, with a clock in the stable 
 tower and a dovecote in the loft. There 
 226 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 was no break in the lines; the various ap 
 pendages were all held together in one pleas 
 ant, reposeful composition by an old brick 
 wall with creamy gray stone balls on the 
 gate posts and carelessly clustering masses 
 of thick shrubbery, half concealing, half re 
 vealing all these charms not to speak of 
 the noble oak near the left-hand edge of 
 the picture, with lower branches reaching 
 almost across, while the upper ones soared 
 far aloft, dwarfing the low house delight 
 fully and making a fine effect against one 
 of Fred s "bully, bulbous clouds." In fact, 
 it seemed to them quite a satisfactory house, 
 and they progressed admirably with it as 
 long as they were left alone with their pen 
 cils and paper and paint and dreams. But 
 one day they called in an architect. 
 
 II 
 
 . Without architects and such agents of 
 actuality, what wonderful houses not to 
 say castles in the air we can all build! 
 The Carrolls architect was a friend. At 
 
 least he had been before he became their 
 
 227 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 architect. That was their first mistake in 
 trying to make their dream come true, 
 To be sure, it could never have come true, 
 in any case, as they dreamed it, but one 
 should never employ a friend for an archi 
 tect unless one has too many friends. 
 
 Wilson Peters was not a bad fellow, and 
 Molly had even forgiven his having been 
 an intimate of Fred s before marriage. 
 That was in the old days when both men 
 were young aspirants together in Paris, 
 dreaming of many impossible things and 
 some possible ones which had since come 
 true. Fame was coquetting pleasantly with 
 both of them now, and each had a frank 
 liking for the other s ability, mingled with 
 a secret contempt for what was being done 
 with it. It seemed to Carroll that Peters 
 was, unconsciously perhaps, allowing him 
 self to become a woman s architect, "a man 
 milliner," Fred called it. This architect s 
 clever prettiness, Carroll thought, was even 
 more criminal than the ignorant banalities 
 of many of his trade, because of its seduc 
 tive appeal to the pseudo-cultured taste of 
 228 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 the new generation of American millionair 
 esses who thought they knew architecture 
 when they saw it because they had a speak 
 ing acquaintance with its family names, and 
 could talk about " style" and "periods." 
 The outward details of the real thing were 
 always there in Peters work (a rich riot 
 of detail, very expensive), but the inward 
 spirit was lacking. So Fred informed Molly, 
 and perhaps he was right, though, like most 
 people who build houses, he did not know 
 as much about architecture as he thought 
 he did. 
 
 Peters considered Carroll a pig-headed 
 painter, "a visionary realist/ who stuck 
 to an ultra-modern school when he might 
 have been making fame and fortune doing 
 what people would like and buy. We 
 have only one life to lead, and the ques 
 tion was whether it wasn t better to ex 
 press yourself somehow or other even in 
 a falsetto voice than not to express your 
 self at all. . . .-Perhaps neither of these 
 young men really understood the other. 
 
 We ll see about that after a while. 
 229 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 The architect glanced over the artist s 
 sketches with the inscrutable look experts 
 usually bestow upon the ideas of amateurs. 
 Physicians, lawyers, they all have that look, 
 especially the very young ones, when clients 
 or patients venture suggestions. "If you 
 only knew what I know!" it seems to say, 
 "but I won t tell." Probably it s a pro 
 fessional secret. Peters said, "Umhum," 
 and put down the sketches. 
 
 "Well," said Molly impatiently, "why 
 don t you say they are perfectly lovely?" 
 
 Fred chuckled, to show that this was 
 one of Molly s pleasantries. 
 
 "They are. They are, indeed!" said 
 Peters indulgently, but he still wore the 
 look. It was clear to Molly that this archi 
 tect had no real art feeling and was jeal 
 ous of the beautiful sketches. But that 
 wasn t it. As mere pictures they had a nice 
 feeling, the charm of a strong, simple per 
 sonality. As an architectural problem they 
 were impossible, full of incongruities, an 
 achronisms, absurdities. But he was an 
 
 architect and had learned to be tactful. 
 
 230 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 "Of course/ said Fred, "this facade 
 may be all wrong, but, at least, we want 
 it unpretentious. Please curb your ten 
 dency to beautify [note how tactful they 
 both were at this stage of the game], be 
 cause you aren t building for a millionaire 
 this time." 
 
 "I thought maybe I was," said Wilson 
 whimsically. "Have you any idea how 
 much this outfit would cost ? By the strict 
 est economy, using the simplest materials 
 and restraining my tendency to beautify 
 we might possibly build something of this 
 sort for a little over double your present 
 appropriation, but I doubt it." 
 
 Thus the house of their dreams, which 
 had been building for years, fell to the 
 ground in less than a minute. 
 
 It had never occurred to them to get 
 the price of things. They only knew that 
 houses of that sort could be bought for a 
 song in England, shooting included. They 
 had once rented an old one marked down 
 to a dollar-ninety-eight, or thereabouts, a 
 day, furnished. That was years ago, dur- 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 ing their honeymoon, which now seemed 
 roseate and beautiful, as well as amusing 
 and absurd. But they were much younger 
 and less serious now. . . . 
 
 There was a tense silence, despite the 
 crashing of the walls of their sweet home. 
 Fred took a cigarette. Molly turned her 
 face away and almost wept. Do you won 
 der that they soon learned to hate their 
 architect ? 
 
 "Now, if you ll let me draw you a little 
 preliminary sketch he began. 
 
 "We couldn t think of it," said Molly. 
 "If you won t let us have that house, we 
 don t want any! Let s not talk about it." 
 
 "Yes," put in Fred smiling, "why spoil 
 a pleasant evening. Have a fresh cigar, 
 Pete." 
 
 But few are ever so lucky, or unlucky, 
 as to build the house of their dreams, and 
 that is one reason why so many people go 
 through life without ever building at all, 
 forgetting that the realization of a com 
 promise is better than no realization at all. 
 
 (Perhaps there is something in Peters view 
 
 232 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 of self-expression.) Moreover, in the case 
 of the Carrolls, it was no longer a mere 
 luxurious whim for living six months of the 
 year in the country; for there was now a 
 worthy son of the (unbuilt) house who was 
 already beginning to sniff contemptuously 
 at the asphalt paths in the park, and there 
 was a smaller Molly rapidly outgrowing 
 baby-carriages. They wanted the country. 
 Therefore it was not as a pretty preference 
 that the Carrolls confronted the question, 
 but as a judicious move for the parents of 
 healthy children. The younger generation 
 again, already knocking lightly at the door 
 down near the bottom of it; they couldn t 
 yet reach the latch nor turn the old people 
 out. ... It merely meant that Frederic 
 Carroll had postponed, for a little longer, 
 his plan of becoming America s foremost 
 portrait painter, and had gone in for land 
 scapes, at which he was doing very well, to 
 the surprise of all his friends. But that 
 shows the advantage of being a versatile 
 genius: The job can follow the family, 
 instead of making the family follow the job, 
 233 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 Besides, as a literary friend of Carroll s 
 remarked, a family is better than fame, 
 a wife than wealth, and children than a 
 career. The famous literary friend had 
 none of these, but Fred still had adjustable 
 ideals. Well, surely, they are better than 
 none at all. 
 
 Indeed, the Carrolls had bought their 
 land, and now they felt that they must build 
 upon it whether they wanted to or not. It 
 was not, by the way, a farm, nor was it 
 very far from the road. It wasn t even a 
 road, but a street, though they insisted upon 
 calling it a lane a compromise in self- 
 expression. In fact, their "land" was mere 
 ly a lot on the edge of a town, but it was a 
 most charming town, and their lot a large 
 one, with a gentle slope to the south, and 
 with no other houses is sight from the pro 
 posed terrace. It did not command a view 
 of the distant sea, because the sea hap 
 pened to be too distant, but there was a 
 sweet-curving river, cutting through a wav 
 ing meadow with a silver sickle; and be 
 yond that many miles of open country 
 234 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 rolled out in diminishing ripples until lost 
 in the soft haze of a distant fringe of hills. 
 This did not give the sharp thrill of the 
 vivid sea, but it would do, at a pinch, as 
 has been proved since by a characteristic 
 and now costly Carroll, which occupies 
 valuable space upon the already expensive 
 walls of one of our most revered historic 
 homes on upper Fifth Avenue, thus doing 
 its humble part in the task of ennobling 
 its celebrated owner, whom we shall meet 
 and celebrate later in these veracious an 
 nals. 
 
 Architects will tell you that the lines and 
 type of a house ought, of course, to be de 
 termined by one s site. The Carrolls had 
 reversed this process. They had chosen 
 this site because it suited their house! 
 
 Well, they did not like the sketches Wil 
 son Peters drew up for them. "I d rather 
 be shot than live in that house," said Fred 
 to Molly. "It s so restlessly self-assertive 
 that it would keep us all awake at night." 
 
 "It looks like a world s fair building," 
 said she. 
 
 235 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 To Wilson they said, "Very pretty, but 
 too pretty for us. You d better throw us 
 over altogether. We ll only give you trou 
 ble, and it s such a small job for such a big 
 architect." 
 
 He said he didn t want to do that 
 though he did unless they wanted to 
 throw him over. 
 
 They did, but only said, " Don t talk that 
 way, Wilson!" and added, "Why couldn t 
 you take our vague idea of a house and 
 modify it to suit our pocketbook ? There s 
 nothing very vague about that." 
 
 Peters didn t want to do this; he wanted 
 to "express himself," but he said he would 
 try. He was interested in the problem; 
 he saw more merit, to tell the truth, than 
 he cared to acknowledge in the essentials 
 of Fred s idea; and, besides, he liked Fred, 
 and was beginning to like Molly. 
 
 Furthermore, he had a rough, prelimi 
 nary plan for saying in the future to mil 
 lionaire clients, or potential clients mil 
 lionaires being thick in the neighborhood 
 "Now, here s a little thing I did for 
 236 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 my friend Frederic Carroll, the landscape 
 painter not bad of its sort, hey, what?" 
 
 "Now," said Carroll, taking out the 
 sketches and trying to look very practi 
 cal, "we don t really need the stable, be 
 cause we haven t any horses, you know." 
 It seemed reasonable to give up the 
 stable. 
 
 "And probably never will have any after 
 we get through building a house," said 
 Molly. Therefore all the more reasonable. 
 Out went the stable. 
 
 "I only put it in," explained Fred, "to 
 make the sketch compose but look!" he 
 added triumphantly, and laid a book over 
 one side of the sketch and a hand over 
 the other. "By simply striking out both 
 the stable and the squash court, why, you 
 see, the thing still composes beautifully!" 
 
 "Oh, but can t we keep even the stable 
 yard?" pleaded Molly. 
 
 "It would hardly be worth while with 
 out the stable," said Fred judiciously. 
 
 "Not even the clock?" 
 
 "Not even the clock," he pronounced 
 237 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 with sternness and glanced at the archi 
 tect for approval. 
 
 " You re doing well," said Peters laugh 
 ing. "Is the brick wall a must ?" 
 
 "Don t you tear down our wall!" cried 
 Molly. "It s so dear." 
 
 "That s just the trouble," said Peters, 
 and told them the cost by the perch. 
 
 "Make it a hedge," said Fred. "The 
 deep green against the house! much more 
 swell than red bricks." 
 
 "Now about the house itself," began the 
 architect in a tentative manner. Both 
 Carrolls turned upon him fiercely. He 
 blinked and pretended to dodge. (Please 
 note how pleasantly jocular they are to 
 gether.) "I m sorry," he said, "but your 
 ideas are still entirely too elaborate for 
 your appropriation." 
 
 "We call it our limit," said Fred. 
 
 "Well, you must either raise your limit 
 or reduce your ideas. Building is twice as 
 expensive as it used to be." (It always is.) 
 
 "I ll tell you what we ll do!" cried Mol 
 ly, with an inspiration. "We ll give up the 
 238 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 tiling in the bath-rooms! White enamel 
 woodwork is just as clean and nice, and it 
 won t crack." 
 
 The architect smiled indulgently. "That 
 might save a hundred or two," he said 
 grimly. 
 
 "Well, what do you propose?" snapped 
 out Fred, fearing the worst. 
 
 "Long, low rambling houses are very 
 interesting to look at," began Peters, "and 
 I assure you," he added hastily, "much 
 more fun for the architect, but " 
 
 "Now he s going to pull down even the 
 house!" cried Molly aghast. 
 
 "No," laughed Peters, "only to build 
 it up a little. For one thing, your plan 
 would require at least three furnaces, since 
 you insist on hot air." 
 
 "But look at all our lovely fireplaces!" 
 said Molly. 
 
 "Yes, look at them! Scattered out all 
 over the place. Let me see, you d have to 
 build six chimneys. Chimneys cost money. 
 Likewise with your bath-rooms; you ve got 
 your plumbing system spread out to the 
 239 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 four winds. Plumbing is expensive. Be 
 sides, some of your pipes would freeze. 
 Did you ever stop to think of that ?" (No, 
 they had never stopped to think of that.) 
 "Then, heavens! all these corners; corners 
 are costly. I m afraid you ll have to con 
 centrate your house a little. In fact/ he 
 paused to deliver the cruel blow, "I m 
 awfully afraid that you ll have to lift up 
 this wing and plunk it down on top of the 
 other one and throw away the middle." 
 Once more he burlesqued warding off a 
 blow. 
 
 This time the Carrolls did not laugh. 
 
 A high house after all! That was a 
 little too much. 
 
 ("He s a facetious little man," thought 
 Molly. "I never did like him.") Fred re 
 mained silent and avoided his wife s eyes. 
 Peters made use of the silence to rush in 
 upon them while off their guard; so un 
 sportsmanlike. "Then, again, take this 
 long roof. Tile is very interesting, and 
 takes a nice color, but did you ever price 
 it?" (No answer.) "It s not only expen- 
 240 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 sive in itself, but you d have to increase 
 your supports beneath in order to sustain 
 the tremendously increased weight. Ever 
 lift a tile and a shingle ?" 
 
 A deeper silence. 
 
 "Oh, of course," growled Fred, "every 
 thing we want we can t have." 
 
 "And everything we can have we don t 
 want," sighed Molly. 
 
 That was the way it seemed at the mo 
 ment, but when they recovered from the 
 first blow they decided philosophically that 
 a great many of the things they couldn t 
 have they really did not want. "Billiard 
 tables are always hideous, no matter who 
 designs them," said Fred, "even if they did 
 not eat up space. I can play at the club." 
 
 Perhaps that was the reason Molly wanted 
 it, but she let it go. "And I don t really 
 need a sewing room. The nursery will do 
 perfectly well," she said. 
 
 "And we can cut out a guest room or 
 
 two. They are a nuisance to take care of 
 
 with so few servants. When we have a 
 
 house full of people we can utilize divans 
 
 241 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 in the studio and so on for sloppy bache 
 lors, like Pete." 
 
 "And a reception room is a stiff and use 
 less formality. That secluded window niche 
 in the hall will do." 
 
 So the process of elimination went on 
 until the house shrank to about half the 
 size of the dream house. But there was 
 one thing they would not give up, and that 
 was the low, caressable effect of the ex 
 terior. It wouldn t seem like a home if it 
 were high and conspicuous, they said. The 
 house was now reduced to sixteen rooms, 
 including the hall and the laundry, and 
 few of them very large rooms at that; but 
 then none of the charming rooms at Mount 
 Vernon are large, and if the father of his 
 country enjoyed small rooms, probably the 
 father and mother of the Carroll children 
 could do so too. Well, being small, the 
 rooms could stand low ceilings they had 
 wanted low ceilings all along and, as it 
 turned out, the experienced architect found 
 a way of making the third story look merely 
 like a roof, though it really contained, most 
 242 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 surprisingly, three servants rooms, a good- 
 sized bachelor guest room, a bath-room, and 
 two large attics for Molly to revel in. So 
 they had their long, low effect and yet had 
 only one furnace a big one, school-house 
 size and concentrated plumbing. This 
 was very clever of Peters, and they really 
 began to respect him a little. Architects, 
 it seems, have the qualities of their de 
 fects. 
 
 They now thought they had their dream 
 reduced to the lowest common denomi 
 nator with reality. 
 
 "You will still have your fine roomy 
 studio on the north," said Molly. " That s 
 the main thing." 
 
 "And you, the big sunny nursery on 
 the south," said Fred. "That s the main 
 thing." 
 
 "You can still have your wine cellar," 
 she added. 
 
 "Yes, even if there s no wine in it. And 
 you can have an attic and lots of closets." 
 
 "Even if we have to sell our clothes to 
 pay for them," remarked his frugal wife. 
 243 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 "And you can have your garden with 
 a pool to reflect the sunset, below the ter 
 race," pursued her generous husband. 
 
 "Even though we have no gardener. 
 And you can have your tennis court below 
 the garden/* returned Molly. 
 
 "Even though I ll never have time to 
 play on it," laughed Fred. 
 
 Moreover, it was going to be a very com 
 fortable and rather distinguished little coun 
 try place, they believed, with plenty of open 
 fires (six were plenty) and pleasant propor 
 tions thanks to "only a slight increase" 
 in their appropriation. The lines were to 
 be simple and dignified; the effect placid 
 and unstrenuous thanks to a few mild 
 scraps with Peters. For when it came to 
 drawing up the working plans in scale, he 
 could not resist "featuring" chimneys and 
 things, "expressing himself in his work," he 
 called it, with proper professional pride. 
 
 "Suppose you express wj," said Fred. 
 " We ve got to live in the thing. You can 
 express yourself in your work for the Har 
 rison Wellses. They don t live in any of 
 244 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 their houses. They merely stop in them foi 
 a few weeks at a time." 
 
 "Fred," said Wilson, "I take off my hat 
 to you as a painter, but when it comes to 
 architecture well, you don t understand 
 my Art. " 
 
 "There s something in that," admitted 
 Fred with a smile. "But, Pete," he gal 
 loped on, for his favorite hobby had been 
 pricked, "I understand enough about art 
 in general to know that beauty is a thing 
 that comes out of itself a sort of by 
 product in the pursuit of something else, 
 truth, maybe. It just dawns. It can t be 
 stuck on, Pete. Not even by as clever an 
 architect as you." Wilson looked bored. 
 Carroll laughed and dismounted, saying, 
 "Besides, this is a poor man s house; why 
 not let it look like it poor but honest. 
 Why take the trouble to put on lugs ? I 
 don t care in the least to throw a bluff be 
 fore the world. Why should I ? The meas 
 ure of success in my trade is not the amount 
 of money I make." 
 
 "Gee!" laughed Wilson, passing it off 
 245 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 lightly, "I used to think it pretty fierce to 
 build for Philistines but a painter s the 
 limit!" 
 
 Then they both laughed and parted with 
 out blows, but it did not augur well for the 
 future. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Now a decisive moment arrived. 
 
 "I ve estimated pretty carefully/ said 
 Peters; "it just about scrapes under your 
 present limit." He laughed engagingly. 
 
 The precious plans (in blue print) and 
 the indexed specifications (a long, type 
 written document, neatly bound and most 
 impressive to Molly) were intrusted to five 
 contractors, and in the course of time their 
 bids came in. 
 
 "I ve got bad news for you," said Wil 
 son, as if trying to break it gently. "I 
 thought surely we had the thing scaled 
 down to our figure, but " he quietly held 
 out the list of bids. The lowest was nearly 
 fifteen per cent, above their "appropria 
 tion." And yet Peters had laughed at the 
 246 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 painter for not being practical. Perhaps the 
 architect had made some mistake in his es 
 timates. We all make mistakes. 
 
 There was a moment s painful silence, 
 the library clock ticking on industriously, 
 as if quite confident of being housed in any 
 case. 
 
 "Isn t it fierce, the way building materi 
 als keep soaring?" asked Wilson. 
 
 There was no reply. Fred was thinking 
 that Peters, as a practical man, ought to 
 keep a little better track of the soaring up 
 lift. But he did not like to say so to an 
 old friend, and before Molly. She had 
 taken a woman s unaccountable prejudice 
 against him, as it was. 
 
 "Oh, of course!" sighed Molly at last. 
 "We might have known it." She had sus 
 pected Wilson from the start. There was 
 now no doubt in her mind about his treach 
 ery. 
 
 "What s to be done?" broke out Fred, 
 scowling. " What else can we scale down ? " 
 
 The architect shook his head. "I don t 
 think it will stand much more simplifica- 
 247 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 tion," he said. "It s either this or begin 
 all over again, with a different idea, a new 
 plan entirely." 
 
 "But we must have a house to move into 
 next fall!" cried Molly excitedly. "Would 
 there be time to plan another?" 
 
 "Maybe," said the architect slowly. 
 
 "Think how we ve worked over this one 
 all winter," sighed Fred. 
 
 "I know it," said Wilson. He, too, had 
 taken pains with the plans, whether with 
 the prices or not. 
 
 "Besides, this is the house we want!" 
 said Molly. "It suits us, it s grown into 
 our hearts. It would be like losing a 
 child." 
 
 "I m sorry," said Peters, though he was 
 a bachelor. 
 
 There was a pause. Molly and Fred 
 exchanged glances. 
 
 "Perhaps I d better go," said Peters, 
 tactfully appraising the look. "I don t want 
 to influence you one way or the other," he 
 said, turning at the door; "but there s one 
 thing worth considering: Brixton Brothers 
 248 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 the ones who made the lowest bid often 
 take jobs on a percentage basis with an 
 upshot figure. It saves the owner consider 
 able money sometimes." 
 
 The Carrolls did not know what a per 
 centage basis meant. 
 
 "Why, simply this: They agree to put 
 up a house according to the plans and 
 specifications for what it costs to build, 
 plus ten per cent, for their profit, and agree 
 that the total expense won t be more than 
 a certain figure. Their upshot figure in this 
 case would be this amount they have bid. 
 Think it over." 
 
 Well, they thought it over. 
 
 Now, it had been Fred s original inten 
 tion not to touch any of Molly s money 
 when it came to building a house. A part 
 of his dream was to pay for the whole thing 
 himself and then have the fun of deeding 
 it over to her grandly. But that was ages 
 ago, before they consulted an architect. 
 
 "Since we ve already touched it," said 
 Molly convincingly, "why not touch it 
 some more ? We ll probably never build 
 249 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 but once, so let s build what we want in 
 the way we want it. Do let s avoid say 
 ing afterward, as Uncle Will does, and 
 every one else we know who ever built a 
 house, Now, if I were building over again 
 I would do thus and so." 
 
 "It is true," said Fred thoughtfully, 
 "that most people have to enlarge their 
 houses after a few years, and that usually 
 spoils the symmetry. But I won t use any 
 more of your money," he added firmly. 
 
 "You needn t," said Molly. "I won t 
 let you. I m going to use it myself. You 
 have nothing to say about it." She knew 
 how much he wanted the house as designed, 
 so she based all her arguments on how 
 much she wanted it. That was the way to 
 work them. 
 
 "To be sure," mused Fred, "it isn t as 
 if we had to keep on paying studio rent. 
 Our house would be a workshop as well as 
 a home. But " 
 
 "Of course, if it s big enough," inter 
 rupted Molly. "Therefore, we must have 
 it big enough or it can t serve both pur- 
 250 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 poses and so we couldn t save money, you 
 see!" 
 
 "But, all the same," maintained Fred 
 doggedly, "if I can t pay for it, I don t 
 deserve such a fine house." 
 
 "But / do," said Molly, looking very 
 piquant and adorable. "Why make me 
 suffer for your sake ? You want all the 
 fun of designing the house and paying for 
 it too. I think I have some rights." S he 
 was so droll and pretty as she said this that 
 Fred laughed from sheer joy of her, as she 
 intended he should, and leaned over and 
 kissed her, as she hoped he would. 
 
 "But we mustn t think of it," he said, 
 sighing. . . . 
 
 But, naturally, that is just what they 
 kept on doing, with the not very surpris 
 ing result that within twenty-four hours 
 they had signed the contract to build the 
 wonderful house on the promising percent 
 age plan, with the seductive hope that the 
 contractors would kindly save them enough 
 to justify their recklessness. 
 
 As soon as they had taken the decisive 
 
 2CX 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 step, they felt a sudden wild joy in their 
 act. They stopped worrying over whether 
 they could afford it or not. Wisely or fool 
 ishly, they were going to have a place in 
 the country! A house all their own; built 
 expressly for them; modelled on their own 
 ideas! A home for the children to grow up 
 in, for themselves to grow old with! 
 Their dream was coming true at last. 
 
 252 
 
THE DREAM HOUSE AND THE 
 NIGHTMARE 
 
 SCENES: On the Carroll estate and on the Carroll nerves. 
 
 (A CONTINUATION OF THE ABOVE, AND A CONCRETE 
 EXAMPLE OF THE INSIDIOUS DELIGHTS AND DANGERS OF 
 BUILDING CASTLES IN THE AIR WITH ITS AMUSING RE 
 ACTIONS UPON THE CARROLLS, WHO ARE FOES OF COM 
 PROMISE.) 
 
 THE Fred Carrolls had observed that the 
 erection of State capitols, Carnegie libraries 
 and other important edifices was inaugu 
 rated with a formal ceremony called, " Turn 
 ing up the first sod." Therefore, since their 
 house in the country was to be an important 
 edifice, they decided to have a ceremony. 
 
 So when at last the great day in their his 
 tory arrived, toward which years of dream 
 ing and designing had carried them, they 
 2 53 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 honored certain intimate friends and rela 
 tives with an invitation to witness the turn 
 ing up of their first sod by the Carrolls first 
 born, appropriately dressed in his blue 
 jumpers which seemed more suitable to 
 him and to digging than the frock coat and 
 silk hat generally worn on such occasions by 
 his fellow turners-up of first sods. Since he 
 was the chief cause of their going in for 
 building a little country place, instead of 
 waiting until they could afford a big one, 
 it was no more than fair that he should do 
 this much of the work. 
 
 But when it came to the formal moment 
 he selfishly refused to see it in that light. 
 He liked the nickel-plated spade well enough, 
 except for the ribbons, but it seemed that 
 he was not given to digging before audi 
 ences. He never had done that sort of 
 thing and he never would. He was a con 
 servative, like a true Carroll. Perhaps that 
 was why Aunt Bella beamed upon him. 
 But though his greatly adoring great-aunt 
 was telling him how much like an angel he 
 looked in his darling little overalls, his re- 
 254 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 spectful uncles focusing cameras upon his 
 darling little curls, his sentimental grand 
 parents reminding him that it would be such 
 a nice thing to recall in after years, he de 
 clined to proceed with the ceremony. (No 
 wonder.) 
 
 In short, he threw up the job, threw 
 down the spade, and took refuge under the 
 automobile which had brought him out into 
 the country. He had long intended to do 
 a bit of original research there anyway, and 
 from this greasy retreat, whence no one 
 could conveniently yank him, he made it 
 quite clear that he did not care a hang 
 whether he ever had a nice house for baby 
 to play in or not, and refused to come out 
 until bribed with a box of candy. Thus, 
 at the very start of their building operations, 
 the Carrolls had a strike on their hands. 
 
 However, the guests, except Aunt Bella, 
 enjoyed the champagne in which the build 
 ing operations were toasted, especially the 
 bachelors, who had no houses or children to 
 bother with, and they joked Fred upon the 
 conduct of his progeny; and the house was 
 255 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 begun, at any rate. That was the main 
 thing. 
 
 It was actually begun! With men and 
 teams digging up the ground in a most 
 oblivious, business-like manner, quite as 
 if it were to be a real house but it was! 
 And that seemed the most astonishing thing 
 about it. This house was no longer to be 
 merely on paper. It was to sprout up from 
 the ground and grow and find itself and be 
 come a home, a real home for people to live 
 in, for children to be reared in; a scene for 
 weddings and funerals perhaps; a back 
 ground for memories, good times and bad 
 times, the humdrum happenings of daily 
 existence, as well as more vivid experiences 
 occasionally, which together make the sum 
 of life and cause houses to be so much more 
 personal and important than mere edifices of 
 sticks and stones and brick and plaster. 
 
 Well, now that work was actually be 
 gun, the Carrolls, who in their enthusiasm 
 had rented a place near by, believed that 
 their troubles were over at last. All they 
 had to do now was to lean back and watch 
 256 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 the beautiful thing grow just as they had 
 taken for granted at "the" wedding, years 
 ago, that nothing could ever make much 
 difference to them again, nothing in life 
 could ever come between them, because at 
 last they were together till death. 
 
 How many innocent home builders have 
 made the same mistake ! Their real troubles 
 had only just begun. Also their real fun, 
 for that matter. 
 
 II 
 
 For a while it grew with astonishing 
 rapidity. The wonderful cellar was ex 
 cavated with the greatest ease and hardly 
 any occasion for blasting. "That means," 
 said Fred enthusiastically, "that we are 
 saving money! Blasting is very expensive. 
 The contractor says he figured on blasting 
 in his original bid. Weren t we clever to 
 build on a percentage basis? Bah! We 
 can be as business-like as anybody when we 
 make up our minds to it. It s only that, 
 usually, there are more important things to 
 think about." 
 
 257 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 "Yes," said Molly; "only, do you think it 
 necessary for them to do that so often?" 
 She indicated a workman spitting impiously 
 into their cellar. Apparently the workman 
 failed to realize that this was potentially a 
 lady s house. But copious spitting seemed 
 to be a necessary accompaniment to honest 
 workmanship, and so the Carrolls gener 
 ously overlooked it in the joy of their sense 
 of possession. Here was a visible, tangible 
 piece of the world, all their own. 
 
 "Let s take a stroll over the estate," Fred 
 would say grandly. 
 
 "Shall we cross the moors to-day?" 
 Molly would ask. That was the level plot 
 where the tennis court was planned. "Or 
 wander down to the game preserve?" 
 That was the south-east corner of the lot 
 where the bushes were thick. They also 
 possessed a copse, it seemed, but there 
 were no fens. It was too bad about the 
 fens, but they couldn t have everything. 
 If they had everything they would miss 
 the luxury of desire, and that would be 
 the worst thing in the world 
 258 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 For the most part they lingered near the 
 hole in the ground where the house itself 
 was going to be, each thinking how it would 
 gradually dawn upon them, like one of 
 Fred s carefully studied portraits. Besides, 
 it was interesting, as holes go, and Fred pro 
 nounced the excavated earth of a swell color. 
 He took a clod of this swell dirt back to his 
 studio in town and asked some of his friends 
 if they did not think it swell. They said 
 they did. 
 
 But there was one thing which troubled 
 them both at this time, though each, hop 
 ing that the other did not notice it, kept 
 silent about it, after the foolish manner 
 of many married people, especially young 
 ones. They feared that some dreadful, ir 
 reparable mistake had been made; the out 
 line of the house as shown by the founda 
 tion was so disillusionizingly diminutive. 
 Such is always the effect, of course, at this 
 stage of house building, but no one had 
 prepared them for it, as is the case with 
 many unnecessary little disillusionments in 
 life which would not hurt so if only the 
 259 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 older generation took the trouble to explain 
 to the younger generation in advance. Per 
 haps they consider it "destroying the ideals 
 of youth. * 5 Perhaps they merely forget. 
 
 Well, it got on Molly s nerves so badly 
 one night that she could not sleep. So, 
 arising at dawn, she dressed quietly and 
 tiptoed down-stairs so as not to disturb 
 Fred in the next room. Then, having spent 
 five minutes in a vain search for the long 
 tape measure (already purchased for mark 
 ing out the tennis court), and finally com 
 promising with her ideal upon a short one, 
 old-fashioned and well-worn, in the sew 
 ing-machine drawer, she crept stealthily out 
 of the house and across the dewy lawn to 
 measure that foundation and settle the 
 matter once and for all. But when she ar 
 rived at the scene of disillusionment, there 
 was Fred, leaning over, absorbedly meas 
 uring the foundations with the long tape 
 measure. 
 
 u What are you doing?" 
 
 "What are you doing?" 
 
 "Nothing." 
 
 260 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 "Nothing." 
 
 Each looked at the other s tape measure, 
 and then at the other s eyes a moment, and 
 burst out laughing. Wilson Peters, the 
 architect, arriving that day, put their minds 
 at rest by explaining the optical illusion. 
 
 Lumber arrived, a gang of carpenters 
 came, the heavy timbers were set up, the 
 frame of the house fairly flew together, like 
 Wendy s house in the second act of " Peter 
 Pan." With the merry music of rhythmic 
 hammering, the delightful odor of clean 
 lumber, not to speak of the prospects of 
 limitless kindlings for the new house, these 
 were happy days. 
 
 "You re going to have a mighty tight, 
 well-built house, Mr. Carroll," said the 
 contractor s superintendent. 
 
 "We believe in having em tight," nodded 
 Fred, with a wink at Molly, who was smiling 
 at his attempt to sound practical. 
 
 "At the present rate," said Wilson Pe 
 ters, who seemed to be paying particular 
 attention to this job; "at the present rate, 
 your house ought to be turned over to you 
 261 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 by September first/ That meant a month 
 ahead* of the contract. 
 
 "Nothing like having a friend for your 
 architect/ said Fred to Molly. 
 
 "Yes, he takes such a personal interest!" 
 said Molly to Fred. But how could he help 
 it, they both thought. Houses like this 
 weren t built every day. 
 
 When the ridge-pole was erected, there 
 was another ceremony, a treat for the work 
 men, called, "topping the cedar brush." 
 The Carrolls, having become landed pro 
 prietors, believed in encouraging these 
 quaint old guild customs. It took place on 
 a Saturday half-holiday. One of the men 
 climbed up and nailed a young cedar tree 
 to the end of the ridge-pole. Thereupon a 
 keg of beer was opened, which Fred had 
 ordered for them, along with a box of 
 cigars and an enormous number of sand 
 wiches. It was served in the dining-room, 
 or what was eventually to be a dining-room. 
 "Here s to Mr. Carroll," said the superin 
 tendent, raising a foaming beaker;" may he 
 live long and be happy in his new house!" 
 262 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 Fred didn t feel so much like a landed 
 proprietor when it came to making a speech, 
 but he said he was very glad to have as his 
 first guests in the new house the men who 
 were building it, and building it so well. 
 He told them how much he respected honest 
 workmen who took a pride in their work. 
 Then, fearing lest this sounded patronizing, 
 he added that he knew what he was talk 
 ing about, because he, too, toiled with 
 his hands and knew the joy of "making 
 things come out the way you want them 
 to." 
 
 They thought his hands didn t look much 
 like it, but didn t mind his thinking so if he 
 wanted to, and considered him all right for 
 setting up the beer, especially as he straight 
 way departed and left them to the uncon 
 strained enjoyment of it. 
 
 Ill 
 
 After this came a period of stagnation 
 
 Molly said the beer must have made them 
 
 logy. The frame, having shot up like a 
 
 mushroom, now hesitated as if wondering 
 
 263 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 what to do next. Finally the work stopped 
 altogether. 
 
 "Another damn strike," said the super 
 intendent. "They were planning it while 
 drinking your beer in your dining-room, 
 Mr. Carroll. Don t talk to me about the 
 honest workman and his pride in his work. 
 Huh! The only pride they take is in the 
 amount of work they can get out of doing. 
 I ve had twenty years experience and I 
 know" 
 
 "Is that why they got indignant when 
 my servants gathered up some of those 
 odds and ends for kindling the other day ?" 
 asked Fred. 
 
 The superintendent smiled. He had 
 heard about the kindling episode. "Well, 
 you see, it s a sort of permitted graft in the 
 trade for the foreman to have all that. 
 They consider it their right." 
 
 Here was another fine old guild custom 
 to be encouraged by landed proprietors. 
 
 "Yes, I noticed that he brought a horse 
 and wagon here the next day," said Fred, 
 "and carted it off right under my eyes. I 
 264 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 merely have the ancient proprietary priv 
 ilege of paying for it, I suppose. " The 
 privileged class seldom sympathizes fully 
 with the proletariat. 
 
 The strike was finally adjusted, and Mr. 
 Carroll was assured that the house would 
 be turned over to him "soon after" the 
 middle of October. (That, he learned later, 
 i? one of their favorite expressions.) " Why, 
 we re just as anxious as you are to check 
 this job off/ they assured him plausibly. 
 (That is another.) 
 
 Then later it was "a mistake in some of 
 the material. We had to send it all back. 
 It isn t our fault." It never was, apparently, 
 the fault of any one visible. 
 
 Meanwhile, Peters, who in the earlier 
 stages seemed almost as keen as the Carrolls 
 themselves, gradually manifested less in 
 terest in their house, now that he had had 
 his fun out of designing and starting the 
 thing. He was given to telling them at 
 length about this and that important com 
 petition he had won, while they wanted him 
 to talk about their own important house and 
 265 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 to rush it through so they could live in it 
 next fall. The lease on the place they were 
 occupying expired on October first. They 
 had confidently declined to extend it to No 
 vember first when they had the chance. 
 ("Oh, no, we ll be living in our own home 
 by that time!" they had remarked.) 
 
 "Look here," said Fred to the architect, 
 "we appreciate that you are pretty busy 
 just now with all these more important un 
 dertakings; what would you say to getting 
 a superintendent to oversee our work ? 
 That s often done, and I d gladly pay for 
 his services. These contractors have to be 
 watched all the time. I m convinced that 
 they are skimping our work. I told you 
 how I caught them leaving out the deafen 
 ing paper between the floors." 
 
 Peters did not like this. His profes 
 sional pride was touched. "Well, didn t I 
 make em rip up the floor and put it in?" 
 he asked. "No, I ll superintend my own 
 work, Fred. That s what you re paying me 
 for, old chap. They can t fool me. They 
 all say I have an eye like an eagle. Look at 
 266 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 your concrete floor in the cellar, for instance. 
 Didn t I make them rip it out, the whole 
 thing? Didn t I jump all over them?" 
 
 This was true; he had made a most in 
 teresting fuss over that, but it was also true 
 that, as the house was being constructed on 
 a cost basis, the owner would have to pay 
 for that extra work. But Fred didn t like 
 to remind Wilson of things of this sort; it 
 was so distasteful. Besides, Fred had been 
 gathering in such whacking large prices for 
 his canvases lately so what was the dif 
 ference! 
 
 The architect s visits became less and 
 less frequent, more and more hurried. He 
 kept the carriage from the station waiting 
 while he stalked through the house in a blus 
 tering manner, scowling and swearing oc 
 casionally, as if to impress Fred with his 
 thoroughness, then was off again to the 
 train in a great hurry, both vehicles to be 
 charged to travelling expenses in his bill to 
 the Carrolls. 
 
 In justice to the architect it should be 
 stated that the Carrolls house had reached 
 267 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 a stage where such constant attention was 
 not necessary, but the Carrolls did not 
 think so. They had never built a house be 
 fore, and it was something like their first 
 baby; they had wanted the doctor to 
 spend all his time with them. So Molly 
 now declared that she never had liked that 
 man and told Fred that he ought to write 
 and prod him up for neglecting them so. 
 "This is a business relationship, and you 
 mustn t let your friendship stand in the 
 way. You owe it to your wife and children 
 to have this house well built/ she urged 
 shaking her pretty head. 
 
 " You d think," swore Peters to his part 
 ner when the letter came, "that I had noth 
 ing to do but watch the driving of every nail 
 in that one little house! It s becoming a 
 
 nuisance. 3 
 
 But he ought to have been used to it. 
 That was usually the way. Each home 
 builder thinks his house the most impor 
 tant one in the world. So it is, to him. 
 
 Then, having finished swearing, Peters 
 wrote a lovely letter telling them he "knew 
 268 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 exactly how they felt about it," or rather, 
 he called out to his stenographer, "Give 
 them Jolly Number Two, and add that I ll 
 be there to take up all these matters in de 
 tail next Tuesday." 
 
 "Did you say Thursday, sir?" 
 "Either will do just so you remember 
 to follow it up with a telegram postponing 
 my visit on account of an important confer 
 ence in Boston." 
 
 Meanwhile there had come the question 
 of "extras." The Carrolls, like many in 
 nocent home builders, thought that the 
 contract price in this case, the "upshot 
 figure" covered everything necessary for 
 a home to live in except the furniture. The 
 furnace was extra, the kitchen range was 
 extra, the electric light fixtures were extra, 
 even the mantel-pieces were extra. But, in 
 addition to these necessary extras, there 
 were many others very desirable a glass 
 enclosure for the covered veranda in cold 
 weather, a latticed enclosure for drying the 
 clothes, adjoining the laundry and incor 
 porated with the lines of the house. "As 
 269 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 long as we can t have a stable and a stable 
 yard," said Fred, "we can at least use a 
 drying ground. That will help the long, 
 low effect and let the house down easily 
 on that side." 
 
 "And keep us from washing our dirty 
 linen in public," said Molly. 
 
 They denied themselves the extravagance 
 of spending five dollars on the theatre one 
 evening, and cheerfully agreed to five hun 
 dred dollars worth of extras the next morn 
 ing. When you are spending thousands 
 such amounts are mere trifles. 
 
 But Molly had become convinced that 
 Peters was "working" Fred. "Every one 
 does, you know. You are always so guile 
 less and good-natured with your friends." 
 (And yet this man thought he had an origi 
 nal wife!) "Wilson knew you could never 
 resist the color of that dreadfully expensive 
 imported tile for the fireplaces." 
 
 Fred laughed at her. But upon think 
 ing it over, he concluded that he was, per 
 haps, a little too good-natured (an original 
 husband also, you observe), and after brood- 
 270 
 
Then the architect wrote the Carrolls a lovely letter, or rather, he 
 called to his stenographer, "Jolly Number Twol" 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 ing over it awhile became quite indignant 
 over the matter; would not let anybody im 
 pose on him, old friend or not, etc. 
 
 The situation meanwhile had become this: 
 work on the interior was almost at a stand 
 still; the contractor swore he could not pro 
 ceed a step further until he received the "de 
 tail" from the architect; the architect swore 
 he could not supply the detail (designs for 
 the trim) until the owner passed upon them; 
 the owner swore he could not O. K. them 
 when they were so damned fancy. (They 
 had all reached the swearing stage by this 
 time.) 
 
 "For Heaven s sake," he demanded of 
 Peters, "why can t you do something sim 
 ple and unassertive! This is neither a bar 
 room nor a barber shop." 
 
 "No," snarled back Peters, horribly in 
 sulted, forgetting at last to be suave, "but 
 it would be a barn if I let you have your 
 way." 
 
 "Well, I d rather have a barn than a 
 bird-cage!" returned the owner. "Some 
 of the most charming houses in this whole 
 271 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 nouveau riche country of ours have been 
 made out of barns" he went on, taking the 
 matter seriously; "charming, I said, not im 
 pressive" with tremendous scorn. "That 
 seems to be your chief asset as an architect 
 to make everything look as expensive as 
 you know how, with your silly little Renais 
 sance dib-dabs, your barroque redundancy, 
 and all the rest of your esthetically impover 
 ished . but blatantly pecuniary canons of 
 taste." Fred was one of the exasperating 
 kind who become low-voiced and long- 
 sentenced when aroused. 
 
 "Taste!" roared the incensed architect, 
 "when it comes to a matter of taste, I guess 
 my standing in my profession 
 
 "But I d like to know/ interrupted the 
 painter calmly, "whose profession is to be 
 represented in this house ? Whose taste 
 ought to be considered here anyway ? 
 yours or mine?" 
 
 "It happens to be my work!" shouted the 
 architect. 
 
 "It happens to be my bouse!" whispered 
 the owner. 
 
 272 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 A pause, both glaring. 
 
 "Well, then, why did you call me in if 
 you don t like my ideas?" 
 
 "Simply to carry out my own ideas. 
 IVe taste enough myself." 
 
 "Yes, Mots of taste/ " quoted the archi 
 tect with a sneer. " Some of it good." 
 
 At this point entered Mrs. Carroll, look 
 ing very sweet in her new calling costume 
 and feeling the peace with the world which 
 comes only from making half a dozen calls 
 upon people who are out. Seeing how 
 crestfallen the architect looked and know 
 ing how dreadful it was to suffer Fred s 
 disapproval, she sprang to the rescue of 
 the situation with a woman s unerring 
 tact. 
 
 "Oh, Wilson," she said in her most gra 
 cious manner, "I think you are doing won 
 ders with our house. It is so dignified and 
 restrained." 
 
 Wilson shot a look of restrained triumph 
 at Fred, and made a dignified exit, pleased 
 with her and himself. "Little Mrs. Car 
 roll is a corker," he remarked that evening 
 273 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 in town; "but Fred s the limit. No more 
 crazy artists for me!" 
 
 Meanwhile, Fred was taking it out upon 
 his tender, tactful wife. That s right, egg 
 me on, get me mad, make me jump on him, 
 and then come in and praise everything in 
 sight!" And so to the logical climax of 
 tears, retractions, kisses, forgiveness, and 
 finally laughter, which might well have 
 come first and saved that much expensive 
 emotion. 
 
 Well, in the end they did have Wilson s 
 trim and trimmings which he pronounced 
 simple because inexpensive, and which 
 Fred considered evil because it tried to look 
 expensive. But he had had his own way 
 about so many things that, in order to re 
 store pleasant feelings, he gracefully yielded 
 even to the little Renaissance dib-dabs Wil 
 son enjoyed sticking on under his mantel 
 pieces. Most of them dropped off, anyway, 
 when the heat was turned on. 
 
 Thus the comedy proceeded. 
 
 274 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 IV 
 
 The house had been promised for Octo 
 ber the first. Was ever a house finished on 
 schedule time, or for the estimated price ? 
 (Yes. It has been known to happen; but 
 this was to be a typical experience!) 
 
 By the middle of November the Car- 
 rolls had visited all their available rela 
 tives (who would have enjoyed "the Freds" 
 more if they had only talked about "our 
 house" less). The house was still "not 
 quite finished." So they conceived the idea 
 of moving into it without waiting for it to 
 be finished, and remarked, originally, as 
 impatient home builders always do in tak 
 ing this step, "That is the only way to get 
 the workmen out." 
 
 "And I can keep those blamed painters 
 from bungling the color of the woodwork," 
 said Fred. "Since that man Peters abso 
 lutely declines to attend to his business, I 
 suppose I ll have to do it myself." 
 
 "And I can see that we get the shelves 
 put up in the bath-rooms. He will never 
 remember it." 
 
 2 7S 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 So, upon a bright November afternoon 
 the Carroll family moved into the upper 
 stories of their newly painted house. "It s 
 like camping out/ suggested Molly, trying 
 to seem cheerful. 
 
 "Yes, with all the discomforts and none 
 of the charm," growled Fred, awakened 
 early by the banging and scraping of the 
 finishers. 
 
 "I wouldn t mind that," said Molly, "if 
 only the painters wouldn t whistle when 
 Babs takes her nap." 
 
 "It s probably one of their ancient cus 
 toms," Fred reminded her.. 
 
 However, the studio was in shape for 
 use and there was the best of reasons for 
 industry now but, unfortunately, the for 
 mer superintendent had gone to a more im 
 portant job, and the contractor had put in 
 charge of finishing the Carroll house a red- 
 cheeked youth just back from Paris, who 
 could draw pretty pictures of cathedrals, 
 but knew nothing about screwing on back 
 doors. So while Fred was trying to earn 
 money to pay for the extras, this young 
 276 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 man would enter without knocking (no one 
 knocks on unfinished doors) and ask Fred s 
 confidential advice about hanging window 
 weights. He did not dare ask the men, 
 for fear they would laugh at him. Finally 
 Fred became desperate. "See here/ he 
 began with slow, drawling sarcasm, "I 
 would like to teach you your job if I had the 
 time and understood your job. But as I m 
 almost as ignorant as you are, and as I ve 
 got to pay for your work whether I do it 
 for you or not, don t you think it would 
 be rather nice in you to give me a chance 
 to earn enough money for the purpose ? 
 Think it over and let me know." 
 
 The youth blinked at this complicated 
 subtlety, and departed. He never bothered 
 Fred again, but every time they met on the 
 stairs he blinked. 
 
 But the longer the house remained nearly 
 finished the longer it took, apparently, to 
 finish it. 
 
 Finally the Carrolls ceased to make sar 
 castic remarks about it. It no longer 
 seemed funny. It became the greatest mis- 
 277 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 take they had ever made in their lives. 
 They tacitly agreed to ignore the once ab 
 sorbing topic, as though it were a skeleton 
 in one of their unfinished closets. And if 
 the architect or builder presumed to call 
 upon them in regard to the coloring of the 
 woodwork or the arrangement of electric 
 bells, they flew into a rage and insulted him. 
 "How dare you mention such a thing in 
 the presence of my wife and myself!" Fred s 
 manner seemed to express. Yet if the ar 
 chitect or builder dared to go ahead with 
 out consulting them they flew into another 
 rage. The house was on their nerves. 
 
 One day a young couple, in whom the 
 Carrolls had previously manifested the be 
 nign interest which those happily married 
 are apt to bestow upon those trying to be, 
 came to call and announced innocently that 
 they too were thinking of building in the 
 spring. It was said with almost the same 
 confident joy with which they had once 
 announced their engagement (saying "we 
 want you to know it among the first.") But 
 instead of the enthusiastic congratulations 
 
 278 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 they had expected from such nice, generous- 
 minded friends, Molly sighed and said: 
 "Oh, I am so sorry," and Fred took the 
 young man apart and whispered in a tragic 
 tremolo, "For God s sake, my boy, think! 
 think what you are doing! 
 
 "There is only one satisfactory way to 
 build a house," he went on, quite in earnest, 
 apparently. "First become an architect for 
 several years, then a practical builder for 
 several more, then learn each of the build 
 ing trades in turn until you become a master 
 of all of them; after that, if you have plenty 
 of born executive ability and a good deal of 
 bull luck, you may possibly get what you 
 want, built in the way you want it if it s a 
 house you require by that time and not a 
 mausoleum." 
 
 This was while the Carrolls were living, 
 at great expense, at the inn, and daily post 
 poned moving to a less costly boarding place 
 because it was hardly worth while moving 
 when the house was "so nearly" finished. 
 
 It was not because the children played 
 with the floor planers tools, nor yet en- 
 279 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 tirely because the smell of fresh paint made 
 them ill, that the Carrolls had finally given 
 up the fight and decamped. It was be 
 cause of the construction of the furnace 
 fresh-air flue. The hot and cold water 
 pipes ran along the cellar ceiling at right 
 angles to the direction of this proposed flue 
 on the blue-print. Therefore, one day when 
 Fred wasn t watching, the honest workmen 
 desirous of that "joy of making things 
 come out the way you want them to," 
 thoughtfully built a fresh air box with the 
 pipes running through it, thus subjecting 
 them to a temperature a little colder than 
 out-of-doors. With the third week of De 
 cember came a cold snap. Result unnec 
 essary to describe, also impossible. . . . 
 
 In after days, when the house found it 
 self and became a joy to them; when, 
 covered with vines and the tone of time, 
 it rested innocently upon its placid terrace 
 with the guileless expression of a child 
 peacefully dreaming in its cradle, little 
 knowing how it had caused a brave woman 
 to weep, a strong man to swear -in those 
 280 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 serene after days the Carrolls sometimes 
 inquired of friends who came to visit them 
 there if they, too, had ever gone through the 
 ordeal of house building. And if, perchance, 
 the answer was yes, there straightway sprang 
 up a strong bond of mutual interest and 
 sympathy as with those who also had little 
 dears, at home and they looked upon one 
 another with a new understanding. They, 
 too, had been through it. They, too, had 
 suffered. They, too, knew the joys, the sor 
 rows, and the sacrifices. 
 
 This is anticipating, but without antici 
 pation even worse ordeals than mere house 
 building would prove unbearable. . . . 
 
 After rescuing his family from the "not 
 quite finished/ but now quite flooded house 
 (for, of course, the frozen water pipes burst), 
 Fred called a conference of the powers. 
 He spoke well-chosen words to them. They 
 were chiefly of quaint Anglo-Saxon origin. 
 
 The architect dropped his eyes and 
 agreed with everything the owner said, but 
 blamed the general contractor. The gen 
 eral contractor blamed the plumbing con- 
 281 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 tractor, the latter the youthful superintend 
 ent, etc., as usual, all down the line. 
 
 It was a long wrangle, and it was get 
 ting nowhere. Meanwhile time was flying. 
 Suddenly they were all interrupted by the 
 owner hammering upon the unfinished book 
 case for silence. "Gentlemen/ said Carroll 
 with the sanctified calm of one who is be 
 yond emotion, "you are all mistaken. It s 
 not his fault, nor his, nor his," pointing to 
 each of these practical men. "It s all my 
 fault, for being fool enough to build a 
 house. Now that point is all settled, sup 
 pose you get busy and check off this job." 
 Then suddenly breaking out with a good- 
 natured chuckle which cleared the air and 
 made them like him: "I m still hoping to 
 celebrate my golden wedding in this house." 
 
 With that he left and joined his family at 
 the (very expensive) inn, whither he had 
 previously despatched them. There, sink 
 ing luxuriously into a deep chair before a 
 cheerful fire, he lit a cigar, stroked his fond 
 wife s hand and, sighing, said, "There s no 
 place like home, let us be thankful for that!" 
 282 
 
VI 
 
 THE CARROLLS HOUSE- 
 WARMING 
 
 SCENES: Partly in the past, partly at " The Meadows " 
 (proper name of a house called " The Carrolls "). 
 
 (SHOWING HOW A HOME FOUND ITSELF, AND SUGGEST 
 ING HOW THE CARROLLS FOUND THEMSELVES AN ESTAB 
 LISHED UNIT IN A CONSERVATIVE CIRCLE OF THE NICEST 
 PEOPLE.) 
 
 LIKE many another cherished project 
 idealized in the planning and then worried 
 over in the execution until it no longer 
 seems a beautiful dream but a haunting 
 nightmare, when at last the painters had 
 exhausted their excuses for hanging on, 
 and the shavings and sawdust were all swept 
 up, and the architect actually gave the word 
 to come the Carrolls house, when it was 
 finished and had begun to find itself, turned 
 out to be a great success after all. 
 283 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 So, like that tenderest of emotions, a re 
 newal of love (as when Fred and Molly had 
 begun the interesting process of finding 
 themselves), a brand-new joy was found in 
 their brand-new house, the more appre 
 ciated because so utterly unexpected. They 
 had abandoned all hope of its ever being 
 charming or even a matter of interest: they 
 thought it would remain only a matter of 
 expense and regret, and now here it was, 
 serenely what they had wanted all along! 
 
 The best things of life are apt to arrive by 
 means of this three-cycle process: First, de 
 sire and dreams; then disillusionment and 
 distress sometimes despair; and then, at 
 last, with patience and intelligent effort, a 
 final adjustment to reality, with its humors, 
 and its ironies, and its solid, secure satis 
 factions. 
 
 They had given up so many important 
 ideals in the compromise with reality that 
 they had quite forgotten that, as an actual, 
 concrete realization, the plan and equipment 
 of their home fitted their requirements like 
 a glove, and satisfied their taste as no other 
 284 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 
 house in the world could. In quarrelling 
 
 with Wilson Peters about the carving on 
 the mantel-pieces they had lost sight of the 
 delightful fact that they would have plenty 
 of open fires. In fretting about the handles 
 of the water faucets they had failed to ap 
 preciate that, at any rate, they had plenty 
 of bath-rooms and a down-stairs lavatory! 
 Moreover, it was a well-constructed house, 
 of good materials and careful workmanship. 
 They experienced that other most pleasing 
 glow that comes of trying on a well-ordered, 
 well-fitting garment of the best materials, 
 a satisfaction no ready-made one can ever 
 give. The buttons didn t matter. 
 
 Exteriorly the house composed well, it 
 fitted into the landscape well, looked as if 
 it belonged there, had taken root there al 
 ready and meant to stay. 
 
 To be sure, the place was as yet quite 
 bare of grass, and the hedges were patheti 
 cally incipient, and the house itself cried 
 aloud for vines. But in time all these 
 things would be added unto it. 
 
 Of course, there was still a great deal to 
 28 < 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 be done by way of transforming this new, 
 raw building, with its lingering odor of 
 paint, into a livable house with the atmos 
 phere of home; this naked grading with its 
 bleak and scraggly planting, into gardens, 
 tennis courts, and a bit of "pure land 
 scape." But they no longer took it hard 
 or worried about it, because they were com 
 fortable and on the spot and had something 
 definite to work upon. With the sense of 
 possession and the freedom from interfer 
 ence by others it was fun to work on their 
 place or play; the two things should be 
 one and the same; they should be married, 
 though often they are divorced it was as 
 much fun as it had been to plan the place 
 itself before these two persons were mar 
 ried, and much more solid satisfaction. 
 
 Some of the doors had to be taken down 
 and planed off at the top or the bottom and 
 put up again. One of the chimneys didn t 
 draw well, and they finally had to send for 
 an expert from New York to diagnose the 
 case, which was expensive, but effective. 
 Despite their reiterated requests Wilson 
 286 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 Peters had forgotten to put shelves in the 
 bath-rooms. "I knew he would forget/ 
 said Molly; "he s a bachelor, and babies 
 have never entered his existence. At least, 
 not for a quarter of a century or so." 
 
 " But even a bachelor has to shave," 
 said Fred, referring to his own bath-room. 
 "He hasn t even left space at the top of 
 the wainscot molding for a razor; he has 
 taken pains to tack on one of his elaborately 
 lathed bevels. See, even a tooth-brush slides 
 off. But I suppose he thinks this is pretty. 9 
 
 "It would be cruel," said Molly, "not 
 to let him express himself in his work. ; 
 
 However, Fred, being a mechanical genius, 
 built the shelves himself. And though not 
 very beautiful for a work of genius, espe 
 cially as the artist s paint failed to match 
 the other painter s color, the shelves were 
 at any rate commodious enough to accom 
 modate everything needed in a well-regu 
 lated family, from a medicine dropper to a 
 large-sized spring-water bottle. So Molly 
 could express herself in her work of modify 
 ing the milk for the little Carrolls. 
 287 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 "It s a nuisance, this reputation for being 
 a handy man about the place/ Fred told 
 Molly s callers. "Whenever the plumbing 
 goes to smash Why call in a plumber? 
 Fred, dear, just adores doing things!" He 
 had recently spent two hundred dollars worth 
 of time on a two-dollar pipe, and was now 
 on strike. 
 
 They said nothing about the shelves to 
 Peters, but they did take pains to tell him 
 that none of the windows stuck not one! 
 As there were ever so many windows in the 
 house the south facade being nearly all 
 glass this seemed a great achievement and 
 cheered them on to the extra expense in 
 volved in weather-strips and storm-windows 
 and such things, of which there seemed to 
 be no end. 
 
 In the matter of the windows the Carrolls 
 experienced another triumph. During the 
 finishing of the house Molly one day dis 
 covered that in estimating these numerous 
 extra expenses of turning a house into a 
 home they had forgotten all about window 
 shades. So they wrote down another two 
 288 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 hundred dollars, fearing all the time that it 
 would be double that, as it seemed a safe 
 rule that everything was always double. 
 But when the bill came in it was less than 
 half of their estimate. Such things will 
 happen sometimes, even in the worst regu 
 lated families. 
 
 This unprecedented experience encouraged 
 them to invest in furniture and hangings, 
 for the old curtains which Molly had hoped 
 would do, did not fit, and the furniture 
 (partly inherited from various members of 
 two families and partly collected from vari 
 ous parts of two continents) wljich had 
 crowded up their rooms uncomfortably in 
 the old benighted days of renting now 
 seemed so sparse as to be quite lonely in 
 the many and larger rooms of their own 
 wonderful home. They revelled in search 
 ing for the needed pieces. Furniture hunt 
 ing had always been one of their vices, and 
 now there was an added zest because they 
 actually needed it, which justified their in 
 dulgence. 
 
 They had passed the stage of buying old 
 289 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 things merely because they were old. What 
 they selected now was useful and durable 
 as well as interesting and of good lines. 
 They made it a principle to have no chairs 
 which were not comfortable chairs, except 
 for a tall, stiff pair in the hall which no 
 one by any chance ever sat in. The hall, 
 of course, was treated formally, enough so 
 as to serve as an intermediary between out- 
 of-doors and the warmth and intimacy of 
 the living room, but not enough so as to 
 make the reception cold and pretentious. 
 Cottages can have dignity if they do not try 
 to look* like something they are not. The 
 prevailing note in the Carroll house was 
 simplicity and comfort. "Livable and lov 
 able," as Molly said which seemed to be 
 a good note for a home built to live in com 
 fortably rather than to entertain in lavishly. 
 For the Carrolls might have to live in it 
 most of the summer and winter, whereas 
 those they entertained in it would not be 
 of a sort to worship or want lavishness. It 
 took a good deal of time getting what they 
 required in the way of furniture, and also a 
 
 2QO 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 good deal of money, but they were used to 
 spending money by this tinte. It is easy to 
 acquire the habit. Besides, as Fred gravely 
 pointed out to Molly, it never paid to buy 
 cheap furniture. 
 
 They also had a good deal of satisfac 
 tion in "laying out the home grounds." On 
 that same economical principle (which the 
 Carrolls practised so conscientiously) of its 
 "paying in the long run" to get the best, 
 they had accepted the services of a landscape 
 architect as soon as the outside of the house 
 was finished and the hauling was over with. 
 For would it not be cheaper in the long run, 
 they asked themselves, to begin aright rather 
 than tear everything up after it was well 
 started wrong ? Assuredly. Practical fore 
 sight. 
 
 At the outset they achieved a triumph 
 over Wilson Peters; in this way: it may be 
 remembered that the cardinal principle of 
 their dream house, the one thing above all 
 others which they declined to surrender, 
 was the long, low, near-to-the-sod effect. 
 It seemed very important to them that their 
 291 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 house should be only a step or two above 
 the ground. Ehit Peters, as if to spite his 
 clients, jacked the house up, so to speak, in 
 the final plan, without consulting them. 
 
 Molly sighed, but Fred smiled knowing 
 ly. "Wait and see," he said. When it 
 came time for the grading he quietly in 
 structed the landscape architect to grade 
 all the way up to the weather-board; thus 
 not only was the ugly rough foundation 
 stone completely hidden, but the low effect 
 was greatly enhanced and there was only 
 one step up into the house instead of two 
 or three, as called for by the architect s 
 plans. 
 
 By the time Peters made another visit to 
 see how the Carroll job was coming on his 
 visits were not frequent at this period 
 the grading was finished, and it was too 
 late to change. Naturally he was furious. 
 " Don t you know a grade line when you 
 see it on a blue print?" he demanded. 
 
 "Mr. Carroll s orders," was the reply. 
 
 "Oh, all right! If Mr. Carroll wants a 
 damp cellar, that s his own affair/ 
 292 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 But the cellar remained dusty. Ordi 
 narily Peters surmise would have been cor 
 rect, and no doubt it was quite unprofes 
 sional in the Carrolls to take this liberty, but 
 Fred had luck and science with him, as it 
 happened. For, during the process of ex 
 cavation, he had observed that the cleavage 
 ran down toward the north, while the sur 
 face of the soil sloped to the south. Nat 
 ural drainage kept the cellar dry. It was 
 after this that Fred, who had merely felt 
 pretty sure of it before, became convinced 
 that he might have made a great architect. 
 
 II 
 
 Well, when at last they had discovered 
 most of the secrets of a reticent furnace, 
 and had learned by experience, bitter and 
 cold, to swathe in mineral wool certain 
 aloof water pipes which "that man Peters" 
 had placed unprotected within one of the 
 coldest outside walls of the house as a 
 souvenir, they supposed, of his architectural 
 sense of humor; when the pictures and 
 imported junk were all hung or as many 
 2 93 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 and as much as they meant to hang at one 
 time, for "we hate crowded walls," they 
 said; when the mellow, well-worn rugs 
 were all down and the curtains, new, but 
 unobtrusively so, were all up; when the 
 telephone was put in and the smell of paint 
 was put out, when the postman and the 
 butcher s boy had learned to call as regu 
 larly and nonchalantly at the Carroll house 
 as if it had been there always, Fred and 
 Molly put their heads together one early 
 spring day and decided that, since they had 
 spent about double the amount which they 
 had solemnly agreed a year or two previ 
 ously to invest in a home, they would now 
 have a grand house-warming. 
 
 For it would be a useless extravagance to 
 build such a nice house if they couldn t do 
 nice things for people with it. They both 
 disapproved of extravagance. So they en 
 gaged a caterer and musicians from town 
 and issued invitations, not only to the whole 
 colony, but to all the friends they had in 
 other parts of the w r orld. Since the Carrolls 
 had joined the colony every one had been 
 294 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 most kind to them, and this would be a 
 nice way "to show them our appreciation/ 
 said Fred. 
 
 "And also/ added Molly, "to show them 
 our house." 
 
 It proved to be a great success. Only, 
 the guests at first failed to realize what 
 was expected of them. Instead of stopping 
 abruptly at the charming entrance to gaze 
 entranced at the unfolding vista of softly 
 toned rooms, they scurried through to take 
 off their wraps in that self-centered and 
 rather solemn manner so many people adopt 
 upon arriving at an "at-home," as if it were 
 a funeral rather than a festivity. And upon 
 saluting their hostess, who looked quite as 
 charming, but not half so excited as she 
 really was, instead of telling her how much 
 they admired her beautiful home, they chose 
 to tell her about the weather. In fact, they 
 acted very much as though it were an ordi 
 nary party at an ordinary house! They 
 obliviously turned their backs to, or even 
 leaned against, architectural details which 
 had cost nights of careful study, days of 
 2 95 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 nervous wrangling, merely to ask one an 
 other if they were going to the dance at the 
 riding club next Friday, or how late they 
 expected to remain in the country this year. 
 
 It seems unaccountable that they did not 
 all talk about the house at once, but the 
 Carrolls graciously overlooked the omis 
 sion, being quite busy, Molly telling those 
 who came how good it was of them to do so, 
 and Fred conscientiously breaking up con 
 genial tete-a-tetes just as they were becom 
 ing interesting in order to present men to 
 lonely women. 
 
 Later in the evening, however, after the 
 guests had had something to eat and drink 
 and had stopped thinking about themselves 
 or their clothes, they manifested a marked 
 improvement. Many of them told Molly 
 that she was "to be congratulated upon 
 having such a pretty house." Others re 
 marked that it was "so much larger than it 
 looked from the outside." Still others pro 
 nounced it cosey, quite original, or so artistic. 
 
 In fact, nearly every one who liked it 
 finally said so, and as none of those who 
 296 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 disliked it said anything about that to 
 Molly, she decided that they all liked it, 
 and therefore she liked them and beamed 
 and was as much pleased as though her 
 children or even her husband were being 
 praised though, to be sure, they could 
 not fully appreciate the house (any more 
 than they could Fred or the children), or else 
 they would not call it "cosey," a word she 
 hated, or "artistic," which Fred hated even 
 more. 
 
 Fred in the meanwhile was not faring 
 quite so well. He was quite willing to tell 
 all about it, but they wouldn t give him a 
 chance. There was a certain girl there 
 with a twinkle in her rather unusual eyes 
 who admired Fred s work. She told him 
 that his house "was just the kind one 
 would expect an artist to build." That 
 was all right so far. But, unfortunately, 
 she asked him, "What style is it ?" and this 
 brought on a whole avalanche of authorita 
 tive explanation that it was no style at all, 
 that most people seem to think a house must 
 be an academic, unimaginative copy of some- 
 297 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 thing that has gone before. True, you 
 must know what has gone before, but, etc. 
 She wasn t in the least interested. She 
 wanted to flirt with him. He didn t dis 
 cover it until after she left with another 
 man who would. . . . Fred was becoming 
 so old and out of practice that he didn t 
 always recognize the signals when he saw 
 them. A sad state for the father of a grow 
 ing family. 
 
 Then there was also a nice, well-meaning 
 old gentleman who innocently asked Fred 
 about the coloring of the wall, not that he 
 cared a hang, but because he didn t know 
 what else to say, artists and such being 
 rather perplexing freaks to him. But Fred 
 warmed to him at once and was off like a 
 colt at the barrier: The permanent treat 
 ment of walls could not be determined in 
 advance; professional decorators say so, 
 but they are all liars; the light is never quite 
 as you expect it to be, or the furniture mod 
 ifies the effect subtly but tremendously. 
 Therefore, it is necessary to get acquainted 
 with a room first, just as you must get ac- 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 quainted with people before you can do 
 their portraits. Problem: what to do in the 
 meanwhile. White is sepulchral; tint will 
 chip off. In this case the coloring had been 
 mixed with the rough plaster mixed before 
 putting on, you understand. A great risk, 
 he admitted, a pure gamble, but in these 
 rooms luck had been with him; they were 
 quite successful. Upstairs, however, he 
 had missed it badly, etc., etc., until Fred 
 saw the unlistening eyes following a tray 
 of punch glasses out of the room; then 
 he stopped and said, "Oh, won t you have 
 some supper ? Do have some supper. You 
 must!" 
 
 Even Wilson Peters declined to warm 
 to the subject, and as he was the architect 
 of the house, it seemed about as base as a 
 father s refusing to acknowledge his own 
 child. Fred, with a view to healing the 
 breach between them, had made a special 
 point of inviting Wilson and had lionized 
 him all evening whenever any one asked, 
 "Who was your architect ?" Fred thought 
 it rather generous to give Peters so much 
 299 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 \ 
 
 honor, when, as could easily be proved, "the 
 whole charm of the house was in spite of, 
 not because of, Wilson Peters." It could 
 be proved by Molly. But Peters, if the 
 truth must be told, did not care to be lion 
 ized over building a simple little house in 
 the country. For wasn t he engaged upon 
 the plans for an insane asylum which was 
 to cost half a million and would have ap 
 propriate ornamentation all over it ? 
 
 Alas! the breach has never been com 
 pletely healed. Each tries to make the 
 other think he likes him as in the old days, 
 but neither deceives the other. Each laughs 
 with unnecessary loudness at the other s 
 jokes, but both are palpably nervous at the 
 approach of the awful pauses which come 
 more and more frequently in their chance 
 meetings, which are becoming less and less 
 numerous. Instead of calling him "Pete," 
 Fred now addresses his former friend and 
 architect as "Wilson," after the manner 
 of the latter s mother, which gives the archi 
 tect a mingled sense of incongruity and per 
 plexity for what s he to call Fred Carroll, 
 300 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 who has no other name ? He might try 
 "Frederic." 
 
 During the entire evening, otherwise de 
 lightful, Fred found only one man who 
 showed a sincere yearning to talk about the 
 house, and he was a guest whose name 
 Fred did not know. He had arrived late 
 and seemed to prefer to remain upstairs in 
 the "gentlemen s dressing-room" (otherwise 
 the children s day-nursery). By way of 
 picking up an acquaintance, he said to 
 Fred, "What a hell of a house!" 
 
 This sounded sincere enough, but hardly 
 explicit. Fred led him on to elucidate. 
 
 "Why, the front door s in the back! 
 Never saw such a house." 
 
 "That s so," Fred assented, "the chief 
 entrances, the staircases, the kitchen wing, 
 the pantries, the studio all the works of 
 the house seem to be on the cold north 
 side, facing the road." But he could not 
 resist adding, "I suppose the idea was to 
 throw all the living rooms together in one 
 sweep on the south side, where they would 
 have the view and the terrace and the sun- 
 301 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 shine, and yet be secluded." Fred started 
 to leave. 
 
 "Secluded ? " sneered the other. " I should 
 think so! I waded through the mud up to 
 my ankles clear around to the south side 
 and then couldn t get in! Had to plough 
 my way back again." 
 
 Fred abruptly turned back. "Did you 
 step on that freshly seeded ground!" he 
 demanded. 
 
 The man looked up with sudden interest 
 and held out his hand. "Shake!" he said 
 humorously. "So you made the same 
 mistake?" 
 
 "No, oh no," said Fred in a changed 
 tone, "but I was thinking it must have 
 been bad for your pumps." 
 
 "Look!" The stranger displayed them 
 dramatically. "That s why I can t go 
 down-stairs. And I ordered my carriage 
 not to come till late. Oh, Lord!" 
 
 "Have a cigar," said his host, sitting 
 down. This was worth while, even though 
 Molly might need him below. 
 
 "I don t want to go down, anyway," the 
 302 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 man went on, biting the cigar viciously, 
 though really quite happy at last to have 
 some one so sympathetic to talk to; none 
 of the others had waited to listen. "The 
 ceilings are so low that it must be stifling 
 down there/ 
 
 "Yes, it s fierce," said Fred. "The only 
 way you can get any air is by going out on 
 the terrace. They ve partly enclosed it with 
 cheap brown khaki with crimson designs 
 painted on it, and just a few pyramidal 
 shrubs in green tubs at formal intervals. 
 That s why you couldn t break in by way 
 of the south front. You ought to see those 
 designs home-made affairs; anybody can 
 tell that. They might just as well have let 
 the florists fix up something tasty or even 
 classy for them. But the music s out there, 
 and a lot of flirtation around a punch-bowl 
 big enough to swim in! Too bad you didn t 
 wade all the way round." 
 
 At this the stranger looked so disap 
 pointed that Fred felt quite inhospitable. 
 
 "All the same," returned the disgruntled 
 guest, "it s absurd to have such low ceilings. 
 Look at them." 
 
 303 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 Fred looked at them. "They are pretty 
 low," he admitted, recalling how he had 
 fought with Peters to keep them low. "I 
 suppose they expect to import their fresh 
 air from out-of-doors. Foolish idea." 
 
 "But what can you expect of a crazy art 
 ist!" remarked the other with an indulgent 
 smile. "The whole house is in keeping." 
 
 " So it is," answered Fred " so it is. The 
 whole house is in keeping. But then these 
 crazy artists will do anything to be original." 
 
 "And to think of some of the houses right 
 here in this colony he might easily have 
 copied, and it wouldn t have cost him a 
 cent more nor half the trouble!" 
 
 "Yes, think of some of them!" Fred 
 agreed fervently. They were both enjoy 
 ing themselves and forgetting their cares, 
 which is the object of social intercourse. 
 
 "Turning the plainest side of the house, 
 what little you can see of it, toward the 
 street!" the interesting guest went on, 
 warming to his congenial acquaintance. 
 "The terraces, the porches, the flower gar 
 dens practically everything nice about the 
 place are hidden. Bah!" 
 304 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 "Bah!" agreed Fred. 
 
 "Now, if / were building on this site," 
 said the other " want to know what I d 
 do?" 
 
 Fred wanted to know very much. 
 
 "Well, in the first place, I d have my en 
 trance gate down at the far corner, with a 
 circular drive leading up to my front door, 
 which would be a real front door, in the 
 real front of my house." 
 
 "With a circular pile of rocks in the mid 
 dle of the circle?" asked Fred enthusias 
 tically. 
 
 "Exactly." 
 
 "And a crescent-shaped geranium-bed on 
 each side?" 
 
 "Why, yes!" 
 
 "Yes," said Fred, arising to go, but wish 
 ing he could stay, "I m sure you would." 
 
 The guest proceeded, "And as for the 
 house " But his young friend had gone. 
 However, a servant came a few minutes 
 later bearing Scotch and carbonic and a 
 lot of hot supper, which he found even more 
 congenial. 
 
 305 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 III 
 
 Toward the end of the evening, when 
 nearly every one was having a good time, 
 with tongues free, eyes bright, laughter real, 
 just as the first symptoms were felt of the 
 breaking up, old Colonel Davidge arose, 
 and, tapping on the table for silence, lifted 
 his glass and proposed a toast, with the 
 grace of an old-fashioned Southerner of the 
 expansive school, and with the authority of 
 a veteran who had served brilliantly through 
 two wars and a long diplomatic career a 
 toast, with many interesting and ornate 
 phrases, to the two charming and talented 
 additions to the colony and to the new and 
 beautiful home which graced the landscape. 
 
 Fred had his smiling doubts about some 
 of his guests being quite so intimately ac 
 quainted with his works of genius as the 
 dear old colonel intimated, but Molly did 
 not share these doubts, and, at any rate, 
 both of them felt very proud and happy 
 too proud, as Tred said, shaking his 
 head when they called upon him to respond, 
 306 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 to spoil such a beautiful climax with an 
 anticlimax, too happy to make the rest of 
 them unhappy, and especially to make a 
 puffed-up hostess ashamed of her husband. 
 As the host concluded, he spied, upon the 
 landing of the stairs, the lonely guest 
 mouth and eyes wide open. 
 
 However, the house was now "warmed." 
 But homes do not find themselves by house- 
 warmings, any more than Mr. Kipling s ship 
 found itself by the ceremony of launching. 
 Ships find themselves by sailing voyages, 
 and homes by being inhabited for years, 
 until they fit like an old shoe and become 
 a part of the owner s life like a memory of 
 childhood. 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Frederic Carroll were at 
 tea on the terrace. The children were at 
 play in the sand-pile, their legs as brown as 
 the sand. Guests were expected later for 
 dinner. Sparrows were twittering in the low 
 eaves. "Do you remember," said Molly, 
 surveying with purring complacency the cool 
 velvet lawn, the well-trimmed hedge, the 
 307 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 vines clambering bravely up the low walls 
 of the house "I wonder if you remember 
 what a dreadful time we had building this 
 house?" 
 
 Fred nodded and smiled absently, ab 
 sorbed now in other plans, throwing out 
 work like a well-geared threshing machine. 
 "Took it too seriously," he said. "We al 
 ways take things we care about too seri 
 ously and things we don t care about not 
 seriously enough." 
 
 "Well, I m glad we did," said Molly 
 contentedly; "that s one reason why we 
 love it so." 
 
 308 
 
VII 
 THE FAMILY PARTY 
 
 SCENES : The same set and properties as in the last, but 
 with an entirely different background. Victorian atmos 
 phere. Any American household of ll culture and refine 
 ment " would do as well. 
 
 (OTHER MEMBERS OF ONE OF OUR BEST FAMILIES AP 
 PEAR, EXPLAINING (BY THEIR SILENCE) MUCH THAT HAS 
 GONE BEFORE. SUDDENLY A FAMILY SKELETON IS DIS 
 CLOSED, THE CLAN SPIRIT IS AROUSED, AND THE HOUSE 
 OF CARROLL NOW SEEMS SOUND AND SECURE.) 
 
 THE distinguished Carroll family s cher 
 ished custom of foregathering once a year 
 about an unnecessarily long dinner and 
 pretending to enjoy being together had 
 usually been observed on Thanksgiving 
 Day, with the venerable head of the house 
 beaming upon all alike including the un 
 easy "in-laws" and reminding them every 
 now and then how good and pleasant it was 
 for brethren to dwell together in unity. 
 
 When this annual comedy, appropriately 
 produced with a setting of mid- Victorian 
 39 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 furniture and formality in a gloomy old 
 house up the Hudson, was at last brought 
 to a climax of kisses and genuinely happy 
 good-bys, and all the very different coup 
 les had fled away to the centres of their 
 distinct universes, they always vowed, as 
 they dosed their offspring for indigestion, 
 that they would never go through the ordeal 
 again. 
 
 But, of course, the next year found them 
 there once more, each doing his best to 
 look delighted. None of them knew just 
 why it was kept up. They thought it was 
 only to gratify their beloved father, to 
 whom family parties had become the chief 
 of his few remaining joys. But there was 
 also another impulse, less conscious, more 
 potent the clan instinct. 
 
 There came an epoch-making year in 
 the history of the ancient Carroll family. 
 The old home nucleus was abroad and 
 expected to remain abroad until late in 
 December! "It grieves us," wrote Aunt 
 310 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 Bella from Italy, "to think of foregoing the 
 usual happy time together." So for once 
 the dark-blue shades remained drawn upon 
 the tall, narrow windows of the many stuffy 
 rooms of the sombre old house all through 
 Thanksgiving Day, and for once sincere 
 thanks ascended from the various parts of 
 our country inhabited by Carrolls. But the 
 rejoicing was short-lived. 
 
 Just when the rest of the brethren were 
 sinking luxuriously into that serenity which 
 follows escape from an anticipated ordeal, 
 two inconsiderate young members of the 
 family, known as "the Freds," without a 
 word of warning, invited the whole tribe to 
 their small but charming country place, re 
 cently finished with great rejoicing and ex 
 pense, in order to celebrate Christmas, the 
 opening of the "our new house," and the 
 safe return of father and Aunt Bella, who 
 were due to land beamingly in America on 
 the twentieth. 
 
 Now, to be sure, the Fred Carrolls en 
 joyed giving family parties no more than 
 the rest of the middle generation enjoyed 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 attending them. But Fred thought that 
 the others would like to come, and the 
 others thought that feelings would be hurt 
 if they declined. So when Fred s wife 
 wrote characteristically gracious notes to 
 all the other wives, telling them what a joy 
 it would be and how she was looking for 
 ward to it, the other wives straightway ac 
 cepted, telling her what a dear she was, 
 and how they were looking forward to it. 
 . . . Just when Archie, the eldest and 
 wealthiest, had planned to start South; and 
 Roger, the professor and the poorest, had 
 counted upon attending the annual meet 
 ing of the American Economic Association! 
 Fred, though given to doing unaccount 
 able things, was the last they would have 
 suspected of this, with the possible excep 
 tion of Molly, his wife, for early in life 
 he had departed more widely than any of 
 them from the traditions of the family. 
 And as for Fred s wife, she, to be sure, had 
 never enjoyed the benefit of such tradi 
 tions at all, being "from" the Pacific coast, 
 and of Southern extraction at that! So, 
 312 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 although Aunt Bella, in the kindness of 
 her heart, was wont to remark, for Molly s 
 encouragement, "But we never think of 
 you, my dear, as a Californian," it was as 
 obviously recognized, as it was politely ig 
 nored, that this past of hers for which they 
 would never dream of holding her respon 
 sible; she was so young at the time this 
 mere accident of birth, for that, they ad 
 mitted, was all it amounted to, had, never 
 theless held Fred s wife in an environment 
 (during the "formative period") just a little 
 too remote to be reached and redeemed by 
 even such potent cultural influences as the 
 Boston Carrolls. But Aunt Bella still hoped 
 and prayed, with a faith that might have 
 moved Plymouth Rock to San Francisco 
 Bay had the good lady been willing that 
 all things would work together for good to 
 them that love God. 
 
 The family s chief claim to distinction in 
 previous generations had been in the pur 
 suit of piety and scholarship with just 
 enough "drifting into money-making," as 
 their unworldly but not unhumorous father 
 313 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 called it, or else into advantageous matri 
 mony, to make their lives comfortable as 
 well as useful. But Fred had become a 
 painter! So, while not a Philistine, like all 
 those who made money, he was neces 
 sarily considered a Bohemian, like all ar 
 tists, which perhaps was even worse. There 
 fore he felt himself more out of the family 
 picture and less understood than any of the 
 brethren each of whom, it may be added, 
 cherished a similar illusion about him 
 self. 
 
 Perhaps it was that the Bohemian wanted 
 to get back into the family picture. Until 
 recent years he had led a nomadic exist 
 ence in various parts of the world; perhaps 
 he was hearkening, unconsciously, to the 
 call of the clan. Having a young family 
 of his own now, perhaps he thought a 
 family party would do them good, and at 
 the same time might serve to rid the 
 house of the lingering taint of newness 
 and help to establish the atmosphere of 
 home. 
 
 But that was not what made Molly take 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 to the project. She saw a chance she had 
 wanted ever since she had married into the 
 Carroll family. 
 
 "I ll agree to have them here upon one 
 condition/ she said, her eyes twinkling, 
 "and that is that you will join me in a 
 scheme to reform your family! With a 
 merry, old-fashioned Christmas party, such 
 as we used to have in our family with a 
 tree and a yule-log and eggnog " 
 
 "Look out, Molly! Aunt Bella/ 5 Their 
 generous old aunt devoted much time and 
 money to the cause of the W. C. T. U., 
 having at her command considerable of 
 each, thanks to that Carroll ancestor who 
 had devoted his time and money to the man 
 ufacture of Medford rum. 
 
 "Oh, that s so." Molly stopped a mo 
 ment. "Very well, we ll omit the eggnog. 
 But, at any rate, they will be far removed 
 from that dreadful old house with its at 
 mosphere of artificiality. That has been 
 the chief trouble heretofore. No one can 
 be spontaneous there. The ghastly color 
 scheme always gets on your nerves; and 
 3*5 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 the horrible memories of our engagement 
 days always get on mine. I don t be 
 lieve any of us in-laws can ever enter that 
 gloomy place without snapping back into 
 the old defiant attitude of the days when 
 Aunt Bella tried to poison the minds of 
 the family against each of us in turn. But 
 this fresh, new house of ours, bright and 
 innocent and full of charm, hasn t any at 
 mosphere or memories at all! It will be 
 like getting them on neutral ground. Don t 
 you see, dear?" 
 
 "Well," said Fred, with a reflective smile, 
 "it will be interesting in any case to see 
 how they take it." 
 
 So these two set about to reform the 
 Carroll family a rather ambitious attempt 
 on their part, but they were still young. 
 They decked out their unsuspecting house 
 with holly, put wreaths in all the many 
 windows, hung mistletoe in the arches and 
 placed a Christmas-tree in the studio, which 
 had a ceiling high enough for a tall one. 
 They soon became absorbed in their plans, 
 and Fred drew caricatures of various mem- 
 316 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 bers of the family for dinner-cards, while 
 Molly wrote appropriate verses. 
 
 "Nothing like a few jokes," said Fred, 
 "to strike the note and start them going. I 
 have seen that worked to good effect in 
 other families when I was a bachelor." 
 
 They had a very pleasant anticipatory 
 picture all the little nephews and nieces in 
 white pique against the dark woodwork 
 of the hall, the glow of the yule-log shining 
 on their red sashes, merry laughter, wassail, 
 good cheer. Even Fred became quite en 
 thusiastic. Perhaps Molly hadn t so much 
 imagination, but she did more of the work, 
 and that increased her enthusiasm. 
 
 So when at last the great day arrived they 
 really believed they could make it go if, 
 that is, Molly could only remember to 
 avoid references to Unitarianism, vegeta 
 rianism, and second marriages. For her 
 father-in-law was a famous Unitarian (see 
 records of the Andover Controversy), Aunt 
 Bella was a conscientious vegetarian, and 
 Archie had married a worldly widow, much 
 to the chagrin of the family, who did not 
 317 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 approve of second marriages. As a memo 
 randum, Molly took the initials of these 
 taboos and repeated them frequently upon 
 her fingers, "U.V.M. U.V.M." Then 
 feeling secure on these points she became 
 ambitious and made Fred rehearse her 
 upon all the minor forbidden topics, though, 
 since it was a large family and Molly had 
 but ten fingers, the chances were against 
 her. Nevertheless, hope rose high in the new 
 Carroll house. Fred and Molly were not 
 unconscious of being considered good hosts. 
 But they had reckoned without their 
 guests. The family did not know it was 
 to be reformed. Nor did it want to be re 
 formed. The Family never does no more 
 than any of our other well-meaning, unim 
 aginative institutions. Why not leave good 
 enough alone ? Whatever was is right, and 
 ever more shall be. 
 
 II 
 
 Around a charming old mahogany din 
 ner-table (extended to its full length for 
 the first time since the hostess had in- 
 
 318 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 herited it from her grandmother) festively 
 decorated in green and red by one of 
 America s most promising young landscape 
 painters, with humorous dinner-cards, es 
 pecially designed for each place by the 
 same talented hand, enlivened by jocular 
 verses from the pen of his clever wife, were 
 seated two very good-looking generations 
 of the distinguished Carroll family, politely 
 waiting for the end of the Christmas party. 
 Except for the change of scene (and 
 cuisine), the comedy was proceeding quite 
 as usual, and each pretty wreath in the 
 windows seemed a mocking "O" from the 
 mouth of a comic mask. For, you see, the 
 dramatis persona were the same, and they 
 had all learned their parts too well upon 
 the old stage to forget them on the new. 
 In short, the Carrolls were not accustomed 
 to having a good time together, and it seems 
 they did not intend to on this occasion. 
 They had come expecting to be bored, and 
 so they had proceeded to be bored at once. 
 They had hardly taken off their wraps be 
 fore Fred and Molly felt the familiar symp- 
 319 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 toms of the annual slump which always 
 succeeded the first gently animated expres 
 sions of interest in one another s health and 
 children. "I hope you are well." "Yes, 
 thank you; are you well?" "Quite well, 
 thank you and how s the baby ?" 
 
 That was not the way the hosts had in 
 tended to start off at all! They wondered 
 what was the matter, as they began show 
 ing the guests about the new house the 
 first of the "things to do," by which they 
 hoped to keep the family enlivened. Per 
 haps the unexpected current in the at 
 mosphere was due to Fred s lack of frater 
 nal spirit in securing the services of his 
 friend Wilson Peters instead of the archi 
 tect who had married into the family and 
 was now in the family party viewing his 
 rival s work in polite silence, while sneering 
 inwardly at the surbases. 
 
 But that was not the trouble. It was 
 simply that the unbidden guest had also ar 
 rived the Family Attitude. It hypnotized 
 them. Molly lost all her sparkle; be 
 came quiet, formal, constrained. As for 
 320 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 Fred, he did not arise to the occasion at 
 all; he slipped down into the accustomed 
 niche assigned him of yore by the family, 
 and was now merely one of the younger 
 brothers of the wonderful Archie. He 
 seemed to be trying to efface himself against 
 the woodwork. Molly threw him an im 
 ploring glance. He avoided her eyes. 
 This man before her was no longer " Fred 
 eric Carroll, the well-known landscape 
 painter," who should have been proud of 
 making a greater mark in the world than 
 any of them without family influence, 
 despite family opposition. This was mere 
 ly a shy, self-conscious boy, blowing his nose 
 unnecessarily, ashamed of himself, of his 
 house, of his wife. Molly drew near and 
 pinched him. He glared at her indignantly. 
 They hated each other. 
 
 The tree in the studio had pleased the 
 children, though it did seem to Aunt Bella 
 like a flaunting of Molly s sensuous Episco- 
 palianism in the very faces of the Carrolls. 
 But when Fred, to the tune of sleigh-bells, 
 entered, made up like Santa Clans and 
 321 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 feeling like the devil one of Archie s ner 
 vous children, brought up "without super 
 stitions/ was nearly frightened into hys 
 terics by the apoplectic-hued false-face, and 
 Archie cried, "For Heaven s sake, Fred, 
 take it off!" Never would Fred and Molly 
 forget the terrible look of sophistication 
 which crept over the trusting faces of their 
 own little dears, who had been brought up 
 with superstitions, when there was destroyed 
 in one stroke of the hand their illusion of 
 Santa Claus and their belief in their fa 
 ther. . . . 
 
 But they had counted upon dinner to 
 redeem the cause. Molly prided herself 
 upon her dinners, and this was undoubtedly 
 a good one. They all politely told her so, 
 just as Aunt Bella informed Fred, examin 
 ing her dinner-card with thoughtful interest 
 through her lorgnette, that his carica 
 tures were "capital" and Molly s lines 
 "very clever indeed." Then they began to 
 eat, for that, to be sure, is the object of 
 dinners. Fred, feeling inexpressible sen 
 sations, turned and asked Archie s wife for 
 322 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 the third time in three hours whether the 
 new governess was proving a success. 
 
 "Twenty-four hours more of this!" 
 thought Molly at her end of the table. 
 For Christmas came on Saturday, and they 
 had invited the family for the week-end, 
 so that they "all could become well ac 
 quainted for once." On her right sat her 
 father-in-law, of whom she was sincerely 
 fond, beaming as usual like a patriarch. 
 He patted her hand and whispered, "It was 
 thoughtful of you, my dear, to prepare this 
 surprise for us while we were on the ocean. 
 Nothing could have gratified us more than 
 to be in your delightful home and to see 
 all the family so happy together." Then 
 he turned to beam upon the timid creature 
 upon the other side, Herbert s fiancee, who 
 was still in the state of abject terror she 
 tried to conceal ever since her arrival. 
 
 On Molly s other hand was Archie, 
 Fred s eldest brother, the family oracle. 
 He had been told by his aunt and sisters 
 that he was wonderful so often that he had 
 begun to think there must be something in 
 3 2 3 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 it. Molly, saying to herself, "This is the 
 man who used to make me cry," was now 
 trying her best to make him talk. Archie 
 did not even try. To him she was only his 
 impractical brother s improvident wife. If 
 she had been anybody else s wife he would 
 have found her interesting. But they were 
 kept apart by the very thing that had 
 brought them together their relationship. 
 They knew too much about each other, and 
 cared too little. He knew how hard up 
 the artist branch of the family often was, 
 and she knew that the widow had brought 
 Archie a substantial income of her own, with 
 which he now did good to the poor. 
 
 Archie did not seem to care for Molly s 
 views on Pragmatism, so she glanced down 
 the table to see how the others were getting 
 on. At this dinner it was easier to pick 
 out the couples who were talking than those 
 who were not. 
 
 Uncle Thomas was having a very good 
 
 time talking to Sophia, who sat on the 
 
 other side of Archie. She was a German, 
 
 whom brother Roger had married while 
 
 324 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 taking his degree at Leipzig, and though 
 the family had finally forgiven Roger for 
 this, they had never quite forgiven Sophia. 
 But they tried to show her that they were 
 treating her just as kindly as if she were 
 forgivable and that it took a Carroll to rise 
 to such heights. Roger and Sophia lived 
 upon an assistant professor s salary, with 
 more children than they had any business 
 having. Incidentally they were about the 
 happiest of the lot. Archie, who had been 
 tossing her a few fraternal inquiries, thought 
 he was indulgently kind to her, while she 
 felt herself and especially her brilliant hus 
 band to be serenely superior to all that 
 Archie considered success. 
 
 Uncle Thomas was an old bachelor, and 
 boasted of never having missed but one 
 funeral in the entire connection, and that 
 happened when he was travelling. That, 
 it was said, was why he had never travelled 
 since. The family was large and some 
 body might take an unfair advantage of 
 him. Uncle Thomas was quite wealthy, 
 and Sophia was listening with rapt atten- 
 325 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 tion to the history of the Carroll family 
 during the American Revolution. She and 
 Roger had named their second boy Thomas. 
 Aunt Bella was also enjoying herself, 
 because she was giving the architect the 
 benefit of her views on architecture. He 
 was buoyed up by the prospect of one of 
 Fred s good cigars when at last. the meal 
 would be over. It seemed to him a crime 
 to spoil such a good dinner with nothing 
 but water, and he glanced across the table 
 at his wife, who winked at him. She was 
 named after Aunt Bella, but was a very 
 different Bella. For since her marriage 
 she had become one of the most emanci 
 pated of the lot, had acquired the modern 
 boldness in ideas and the expression thereof, 
 and prattled constantly about her sense of 
 humor, thus proving how much she had. 
 Her pose did not go very well with her face. 
 The younger Bella wa s tenderly beautiful. 
 Her brother Fred, the painter, gazed at her 
 idolatrously, as he always did. Though he 
 despised her as only a brother can despise 
 a sister whose poses are as familiar as her 
 326 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 garments yet with her adorable profile she 
 was helping him wonderfully through his 
 jolly family reunion. 
 
 Aunt Bella had no husband to contribute 
 to the solemnity of the occasion, but she 
 was the chief conservator of the Carroll 
 traditions, including the immemorial one 
 they were now ably illustrating, of being 
 bored to death whenever they foregathered. 
 She would not allow gossip, and made 
 general talk impossible, because unless you 
 believed as she believed you were made 
 to feel not only by her but by those who 
 were afraid of her like an alien and a 
 renegade. As they were sure to run against 
 one of these hidden snags if they let go 
 and drifted down the current of conversa 
 tion, they had all learned by experience 
 never to let go. When it becomes neces 
 sary to stop and think before saying any 
 thing most of the time is spent in think 
 ing and stopping. Consequently the Car- 
 rolls never talked. They only conversed. 
 
 That was what most of them were trying 
 their best to do at the present moment, all 
 327 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 down that side of the table and up the other, 
 past the silent engaged couple, to old Dr. 
 Carroll, who was saying, "If only Sarah 
 could be here to enjoy this with us." Sarah 
 was the daughter who had been married 
 about a year before. 
 
 Now it so happened that this sigh was 
 heard by Harry, the youngest, who sat 
 near by. He was rather a naughty boy, 
 still in college, who considered family 
 parties the limit, and looked with indulgent 
 contempt upon all his things-in-law, espe 
 cially the sad bird who wore detachable 
 cuffs. But neither being married, engaged, 
 nor guarded in his utterances, he said, 
 "Well, why isn t Sarah here?" for he had 
 been considered too young to be informed. 
 
 The old gentleman was deaf. His young 
 est repeated the question in a loud tone. 
 
 Every one was aroused. Aunt Bella and 
 two of the other ladies answered in concert, 
 " Sarah is ill." 
 
 "What s the matter with her?" he 
 blurted out. 
 
 For a moment silence reverberated about 
 328 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 the table. Then Aunt Bella threw herself 
 into the breach. "Fred, is that a copy of 
 the Peale portrait of the Signer? 
 
 Noble Aunt Bella! 
 
 This episode scared them into a con 
 fused animation for a few moments, all 
 trying to give the illusion of not having 
 heard what each was still thinking about. 
 But, of course, it did not last very long, and 
 all were relieved by the interruption of the 
 telephone bell in the hall. Fred was sum 
 moned. They heard him calling, "Yes, 
 this is Mr. Carroll." And now might have 
 been observed another familiar family phe 
 nomenon: They were all trying to talk 
 to show that they were not listening, while 
 at the same time they were endeavoring 
 to hear what Fred said with a view to guess 
 ing what was being said to him. Natu 
 rally, their responses to one another were 
 somewhat vague. 
 
 They all knew what it was before Fred 
 
 returned to the room, and each knew that 
 
 all the rest knew, but every one pretended 
 
 otherwise while Fred proceeded to make 
 
 3 2 9 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 his announcement with becoming Carroll 
 reserve. "What do you think has hap 
 pened?" 
 
 There was no answer. 
 
 "Guess!" 
 
 No one could guess. They turned po 
 litely expectant faces toward him. 
 
 It was too much for Molly. "Oh, quick! 
 Is it a girl or a boy?" 
 
 "It s a little girl," said Fred, adding, as 
 he dropped his eyes, "Sarah is doing 
 splendidly." 
 
 Now that it was officially known, the 
 glad news was immediately repeated to the 
 happy grandfather in loud tones by several 
 voices at once including Aunt Bella s. 
 The new member of the Carroll family 
 and her mother were now perfectly proper 
 topics of conversation. Two minutes be 
 fore they had been improper. 
 
 But even a new Carroll, without any 
 conscious Carroll traditions, could not re 
 deem a Carroll dinner. The talk soon 
 died down again, though the grandfather 
 continued to glow with quiet satisfaction, 
 33 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 apparently quite as happy as though it 
 were the first time, occasionally asking 
 questions sometimes rather embarrassing 
 ones, which kept Aunt Bella on the jump. 
 For in mellow old age, when death is 
 near and all life seems sweet and worthy, 
 it is difficult always to remember just what 
 used to be considered " genteel" and what 
 "ungenteel." 
 
 Aunt Bella, however, gave a worthy ex 
 hibition of the well-known Carroll tact. 
 
 Now, if Molly had not been fatigued by 
 her futile efforts to make the party a success 
 she might have been able to perform the 
 mental jump to the outside of the family 
 circle, and thus enjoy the spectacle from 
 the objective point of view; but she was 
 not accustomed to seeing people bored at 
 her table, and she resented their establish 
 ing this atmosphere of artificiality in her 
 house. Perhaps she dreaded its becoming 
 the permanent atmosphere of the new house 
 which the family called "Fred s house" 
 quite as consistently as her people called 
 it "Molly s house." 
 
 331 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 It was the incident of the game course 
 which brought about a climax. The quail 
 which now came on had been shot by Fred 
 himself the month before, and they had 
 been hanging for this famous occasion not 
 wisely but too long. They had been beau 
 tifully cooked, after a manner well known 
 in Molly s family, enclosed in an envelope 
 of oiled paper to retain the flavor and juices. 
 
 So it was not discovered that the birds 
 had been kept too long until the family, 
 with polite expressions of interest (to show 
 they were not jealous of Molly s originality), 
 opened the dainty envelopes, then each 
 member of the family in turn seemed to find 
 it necessary to lean far back in his chair, 
 operating knives and forks at arm s-length. 
 Molly burst out laughing and ordered the of 
 fending little birds removed from the room. 
 
 "Not at all," said Aunt Bella; "they 
 are very nice, I m sure. Connoisseurs pre 
 fer them this way." But she was pretend 
 ing to blow her nose. 
 
 Molly laughed again this time almost 
 pleading with them to laugh with her. She 
 332 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 laughed alone. Even young Harry, the 
 naughty boy, was displaying his good man 
 ners. "Oh, Aunt Bella/ she cried, still 
 trying to relieve the tension; "you re a 
 vegetarian, you can get out of it, but spare 
 the others!" and she signalled the ser 
 vants to hurry. 
 
 "Such was not my intention," said Aunt 
 Bella in the manner of the unappreci 
 ated. 
 
 Again Molly began to laugh and again 
 alone. She stopped abruptly. It was the 
 last straw. She ceased to struggle. It was 
 no use. The party was a failure. If they 
 preferred to do it this way, let them do 
 it. She washed her hands of them. Once 
 more she looked down the double row of 
 polite masks. "And this/ she said to her 
 self, "is what I am expected to endure for 
 the rest of my life!" She gazed at her 
 husband with dull, uninterested eyes. He 
 seemed to be as bad as any of them. He 
 was a Carroll. She was an outsider. It 
 was one of those moments when she won 
 dered how she had ever married him. 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 She turned and scrutinized his brother 
 Archie beside her. He wore the character 
 istic Carroll look of expressionless reserve, 
 his lack-lustre gaze upon the table-cloth at 
 an angle of forty-five degrees. He had said 
 nothing for ten minutes. Apparently he 
 saw nothing, thought nothing, expected 
 nothing. 
 
 She could not very well stick a pin into 
 him, but as it happened she startled him 
 almost as much. Yielding to a sudden 
 impulse she leaned close to his mask and 
 said, "Booh!" 
 
 Archie jumped as though an electric cur 
 rent had passed through him and ejacu 
 lated involuntarily, "Why booh?" Then 
 hearing his own words and realizing their 
 utter absurdity, he blushed and blinked at 
 her helplessly. 
 
 "Well, not necessarily booh, " Molly 
 replied with whimsical gravity, apparently 
 not in the least confused. "I was merely 
 wondering if you were as bored as you look. 
 But it s really of no consequence." Then 
 with a conventional smile she relaxed into 
 
 334 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 her chair again, as though quite willing tc 
 drop the situation she had created. 
 
 But this was not to be. There was a 
 spark of life in that childish "booh" of 
 hers, the first vital utterance these two had 
 ever produced. It was not to die at birth; 
 it was to mature and bear fruit. 
 
 Ill 
 
 She had surprised him, but now he 
 stopped blinking and surprised her. 
 
 "On the contrary," he replied, per 
 fectly cool, "I couldn t possibly look as 
 bored as I am." 
 
 "Dear me!" she returned glancing at 
 him with real interest and a little more 
 respect, "it s even worse than I feared!" 
 
 "But it s not your fault," he remarked 
 pleasantly. "We always are bored, you 
 know, when we get together." 
 
 "I did not dream of its being my fault," 
 she said. " It s one of the Carroll customs. 
 Even those who are only Carrolls by mar 
 riage soon acquire it!" 
 335 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 It was rather neat. 
 
 "You mean that you are just as bored as 
 I am?" 
 
 "More so, if possible." 
 
 They looked at each other and laughed 
 the first real laugh they had ever had 
 together. They enjoyed it. 
 
 "Well, there s nothing like family unity," 
 said Archie. "We aren t the only victims. 
 Look at the rest of them!" 
 
 But even while these two impious ones 
 were exchanging their blasphemies, speak 
 ing in low tones with heads close together 
 to avoid being overheard, a subtle change 
 in the atmosphere of the table had begun. 
 Aunt Bella, ever on the alert, ever deter 
 mined to know everything that was being 
 said and thought, wondered what these two 
 were discussing with such unwonted ani 
 mation, such close intimacy! 
 
 "It s a rather amusing sight," Archie was 
 saying in a low tone. 
 
 "Sometimes," smiled Molly. 
 
 "Always," corrected Archie. 
 
 "Not when you re the hostess." She 
 336 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 was still smiling, carelessly, but Archie was 
 quick and felt a sudden appreciation of 
 her situation. 
 
 But he was not the kind who knows how 
 to express sympathy, so he only smiled he 
 had his father s smile and said, "Well, 
 what did you expect ? You ve been one of 
 us now long enough to know better." 
 
 Molly really liked this more than if he 
 had become serious. "Oh, yes," she said, 
 "Fred and I deserve it, I suppose, for daring 
 to plot against the sacred custom. We ll 
 never try it again." 
 
 "So that was it!" Archie exclaimed. "I 
 had been wondering how to account for 
 your inviting us. Of course, I knew it 
 wasn t because you wanted us." 
 
 "Not in the least. Why should we want 
 you?" 
 
 "Quite so. No more than we wanted to 
 
 come." 
 
 "Why did you come, by the way?" 
 "Probably for the same reason, though 
 you didn t realize it, that you invited us 
 an instinct deeper than our conscious de- 
 
 337 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 sires, more potent than our personal pref 
 erences." 
 
 A bit didactic, perhaps, but interesting all 
 the same to Molly. Clearly, he too, had 
 looked this matter in the face. Now they 
 were both looking it in the face together. 
 Therefore they were no longer bored, and 
 this shows that boredom can commit sui 
 cide with the God-given gift of speech. 
 
 The little leaven of life in Molly s "booh!" 
 was spreading. Others besides Aunt Bella 
 were now feeling the sudden flare of anima 
 tion at one corner of the table. It was not 
 a customary sight this, two members of the 
 family enjoying each other s society for 
 several consecutive minutes. It made the 
 observers rather nervous. They had a 
 firm conviction that it would soon die a 
 natural death if not a violent one by be 
 ing dashed to pieces against one of the fam 
 ily taboos. But meanwhile, just to show 
 that they were not noticing this unprece 
 dented thing or feeling the slightest appre 
 hension, they all proceeded to give an illu 
 sion of conversation. Aunt Bella asked the 
 338 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 architect if he did not greatly admire Rus- 
 kin s "Stones of Venice." What the archi 
 tect wanted to reply shall not be recorded in 
 the annals of such a refined family. So he 
 lied and said, "Oh, tremendously," and 
 swallowed another glass of water. 
 
 "I mean," Archie was now saying to 
 Molly, "that whether we like it or not, 
 we are bound together by ties of mutual in 
 terest, communal feeling. We are all in the 
 family and we can t get out. Now you 
 may hate me " 
 
 "But, somehow, I don t," interrupted 
 Molly, looking at him critically. "At 
 least, not so much now that I ve made you 
 talk." 
 
 "Well, then I may hate you," Archie 
 went on imperturbably; "but your children 
 and my children have some of the same 
 blood in their veins. It s hard luck, but 
 they can t help it. You can divorce Fred, 
 but you can t divorce your children. You 
 and I are bound together irrevocably." 
 
 Molly looked at him a moment. "Dear 
 me!" she said; "what a prospect! Once a 
 339 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 year, as long as we live, you and I must 
 meet and bore each other." 
 
 "It s pretty bad," said Archie. "There s 
 only one thing worse, and that would be 
 not to do it at all. Little-minded people 
 who want to destroy the family, simply be 
 cause it is imperfect like the church, or mar 
 riage itself, or any of our institutions, usually 
 haven t wisdom or imagination enough to 
 consider the alternative. What is the use 
 of knocking down even bad things unless 
 you can stick better things up ?" 
 
 "But why have so many things ?" 
 Molly inquired. "It s all habit." 
 
 "Habit founded upon human cravings 
 cravings which can t be suppressed." 
 
 "I believe I could suppress my human 
 craving for family parties," said Molly. 
 She said it in the quiet way she did her 
 joking, as though not much impressed by 
 the joke. 
 
 Archie burst into a laugh. He was get 
 ting an occasional inkling of what Fred saw 
 in this girl. The others heard the laugh and 
 wondered. They all knew Archie s real 
 340 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 laugh from his assumed merriment. This 
 was his real laugh. 
 
 "But then you would probably get ostra 
 cized from the family, and that would hardly 
 pay. It s easier to come and get bored." 
 
 " But why be bored ? Why can t we have 
 a merry, congenial time together like other 
 families?" 
 
 "What other families? Do you mean to 
 say you enjoy your own family reunions?" 
 
 Molly laughed and colored, but she was 
 game. "Well, when we get together we 
 always fight," she said drolly, and Archie 
 laughed again. "Oh, we enjoy the fight 
 ing," she added demurely. " Of course, you 
 Carrolls wouldn t. You prefer to suffer in 
 silence." He laughed again at this. ("What 
 are they talking about up there?" thought 
 the family. Suppose they had known!) 
 "You see, my people are the kind who talk 
 without thinking. The Carrolls think with 
 out talking. Your way is more polite, ours 
 is more exciting." 
 
 "Naturally you think yours is the better 
 way." 
 
 34i 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 "And you, that yours is the better way/ 
 
 "Whereas, neither is the better way. 
 They are merely different." 
 
 " But you could never get your family to 
 admit that!" 
 
 "Nor yours," said Archie, and this time 
 it was Molly s laugh that the perplexed 
 family heard and pretended not to hear. 
 
 "All of which proves nothing," said 
 Molly. 
 
 "It proves everything," rejoined Archie. 
 "It shows exactly why a large family can t 
 have a good time together, when once it s 
 got apart by marrying. We represent so 
 many and such various family habits and 
 traditions no two alike, except in com 
 placently thinking themselves the best." 
 
 "We could resolve all those differences 
 or make a composite of them, if we only 
 talked expressed, not repressed, ourselves 
 all the time." 
 
 "In other words, become like your fam 
 ily ? " asked Archie twinkling. 
 
 Molly laughed and blushed. He had 
 caught her neatly. "Dear me, Archie, 
 342 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 you are something of an oracle, aren t you ? 
 If I m not careful, I shall soon learn to like 
 you, even though you are my brother-in- 
 law." 
 
 "I ve already begun to .like you," he 
 whispered gallantly. 
 
 "Good!" she returned triumphantly. 
 "It s all because I made you talk. Aha! 
 That s why you re no longer bored!" 
 
 She rather had him there. "That s so," 
 he said, "I m afraid I m not." And they 
 ended, laughing with the same civilized joy 
 that comes in a sharp volleying rally at 
 tennis between two well-matched players 
 enjoying each other s skill too keenly to care 
 much which wins such an interesting point. 
 
 By this time the whole family was alert 
 and watching though, of course, no one 
 would have suspected it from their de 
 meanor, except those who knew the Carrolls. 
 It was a sort of rippling wonder like that 
 of a stagnant pool awakened by the whis 
 perings of the coming storm. 
 
 Even the absorption of the engaged couple 
 was penetrated. They stopped thinking 
 
 343 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 about the loggia into which they meant 
 to disappear after dinner, and exchanged 
 glances which meant, "When we are mar 
 ried we shall never want to whisper and 
 laugh with any one but each other." Young 
 Harry, the naughty boy, also observed, and 
 also disapproved. His brothers always 
 seemed tiresome when talking to women. 
 
 The only ones at the table unmoved were 
 Uncle Thomas and Father Carroll, but they 
 really did not need stirring up, because 
 they were already perfectly happy. The 
 former was telling Sophia with great relish 
 what a certain distinguished Carroll an 
 cestor had said to Lafayette and what La 
 fayette said to him. As for Dr. Carroll, 
 he was still beaming contentedly, though 
 rather sleepily now, as he asked, "What 
 do you suppose they will name her?" He 
 had hopes, dear old boy, of Sarah s decid 
 ing on Margaret. It had been his wife s 
 name. 
 
 Now, at the other end of the table were 
 Molly s husband Fred and Archie s wife 
 Julia. She was the one on whose account 
 
 344 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 the family considerately avoided references 
 to second marriages, of which the female 
 members of the family severely disap 
 proved. Julia would not have minded the 
 references or the disapproval in the least, 
 but the palpable attempts to cover both 
 sometimes annoyed her. She was a pretty, 
 frivolous woman, exquisitely dressed, but 
 felt choked by the lack of air, sparkle, and 
 gayety of the world she was accustomed to. 
 She and Fred, naturally, had been among 
 the first to be awakened by their spouses 
 unprecedented conduct, so unbecoming in a 
 Carroll. Husbands and wives are apt to 
 glance at each other frequently at family re 
 unions. Julia caught Fred at it, and Fred 
 caught Julia at it so often and Julia tried 
 to show Fred, and Fred tried to show Julia, 
 so persistently that each thought nothing of 
 it that it became almost laughable, and 
 indeed they might have laughed had it 
 been anywhere but at a family reunion. 
 Finally, it reached a pitch where even the 
 Carroll reserve was burst. So, "Isn t it 
 outrageous?" remarked Julia in her indo- 
 
 345 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 lent manner, "the way my husband is mak 
 ing love to your wife/ 
 
 She had hoped to shock him, but Fred 
 swung into position with surprising alacrity. 
 "But it s nothing," he said, "to the shame 
 less way my wife is making eyes at your 
 husband." 
 
 And these two, in turn, looked at each 
 other with new eyes, almost with interest. 
 
 "But I really can t blame Archie," said 
 Julia with some enthusiasm, "Molly is so 
 very good-looking." 
 
 Fred liked that so much more than her 
 praise of his canvases. "Still," he re 
 marked reflectively, "it isn t as if he were 
 obliged to come to my home for that sort of 
 thing." 
 
 It was the first compliment he had ever 
 paid her, and it wasn t much of a compli 
 ment at that, but she approved of his trying, 
 at any rate. So she smiled indulgently at 
 him and said, "Oh, I ve known artists be 
 fore!" She knew them! (Even if she did 
 call painters "artists," which Fred and his 
 crowd did not fancy.) 
 346 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 Fred saw the indulgent smile. It piqued 
 him. He didn t want her to think that this 
 was the best he could do. He wasn t 
 warmed up yet. The machinery creaks 
 when it has been out of use. Meanwhile he 
 bestowed upon her a rather authoritative 
 glance of appreciation, being an artist. She 
 was good to look at somehow he hadn t 
 realized before quite how good. He inti 
 mated as much. 
 
 "Dear me!" she exclaimed to encourage 
 him. "I had no idea you could be so nice/ 
 It was an affected tone, but Fred did not 
 mind that so much now; for she shot such a 
 brilliant smile as she said it, the kind she 
 ordinarily employed when dining out in 
 town. 
 
 Thus also these two lumberingly got 
 under way. It was rather lukewarm badi 
 nage, but it was better than ingrowing 
 thoughts, so they left off their repeated 
 questions about their offspring. 
 
 Alas! this, also, was observed by the 
 perplexed Aunt Bella, but as their manner 
 was more open and less confidential, it 
 347 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 was to the other end of the table that the 
 good lady s glances more frequently wan 
 dered. It would be too much to say that 
 she was shocked. There was nothing to 
 shock, even her as yet. But she did not 
 like it. It was not what she was accustomed 
 to. It was not "like us." Therefore it 
 must be wrong. 
 
 Archie had been quoting Mr. Chester 
 ton to Molly. "Oh, it s easy enough for 
 Chesterton to say the family is a good 
 thing because it is uncongenial, " she re 
 joined, "but he never had to dine with this 
 family. What good does our uncongenial- 
 ity do us! We don t allow it to do us any 
 good. We cover it up. We pretend there 
 isn t any. We re all so afraid of saying 
 something some one else won t like that 
 we don t say anything. So we miss all 
 the * romance as he calls it of family 
 life, meaning the fighting, and just slump! 
 Sitting around looking sweet and refined 
 and becoming unutterably bored and get 
 ting nothing out of it except mutual con 
 tempt and a loathing for family parties. 
 348 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 I d a good deal rather have my feelings hurt 
 once in a while than be bored all the time." 
 
 Archie thought her quite delicious when 
 she unconsciously mimicked the Carroll 
 repose. "All the same/ he said, "deep 
 down under all this emotional repression 
 there is plenty of real feeling and fondness. 
 We simply don t know how to express it. 
 We re all so afraid of vulgar exposure of the 
 feelings. But let death or disaster," he 
 went on, "come to any of us and you ll see 
 the inherent kindness and the essential 
 unity of the family butting in through the 
 icy reserve and the superficial uncongeni- 
 ality and everything else." 
 
 "Yes," said Molly, "you really seem to 
 let go and enjoy yourselves at funerals. 
 Sorry I couldn t arrange one for you." 
 
 "Any other hard luck would do quite as 
 well. Some impending disgrace would be 
 better yet it lasts longer. They would all 
 rally around to avert it. There s nothing 
 like a family skeleton for keeping alive the 
 family spirit." 
 
 "But, of course, you have nothing of the 
 
 349 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 sort in your clean, Carroll closets. You are 
 all so horribly good. Now, if it were only 
 my family oh, I could rattle a few bones 
 for you!" 
 
 "There you go," said Archie dryly, 
 "boasting about your own family again." 
 
 Molly laughed appreciatively. "Well, 
 make a skeleton of your own, then!" 
 
 "What would you suggest?" 
 
 "You might have tried drinking too 
 much," she said reproachfully, as she arose 
 to lead the ladies away to the living-room, 
 "but it s too late now." 
 
 "Too much!" jibed Archie with a glance 
 up and down the dry table, as he drew back 
 her chair. 
 
 Again she laughed intimately. "I for 
 got," she whispered with a shrug. "Aunt 
 Bella, you know!" 
 
 He knew, and he blessed her inwardly 
 for sparing his aunt s feelings. "It s your 
 party," he whispered in her ear as he took a 
 step toward the door with her, "your house, 
 your closets you are the one to supply the 
 skeleton." 
 
 35 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 Then they laughed gayly and separated, 
 not dreaming that they had already begun 
 a charming little skeleton together only a 
 counterfeit one, to be sure, but if properly 
 manipulated it might answer the worthy 
 purpose almost as well. 
 
 IV 
 
 While the men were still smoking and 
 laughing as much as possible at one an 
 other s stories, Archie arose and left the 
 room in his abrupt manner. He didn t feel 
 like attempting the illusion just now. The 
 muscles of his cheeks were already some 
 what fatigued from having performed his 
 full share of forced smiles during the day. 
 Besides, he wanted to talk to Molly. As 
 is usually the case, after a discussion he 
 thought of several good points with which 
 to floor her. 
 
 As Archie did not smoke, his exit caused 
 no remark among the men. But when he 
 joined the ladies, now pleasantly engaged in 
 discussing their children s ailments, he made 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 straight for Molly and drew a chair close to 
 hers. 
 
 A sudden silence greeted this astonishing 
 spectacle. Aunt Bella was the first to re 
 cover. "I think we shall have rain," she 
 said, averting her eyes. 
 
 "Yes, it feels like a storm." It was the 
 first time Sophia had ever agreed with Aunt 
 Bella. 
 
 Undoubtedly Molly had looked up with 
 welcoming interest when Archie approached. 
 The ladies had seen her eyes brighten. One 
 of them being in the shadow, could not re 
 sist the shameful temptation to glance at 
 Archie s wife. But Julia looked indifferent. 
 (She, poor girl, would have to keep on dis 
 cussing adenoids and modified milk for a 
 while longer.) 
 
 Now, it was quite impossible to talk the 
 family over with the family so near by and 
 apparently so willing to listen to what one 
 had to say so Archie twiddled his thumbs 
 nervously. This, too, was noticed and con 
 sidered. Presently Molly arose to poke the 
 fire. Then, as if by preconcerted design, 
 35 2 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 she and Archie retreated to a distant window 
 seat and began talking in low tones, Archie 
 smiling eagerly and bending forward to look 
 into her eyes. Aunt Bella s virgin bosom 
 rose and then fell quakingly. She had 
 feared as much! 
 
 Archie s suspiciously gallant attitude and 
 suspiciously whispered tones were for the 
 purpose of making the following flirtatious 
 declaration: "The trouble with you, Molly, 
 is that you look upon the family gathering as 
 a social function. It s a religious ceremony. 
 It isn t meant to be enjoyed." 
 
 "And the trouble with you, Archie, is 
 that even you, in this generation, can t help 
 regarding everything enjoyable as per se 
 bad. Therefore, to be good, a thing must be 
 disagreeable. For my part I don t believe 
 in keeping up even religious ceremonies un 
 less they are more than ceremonies. I want 
 to enjoy them. There has got to be real 
 feeling in my worship or else it s not wor 
 ship at all, but sacrilege. That s why I 
 don t go to church." 
 
 353 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 They fought it out on this line for several 
 congenial minutes. 
 
 "Molly, when did Fred do that charm 
 ing Sicilian boy?" This from Aunt Bella, 
 much interested, apparently, in a sketch she 
 had never noticed before upon the book 
 shelves. 
 
 Molly replied absently: "The last time 
 we were in Sicily, Aunt Bella," and went on 
 talking to Archie. 
 
 It seemed odd that she did not even try 
 to disguise her interest in her husband s 
 brother. "It is a beautiful head," re 
 marked Aunt Bella, and the other ladies 
 affably agreed with her. Molly apparently 
 was too much absorbed to hear. 
 
 Presently she excused herself to go up 
 stairs for a look into the nursery. 
 
 Aunt Bella breathed a sigh of relief. 
 
 "She is such a devoted mother," said 
 Sophia with unwonted enthusiasm. Sophia 
 was a devoted mother herself, so she ought 
 to know. 
 
 "And wife," put in Aunt Bella, with a 
 354 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 glance at Archie. It was almost a vulgar 
 exposure of enthusiasm, but the situation 
 demanded it. 
 
 This did not interest Archie, so he scowled 
 and said nothing. They saw the scowl. 
 They remembered it later. At the moment 
 they were all watching his face in suppressed 
 excitement. For he now heard Molly s re 
 turning footsteps on the stairs. His eyes 
 brightened. He was sauntering out into 
 the hall! He was meeting her! Together 
 they were stepping into the secluded studio! 
 (So they would not be interrupted again.) 
 
 Several of the ladies now began to talk at 
 once to show they had not noticed anything. 
 One of them remarked upon the charm of 
 the open fire, another upon the excellence 
 of Fred s work, and a third upon the fact 
 that the men were smoking an unusually 
 long time this evening. Perhaps they were 
 anxious for the approach of calm, masculine 
 judgment. Perhaps they were dreading 
 Fred s arrival. 
 
 The only ones in the room who did not go 
 through these motions and emotions were 
 355 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 Archie s wife, the worldly Julia, who was 
 biting her lips to keep from smiling, and Aunt 
 Bella s unworthy namesake, who wanted to 
 be worldly but didn t quite know how. She 
 was keenly interested and welcomed with 
 relish the supposed flirtation. It gave her 
 new hopes for her hopelessly prim and pro 
 vincial family. She was the one who, a few 
 minutes before, had been so inconsiderate as 
 to steal a glance at Archie s wife. And now, 
 with the heartlessness of the worldly minded, 
 she did so again. Their amused glances 
 met, fled, returned and rested upon one an 
 other for a moment. . . . And in that mo 
 ment these two became understanding 
 friends instead of misunderstanding sisters- 
 in-law. 
 
 At this point the men came in, with quite 
 the air of having had a jovial half-hour over 
 the cigars and coffee their approach being 
 heralded by one of Aunt Bella s orthodox 
 exhibitions of forced-draught animation. 
 Quite unnecessary, because the men ob 
 served nothing amiss. Men are notoriously 
 obtuse in such matters. The old gentleman 
 
 as* 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 made for Fred s deep leather chair and 
 straightway went to sleep. Fred made for 
 Julia s corner and went on from where he 
 had left off with her at dinner. The others 
 sank down into the places fate provided for 
 them and wondered how soon they could 
 decently go to bed. 
 
 Presently, in a natural pause, Fred asked 
 Julia where, by the way, were Archie and 
 Molly. 
 
 "Ask Aunt Bella/ suggested Julia mis 
 chievously. 
 
 Fred did so. 
 
 The answer came unhesitatingly. "Molly 
 is showing him the new portrait you have 
 made of her, I believe." For, of course, 
 Aunt Bella had prepared for this emer 
 gency. 
 
 When presently the suspected pair re 
 turned to the fold, the inevitable and obvious 
 happened. Fred, forgetting to conceal his 
 artist s eagerness, said, "Well, what do you 
 think of it, Archie ? " 
 
 "Think of what?" 
 
 "The head." 
 
 357 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 "What head?" 
 
 "The head of Molly." 
 
 Archie, somewhat puzzled, turned and 
 looked at Molly s hair. "I think it s beau 
 tiful," he said boldly. 
 
 "Fred s portrait of Molly, Archie," put 
 in Aunt Bella hurriedly. 
 
 "Oh, I forgot to show him that," said 
 unegotistical Molly. 
 
 This statement was followed by a pause 
 and a vague feeling of unrest. 
 
 "Well, what were you doing in the studio, 
 then," asked Fred a little piqued. It was 
 the artist in him and not the husband that 
 spoke. The family noticed the tone, mis 
 understood the source. 
 
 "Oh, we were just talking." 
 
 "What in the world were you talking 
 about all this time ? " put in Julia brazenly. 
 Such an unreserved betrayal of wifely sus 
 picion was rather jarring to those members 
 of the family who were really suspicious 
 but when a woman is jealous she forgets all 
 else, poor thing. The family considerately 
 avoided looking at poor Julia. They were 
 358 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 gazing at Archie, waiting for his incrimi 
 nating reply. But he made no reply at all, 
 and that was incriminating enough. But in 
 addition he shot a glance at Molly, knowing 
 how she would appreciate the humor of 
 being questioned about the subject of their 
 studio conversation by the family itself. 
 This look was still more incriminating. 
 The affair was becoming serious. 
 
 The apparently casual gaze of the family 
 now shifted searchingly to Molly. 
 
 "We were talking about all sorts of 
 things," she said with an almost invisible 
 smile at Archie. 
 
 Almost invisible, but every woman in the 
 room saw it. Every one of them misinter 
 preted it, except Julia, who knew her hus 
 band too well to dream of his flirting with 
 anybody. She wished he would do so. It 
 would improve him. 
 
 "Poor Fred!" thought Aunt Bella, scan 
 dalized. 
 
 "Poor Julia!" thought Sophia, horrified. 
 
 "Clever Molly!" thought young Bella, 
 admiringly. 
 
 359 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 "Dear Herbert!" thought the young 
 fiancee, sentimentally. 
 
 None of the men saw or thought any 
 thing. They did not dream that there was 
 a skeleton in the family closet. But the 
 door was now ajar. 
 
 There seemed to be a unanimous desire 
 among the feminine guests to go to bed 
 early this evening or rather to retire, for 
 even in the twentieth century the Carrolls 
 still retired when Aunt Bella was around, 
 though they had learned to say leg in her 
 presence without being made to feel that 
 they ought to blush. 
 
 "A railroad journey and a change of air 
 they always make one sleepy/ remarked 
 Sophia, who seemed to be coming to the 
 fore midst the storm and stress of these stir 
 ring events. 
 
 There was undoubtedly a decided change 
 of air, but the reason the wives wanted to 
 retire was to get their husbands off alone and 
 tell them all about it. For that was the way 
 gossip percolated in the refined Carroll fam 
 ily. None of them went to sleep for hours u 
 360 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 The astonishing news was reported and 
 received in various manners. The archi 
 tect roared with laughter, sceptical but in 
 terestedas his wife knew he would be. He 
 was a noisy fellow when removed from 
 the family atmosphere. "What! Archie? 
 Well, well! I didn t think it of him. The 
 old sport!" He had always considered 
 Archie a prig, and had frequently felt a secret 
 desire to take Archie out alone some even 
 ing and get him very tight. So many strange, 
 unutterable thoughts occur to brethern 
 dwelling together in unity. 
 
 "It s all Molly s doing," said the younger 
 Bella. "She s leading him on without his 
 knowing it. She s a clever little thing. 
 You ve observed that she has a twin 
 kle?" 
 
 He had not but he secretly resolved to 
 look for it on the morrow. 
 
 Sophia s report to Roger, the professor, 
 was given with less amusement, yet with 
 considerable relish in her tones of regret. 
 In their little academic world they were not 
 given to flirtations, even such innocent ones 
 361 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 as she firmly hoped this to be. Her ideal 
 was sweet, womanly absorption in her hus 
 band and "the department/ But Roger 
 counselled Sophia that Archie and Molly 
 were merely silly, not horrid, as Sophia was 
 inclined to believe. She always thought as 
 he did on every subject, so hereafter she 
 would think it merely silly. 
 
 However, they all had something to look 
 forward to with interest on the morrow, 
 and when at last they went to sleep it was 
 with the pleasurable anticipation that even if 
 Sunday did prove to be a rainy day, as Aunt 
 Bella predicted, the family party would not 
 be the usual bore. 
 
 The only ones not too excited to fall 
 asleep early were those who caused the 
 excitement. But even they, as had been 
 noted, had found new interest in the family 
 party, and they, too, indulged in the luxury 
 of conjugal confidences. 
 
 "Well!" said the host to the hostess, 
 "it seems to be going all right after all! 
 What got into them this evening?" 
 
 "I ll take back all I ever said about 
 362 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 Archie/ declared Molly impulsively. "I 
 love him." 
 
 "I always said you would," Fred replied 
 with a younger brother s pride. "He s not 
 a bad sort when once you know him, even 
 though he does use big words. You see," 
 he added in extenuation, "lawyers have to 
 throw a bluff. It s part of the game." 
 
 She told him what she and Archie had 
 used big words about. 
 
 "But that isn t the strangest thing," she 
 went on, "he likes me!" 
 
 Fred saw nothing strange in that. He 
 merely thought better of Archie for it. 
 "Every one likes you," he said, "when you 
 give em a chance. Why, they couldn t 
 keep their eyes off you this evening, and 
 Aunt Bella fairly hugged you when she said 
 good-night." 
 
 "Oh, that s only because she s so fond 
 of you, Fred," Molly returned. "When I 
 took her to her room she said the most de 
 lightful things about you. It sounded al 
 most like an obituary. I m beginning to 
 believe they appreciate you after all. By 
 363 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 ihe way/ she added just before going to 
 sleep, "you and Julia seemed to be hitting 
 it off better than usual/ 
 
 Yes, I began by handing her a few bou 
 quets big broad ones. But she s not such 
 a fool as I thought. She s a nice, sensible 
 girl underneath, and lots of fun. By the 
 way, she seems to admire you a good deal." 
 For, it is a pleasure to observe, everybody 
 seemed to be liking everybody else more 
 than usual. 
 
 And so with the soothing sense of success, 
 the host and hostess took their well-earned 
 rest. 
 
 Archie and his wife, who were quartered 
 at the country club owing to the limited 
 capacity of Fred s house, pretended to tease 
 and to be teased on the way back in the 
 automobile, a harmless diversion often en 
 joyed by married pairs. "But seriously, 
 that girl can talk," said Archie. 
 
 "That means, she listened to you talk, I 
 suppose," laughed Julia. "I noticed that 
 you were working your impressive manner 
 pretty hard." 
 
 3 6 4 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 "She has ideas," maintained Archie. 
 "She has eyes, at any rate," smiled Julia 
 "What were you trying to do with Fred/ 
 
 rejoined her husband "your usual game ? 5 
 "Don t worry. Your little brother can 
 
 take care of himself. He s by far the best 
 
 of the Carrolls." 
 
 "No," said Archie, "his wife is." 
 All of which was helping the cause. 
 
 Now dawned a memorable day in the 
 annals of the illustrious Carroll family. To 
 Molly s surprise the entire household was 
 down promptly for breakfast. They were 
 all afraid they might miss something. 
 Archie and his wife, to be sure, remained at 
 the club, but it is a significant tribute to 
 the skeleton that, despite the absence of 
 two of the leading parts in the veiled 
 comedy, even breakfast was interesting. 
 
 The architect was there to see the twin 
 kle. His wife was there to see whether 
 Molly knew she was suspected of using it, 
 365 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 Sophia was there to be shocked and thank 
 ful that she was devoid of such evils. Roger 
 was there to watch poor Fred. Aunt Bella 
 was there to watch everything. 
 
 Such were their intentions but these 
 were their results: 
 
 The architect could not, as it happened, 
 locate the twinkle; Molly s eyes were pretty 
 well occupied with coffee cups. But he 
 amused himself by looking around at the 
 rest and wondering what Aunt Bella thought 
 about it. His wife, in turn, could not tell 
 whether Molly knew she was suspected; 
 therefore she admired the highly finished 
 art, the woman-of-the-world ease of this 
 hitherto unappreciated sister-in-law. Roger 
 could not tell from Fred s demeanor whether 
 he wanted brotherly sympathy or not, there 
 fore he decided to cultivate Fred and find 
 out, for the family was "the unit of the 
 state." Sophia gazing with guileless horror 
 at Molly s calm assumption of innocence, 
 could not understand such hypocrisy in a 
 wife and mother. Therefore Aunt Bella, 
 watching everything, saw Sophia s face and 
 366 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 forgave her, at last, for marrying Roger. 
 Molly, finally filling her own cup, looked up 
 and caught the young Bella s admiring 
 glance. Therefore she forgave her for being 
 so strenuous in her pose. The architect 
 noting Fred s wholesome appetite, decided 
 that he was a good sport and almost forgave 
 his bad taste in the choice of architects. 
 
 Even for a full-grown, able-bodied family 
 skeleton this would seem to be a pretty 
 good Sabbath day s journey, though break 
 fast was not yet finished, and this was only 
 a small, make-believe skeleton. 
 
 A note arrived at the breakfast table for 
 Molly. She, being busy with the second 
 cups and important questions as to lumps 
 and cream, allowed it to remain a moment 
 unopened by her plate. Now, it is easy to 
 believe that no one intended to look and 
 recognize the bold handwriting on the en 
 velope, but it cannot be denied that every 
 one near enough did so, as all the rest knew 
 by the quick way they averted their eyes 
 again. Moreover, from the grave, expres 
 sionless look of those eyes the whole family 
 367 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 were apprised of the fact that Molly had a 
 note from Archie, as clearly as if she had 
 mounted her chair and proclaimed it. 
 
 It was furthermore obvious that Archie 
 had made an appointment with her, be 
 cause she declined to accompany the others 
 to church. For in the Carroll family they 
 never asked, "Are you going to church?" 
 but merely, "How much time should we 
 allow to get there ? " 
 
 There was nothing to do about it. To 
 speak of the matter would only proclaim 
 themselves suspicious, and each would 
 rather die than do that. But all, now 
 watching everything with breathless inter 
 est, perceived that at last even unsuspect 
 ing Fred was becoming aroused. They 
 could tell that from the look he gave her 
 when she made the announcement. As 
 a matter of fact, Fred was disappointed in 
 her. He had carefully looked up the local 
 Unitarian church, rented a pew in it for 
 the occasion in order to spare his agea 
 father s feelings and he had counted upon 
 Molly s being there to watch him lead the 
 368 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 family up the aisle with the air of doing it 
 all his life. But when she showed him the 
 note, later, he agreed with Archie that a 
 spin in the latter s car would be a beneficial 
 diversion from the nervous strain of enter 
 taining the whole family and that by no 
 means should she tell the family that she 
 was going motoring on Sunday. 
 
 "He is behaving very well about it," 
 thought the ladies, observing poor, dear 
 Fred s face as he started off to church with 
 them without his wife. 
 
 Julia also behaved very well about it. 
 Archie, the wretch, sent her to represent 
 his branch of the family at church, and 
 she seemed to be sweetly, silently suffering, 
 quite like a real Carroll, though she was only 
 an " in-law." Incidentally, she was very 
 smartly dressed, and the family felt no less 
 proud of the heavenly forbearance by rea 
 son of the worldly sensation she created as 
 she came down the aisle. 
 
 But when the family sedately returning 
 from church and discussing the sermon on 
 the way, as was the custom, were almost 
 369 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 run down by Archie in his Fiat with Molly 
 at his side, the situation became acute. 
 Guilt was written large upon their shamed 
 countenances. And no wonder, for it was 
 impossible to turn around in time, and 
 though they broke the speed limit in order 
 to dodge down the nearest side street, the 
 family caught them breaking the Sabbath 
 just as they turned the corner. 
 
 This episode put a new complexion on 
 the matter. The family skeleton was 
 threatening to stick his head out of the 
 home. This would never do. Even the 
 younger Bella looked grave as she walked 
 home in silence. If it were a flirtation at 
 any other house-party she might have kept 
 up her worldly pose of detached amusement. 
 But with the best of intentions one cannot 
 shake off one s innate feelings. The sight 
 of her own brother dashing madly through 
 a quiet village street with another man s 
 wife, and that man also a brother, opened 
 up to her vistas of possibilities which no 
 longer seemed merely amusing. It is diffi 
 cult to regard one s family in the comic 
 370 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 spirit when a tragedy is impending no mat 
 ter how provincial the family may be. After 
 all, one s own family is the nicest in the 
 world. She became a Carroll once more 
 so unsteady her pose! 
 
 She spoke to her husband about it when 
 they reached their room. He did not laugh 
 at her. " They ll get themselves talked 
 about!" he said, and he went down-stairs 
 and gave Harry, his youngest brother-in- 
 law, a cigarette from a feeling of family 
 unity. Heretofore he had always snubbed 
 the youngster. 
 
 Harry, too, was feeling that something 
 was wrong. To be sure, he "had lived," 
 and considered himself a devil with the 
 women, but he had a high ideal of con 
 ventional good form even where the family 
 name was not concerned. Archie was go 
 ing too far, and Archie was old enough to 
 know better. A similar feeling of appre 
 hension ran through the rest of the family. 
 The sense of common peril had awakened 
 the clan spirit at last. 
 
 So, after luncheon, where Archie and 
 371 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 Molly were convincingly silent (being 
 drowsy after their spin in the frosty air), the 
 family, as if by tacit consent, combined as a 
 unit to keep the guilty pair apart. 
 
 This was quite unnecessary, because, 
 though the two had become friends for life, 
 they were pretty well talked out and a bit 
 tired of each other for the time being. So 
 they were rather relieved to find fresh 
 partners for the walk proposed and ar 
 ranged by Aunt Bella, it being as right to 
 walk as it was wrong to motor on the Sab 
 bath day, though walking would seem to 
 be more in the nature of work, forbidden 
 by the fourth commandment, than was 
 motoring which, however, was more en 
 joyable and therefore perhaps more heinous. 
 
 Though the family efforts were unneces 
 sary they were nevertheless good for the 
 cause. The various individuals were work 
 ing together to their mutual satisfaction for 
 a common family purpose, and showing one 
 another unsuspected depths of family feel 
 ing and not a little tact and finesse. Not 
 once was the object of their zealous efforts 
 372 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 named aloud, but whatever happened now 
 they could never again be as thorougly un- 
 appreciative of one another as in the old 
 dreary days of their unacquaintance. 
 
 VI 
 
 The denouement arrived with dinner. 
 Molly, down-stairs before any of her guests 
 even those who had neither husbands nor 
 wives to discuss important matters with 
 while dressing met Archie and Julia ar 
 riving from the club. 
 
 "We came early," they explained, "in 
 order to send off that hat-trunk you lent 
 us for the children s Christmas presents." 
 They were leaving for town immediately 
 after dinner, and wished to be rid of their 
 impedimenta. Molly remarked that they 
 would find it, already packed, in the studio. 
 
 "Then," said Archie, "let s all three of 
 us run down to the station with it." The 
 car was still chugging outside. John is a 
 good chauffeur, but a stupid courier. Come, 
 we can get back in three minutes." 
 
 Molly agreed, and ran upstairs for her 
 373 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 wraps. But Julia, enjoying in her daily life 
 more of motoring and of Archie than did 
 Molly, preferred a magazine by the warm 
 library fireplace. "You can manage it all 
 without me/ said the lazy Julia. 
 
 By the time Molly returned with her 
 wraps, Aunt Bella, not being obliged to talk 
 while dressing, was leaving her room. 
 
 "Hurry, Archie," called Molly, hearing 
 the approaching footsteps. 
 
 But they were too late. As Archie 
 hastened out of the studio, carrying the 
 borrowed hat-trunk, Aunt Bella appeared 
 before them upon the landing of the stair. 
 She heard the automobile outside pant 
 ing impatiently. She saw Molly dressed in 
 a long fur coat and veil. She saw Archie 
 beside her at the door, his coat collar 
 turned up. In his hand was the hat-box 
 on it she saw Molly s initials gleaming in 
 the hall light. She "saw it all now." She 
 was just in time. Archie s other hand was 
 on the door-knob. 
 
 "Where are you going?" she asked 
 wonderfully achieving a light manner. 
 
 374 
 
The discovery of the skeleton in the Carrolls closet 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 They turned, not greatly surprised, and 
 looked up at their aunt. "To the station/ 
 answered Archie simply. 
 
 "To the station!" echoed Aunt Bella 
 aghast. "And you?" she asked Molly 
 with suppressed emotion. 
 
 "I m going with him." Surely even a 
 Carroll conception of Sabbath observance 
 would permit this. There may have been a 
 slight note of defiance in her tone as she 
 said "I m going with him." 
 
 "Why?" asked Aunt Bella. She de 
 scended the few remaining stairs. "Why ?" 
 
 " Because he asked me to." Molly looked 
 at Archie. They both felt an unaccountable 
 current in the atmosphere. 
 
 " I ll take you along, too, Aunt Bella," said 
 Archie lightly, "if you ll get your wraps." 
 
 "No," said Aunt Bella. They were not 
 to elude her so easily while upstairs get 
 ting her wraps! 
 
 " Then, come on, Molly. There s no 
 time to lose." 
 
 "No," repeated Aunt Bella. "Molly 
 will remain with me, I think." She now 
 375 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 stepped between them. "Here come the 
 others/ she whispered, glancing again at 
 Molly s baggage, hoping that Archie would 
 hide it. Her proud old Carroll bosom was 
 heaving. 
 
 "I still think we can make it," said 
 Archie, looking at his watch. He did not 
 hide the little trunk. 
 
 "No," said Aunt Bella, almost inaudi- 
 bly this time. "No, Archie," and looked 
 from one to the other. There was an awk 
 ward pause. They stood looking at one 
 another wondering. Some of the family 
 had come and more were arriving upon the 
 landing of the stairs an excellent point of 
 view for the tableau: Archie and Molly in 
 furs, looking guilty; Aunt Bella before them 
 with her back against the door looking de 
 termined; the automobile outside panting 
 eloquently. They also "saw it all now," 
 including the large initials. 
 
 "What did I tell you!" gasped Sophia in 
 her husband s ear. His arm went around her. 
 
 "Great Scott! Just in time!" whispered 
 the architect to the younger Bella. 
 37 6 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 "Where is Herbert?" gasped the fright 
 ened fiancee. 
 
 "Here comes your father," pleaded Aunt 
 Bella. 
 
 At this point Archie s wife, the lazy Julia, 
 strolled out from the library with a book in 
 her hand, saying in her indolent manner, 
 "Oh, Archie, dear, we forgot to put in this 
 cunning little fat Bible Aunt Bella gave 
 little Archie." She stopped abruptly, see 
 ing the silent assembled family before her. 
 "Why, what s the matter?" she asked 
 handing Archie the Bible. 
 
 "Nothing," said Archie in the true Car 
 roll manner, as opening Molly s hat-trunk 
 he disclosed to the family gaze their various 
 appropriate presents to his beloved children. 
 
 "Nothing," said Aunt Bella, sinking into 
 a chair and fanning rapidly. 
 
 "Nothing," said Molly, becoming a Car 
 roll at last, but hiding her face all the same 
 to hide her irresistible laughter. 
 
 "Nothing," "Nothing," "Nothing," ech 
 oed all the Carrolls and Carrolls-in-law. 
 
 " Dinner is served," said an entering maid. 
 377 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 "Aunt Bella," said Archie with an odd 
 look on his face as he offered her his arm, 
 "you were quite right, you see. There 
 would not have been time to run to the 
 station and back/ 
 
 "That s just what we wanted to tell you," 
 said the other Carrolls, and each nodded and 
 cast triumphant glances at all the rest ex 
 cept their spouses as if to say, "How dare 
 you suspect anything else!" Then, laugh 
 ing nervously, they all went out to dinner. 
 
 " But what was the joke ? what was the 
 joke?" quavered the old gentleman, who 
 had seen but little and heard less. "I ve 
 been watching you two with your heads to 
 gether. What was it?" 
 
 Archie and Molly smiled at each other 
 but it no longer made even Aunt Bella 
 quake. 
 
 " Oh, nothing," said Molly. "Archie and 
 I have concluded that this is a pretty-well- 
 united family after all." 
 
 "Humph," said the venerable head of the 
 house, with the racial wisdom shown only 
 by the very old or the very young, " I could 
 378 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 have told you that. But what was he pack 
 ing up in that box, eh ? " 
 
 "Oh, that," she whispered, "was the 
 family skeleton." 
 
 379 
 
THIRD PART 
 THEIR SHARE OF THE WORLD 
 
VIII 
 THEIR MILLIONAIRE TENANT 
 
 SCENES: The Carrolls celebrated country place and the 
 Parkers expensive boarding-house. 
 
 (THE ACQUISITIVE SENSE COLLIDES WITH THE /ESTHETIC 
 SENSE TO THE AMAZEMENT OF BOTH WORTHY CIVIL- 
 
 IZERS. N.B.: THE CARROLLS FORMERLY OWNED THEIR 
 HOME NOW WE SEE THE HOME BEGINNING TO OWN THE 
 CARROLLS.) 
 
 "Birr think of strangers living in our 
 house! Using our pretty things, sleeping in 
 our beds why, the very thought of it is 
 dreadful!" Mrs. Carroll shuddered and 
 looked fondly about the beloved studio and 
 out through the vista of soft-toned rooms, 
 as mellow and sweet as if the house had 
 found itself a hundred years ago. 
 
 " But, Molly, it s only for a week," urged 
 her husband, "and we want to get away 
 anyhow. I must go and paint those sand- 
 dunes before the color changes. Besides, 
 we always hate this place when the horse 
 383 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 show is on at the country club. It s such a 
 bore none of the fun and all of the bother 
 and expense of a houseful of guests." 
 " But we needn t have guests/ 5 
 "Oh, we always say we won t have any 
 people this time, but we always do. They 
 like it and we like it, but it always knocks out 
 my work. Busy men from town love to 
 loll on the terrace and look at the view and 
 tell me I don t know what hard work means, 
 because I m fetching em drinks at eleven 
 
 A. M." 
 
 "Couldn t we close the house up, Fred, 
 without renting it?" she asked. To her 
 the home was a very personal matter be 
 cause she was a woman. To the man, it 
 was chiefly a beautiful thing he had created 
 because he was an artist. Now he was 
 interested in creating other beautiful things. 
 
 "Then where are we going to find the 
 money for going away ?" he asked. "You 
 know how hard up we are. The house 
 has put us in this hole; the house has got 
 to pull us out." The man has, it seems, to 
 earn money for his beautiful creations; the 
 384 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 woman has to take care of them. The man 
 won out in this case. For men are the natu 
 ral leaders, as has been stated with the cor 
 roborative authority of many of them. 
 
 Now, if they had only referred the matter 
 to an agent they would have saved them 
 selves a lot of annoyance and have secured a 
 great deal better rental. But the Carrolls 
 were new at the business of letting houses 
 and, moreover, they did not like the idea of 
 putting their house in the market publicly. 
 It seemed rather vulgar; Mrs. Carroll felt 
 as if they were disgraced enough as it was. 
 "Nonsense," said Fred, "I don t mind 
 people s knowing that we re hard up. It 
 isn t as if we were in business; there the 
 measure of success is the amount of money 
 you make; in my trade some of the best 
 are the least well off." Fred always re 
 minded himself of this when hard up. It 
 seemed to help in every way, except in pay 
 ing bills. 
 
 All the same, Carroll took pains to men 
 tion at the club, "We are going away, any 
 how my wife hates the turmoil and fatigue 
 385 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 of horse-show week so if you hear of any 
 nice people tell them that you know of a 
 nice house with sixteen rooms and plenty of 
 baths." 
 
 And Mrs. Carroll took pains to tell callers 
 over her pretty tea-table, "We are going 
 away, anyhow Fred hates the turmoil and 
 fatigue of horse-show week so if you hear 
 of any nice people tell them that you know of 
 a nice house with sixteen rooms and plenty 
 of baths." 
 
 Both of these "well-bred" young hu 
 mans, though of somewhat different stock, 
 had been admirably educated to despise the 
 ladder by which their more or less distin 
 guished families had climbed to the rarified 
 air of refinement vulgar money-getting. 
 Money-having is all right. But that is dif 
 ferent. It gives you the power to make 
 others labor for you, the position to look 
 down, more or less sympathetically, upon 
 those who do it. This ennobles you pro 
 vided you do not horde your money, but 
 spend it beautifully and give back some of 
 386 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 it generously to the poor, thus " keeping 
 money in circulation" and offering an ex 
 ample of noblesse oblige. . . > Indeed, it 
 is to be feared that even this well-mated 
 pair, though they could not see it now, 
 would eventually find themselves handi 
 capped by a more important alliance than 
 their own; namely, the amazing marriage 
 of Christian and Privilege Ideals. Not a 
 "soul-mating," alas! nor blessed, success 
 fully, by any church worthy of the name of 
 spiritual religion, since Christ drove the 
 money-changers out of the temple; merely 
 a common-law marriage, though the church 
 has done its best to prevent the inevitable 
 scandal, for the sake of the offspring of 
 these outwardly smiling but inwardly hos 
 tile parents. We call the child Culture and 
 have reared it respectably, despite its origin. 
 He (or is it a she ?) does interesting parlor 
 tricks, gives us diverting recitations while 
 Authority stands by to prompt him. When 
 the governesses are out, however, his comic 
 capers are more amusing, for he is an en 
 gaging little fellow, even though he is a 
 387 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 bastard in the unpleasant eyes of Truth. 
 Let us hope that the story of his illegitimate 
 parentage can be kept from him, now that 
 he has reached the awkward age and per 
 sists in asking embarrassing questions. He 
 ought to be spanked and sent back to the 
 nursery. 
 
 They thought it would be a woman, but 
 it proved to be a man, a brisk young man 
 with eye-glasses and an incisive manner. 
 He introduced himself as secretary to Mr. 
 Sterling, and he said he should like to see 
 the house. 
 
 They had understood vaguely that pro 
 spective tenants liked to look at houses be 
 fore agreeing to take them even when they 
 were unusually charming houses with six 
 teen rooms and plenty of baths. They 
 themselves had always looked at houses be 
 fore taking them in the old dreary days of 
 renting; but they never before appreciated 
 how it felt to have a business-like eye fasten 
 upon their intimate possessions and ap- 
 388 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 praise their worth. They felt that the 
 young man was inwardly scowling at every 
 thing in sight and they felt almost in 
 dignant the more so because he seemed 
 to be urbanely endeavoring to conceal his 
 contempt under an indulgent appreciation. 
 As if such as he could appreciate their 
 things ! 
 
 "The ceilings are rather low, are they 
 not?" asked the brisk young man with a 
 gracious smile. 
 
 "Yes, very low," answered Carroll, also 
 smiling as he recalled the fight with the 
 architect to secure those low ceilings, 
 "should you like to look at the bedrooms ?" 
 The ceilings were still lower upstairs. 
 ("Don t you go up," he whispered apart to 
 his wife, "it s bad enough for me to have to 
 do this.") 
 
 But though Mrs. Carroll s pretty cheeks 
 were flushed and she felt inclined to order 
 the intruder out of the house, she was afraid 
 that Fred might forget to show off the linen 
 closet, her particular pride, so she tagged 
 along behind, walking on tiptoe. 
 389 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 Carroll, feeling like a guide at the Louvre, 
 was saying, "This is the day-nursery." 
 
 "I see/ said the young man. 
 
 "This is the night-nursery," said Carroll. 
 
 "I see," said the young man. 
 
 "And here is the linen closet," put in 
 Mrs. Carroll. 
 
 "Ah, a fine, large one," said the young 
 man. Even though he was a bachelor he 
 ought to have been interested in such things 
 as nurseries and linen closets, but to tell the 
 truth he too was embarrassed. This was 
 an unaccustomed job for Mr. Sterling s sec 
 retary though, to be sure, in that confi 
 dential capacity he had been known (by 
 himself and his employer) to put through 
 certain stranger jobs than this! 
 
 Well, he went through all the other rooms, 
 but instead of admiring her dainty curtains, 
 Mrs. Carroll felt sure that he was making 
 mental notes of the place where the children 
 had set the rug on fire and of the evident 
 fact that her dressing-table was, after all, 
 pretty small. 
 
 The ordeal was soon over and the young 
 39 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 man was down-stairs again with his hat in 
 his hand ready to go. 
 
 "And what did you say the rent was ?" 
 he was asking. At this point Mrs. Carroll 
 fled abruptly. 
 
 Her husband cleared his throat and said, 
 "Oh, I don t know two hundred dollars 
 ought to be enough, I suppose," feeling sure 
 that the business-like young man would 
 think it too much. For it was more than 
 enough to pay for the sketching trip. 
 
 As a matter of fact, other houses which 
 hadn t sixteen rooms and plenty of baths 
 were renting for considerably higher prices. 
 Carroll had failed to find this out, but the 
 young man had not. 
 
 "Ah, I see," he said. "Well, I ll tele 
 graph you Mr. Sterling s decision in the 
 morning." 
 
 "By the way," said Carroll, "may I ask 
 what Mr. Sterling it is?" 
 
 "Charles F. Sterling," said the other, and 
 paused to watch the effect. 
 
 But there was no effect; because Mr. 
 Charles F. Sterling, though a very great 
 39 1 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 millionaire, was a very recent one so re 
 cent that he had not yet begun gathering 
 pictures. 
 
 "Ah indeed!" said the master of the 
 house, feeling sympathetically that some 
 thing, of the sort was expected. 
 
 II 
 
 The Carrolls had reached that stage of 
 their married career when wedding gifts 
 have become old and sparse. Accordingly 
 they overdrew their account at the bank and 
 invested some of the prospective two hun 
 dred dollars in a new set of china the blue 
 onion pattern, cheap but a favorite of theirs. 
 "We need a new set anyway," said Carroll. 
 "The maids and the children between them 
 have nearly cleaned us out." 
 
 "And now they can t complain that they 
 haven t enough dishes," said Mrs. Carroll 
 with housewifely pride. "And we ll turn the 
 key on the dining-room china closet so they 
 can t get at great-grandmother Carter s 
 Spode." 
 
 392 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 "Why not hide them in the attic?" sug 
 gested Fred. 
 
 "Because then they couldn t see them!" 
 said Molly, the shameless snob. 
 
 They were rather short also on dining- 
 room chairs, since the children had taken to 
 making automobiles out of them. 
 
 "This is a good excuse to get those in 
 the window of the little shop in Fourth 
 Avenue/ urged Fred boldly. 
 
 " Do you think we can spare the money ? " 
 asked his frugal wife but her eyes bright 
 ened. 
 
 "Our trip to the shore can t possibly cost 
 two hundred dollars," returned the natural 
 leader. 
 
 They got the chairs, and while making 
 the purchase they happened to fall in love 
 with a pair of the most charmingly tarnished 
 candlesticks, a remarkable green which 
 would tone in beautifully with the living 
 room. To be sure, they already had dozens 
 of candlesticks but none like these. They 
 felt that they really needed them, especially 
 as the antique dealer said that another cus 
 393 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 tomer was coming back for them next 
 Wednesday. 
 
 "Now, unpractical people/ Fred told 
 his wife as they marched off with the can 
 dlesticks under Fred s arms, "would have 
 been lured into buying that piece of jade, 
 but 7 wasn t!" 
 
 Molly felt so pleased with his self-restraint 
 that at the next old friend s shop they passed 
 she purchased a dozen heavy Colonial cut- 
 glass goblets. "The Sterlings will need 
 more goblets than we have anyway," she 
 said apologetically. 
 
 "Of course they will," echoed Fred de 
 fiantly. "We mustn t be skimpy. We know 
 ourselves what it is to have a skimpy land 
 lord." 
 
 As the momentous day approached there 
 was a busy time in the Carroll house. 
 Molly cut her engagement to pour tea at 
 the club house and Fred had to stop work, 
 for even the studio, the one untidy spot in 
 the otherwise immaculate house, was being 
 scrubbed and waxed and polished until it 
 shone. Molly s regular staff was augmented 
 
 394 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 by two extra cleaning-women two hun 
 dred dollars would be more than ample to 
 pay for this and certain electric-light fixt 
 ures were repaired which had been allowed 
 to remain out of order for months; perhaps 
 in order to keep down the consumption of 
 electricity. 
 
 "This is a great thing for the Carroll fam 
 ily/ said Fred; "we not only get a profitable 
 sketching trip out of the Sterlings but they 
 are putting our house in such good shape for 
 us. Nice Sterlings; pretty plutocrats/ 
 
 "I am going to have everything ready 
 well in advance," said Molly, surveying her 
 work with considerable satisfaction, "and 
 then disappear before they arrive. I am 
 reconciled to their coming, because it means 
 so much for you, dear if I only don t have 
 to see them. I hate them." 
 
 "And yet we really oughtn t to hate 
 them," mused Fred, who was quite broad- 
 minded; "they re giving us a chance to go 
 and paint sand-dunes." 
 
 "But they are going to use our things!" 
 Molly reminded him. 
 395 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 "We invited them to do so," returned 
 Fred judicially; so they aren t altogether 
 to blame." 
 
 "I hate them all the same," said Molly 
 obstinately. 
 
 "Molly," whispered Fred, "I do, too!" 
 And for this unchristian sentiment Molly 
 threw her arms around his neck and kissed 
 him. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Now, it so happened that the feminine 
 members of the Sterling family, their days 
 not being occupied in Wall Street, took it 
 into their heads that it would be a good 
 idea to run out in the car in the morning 
 instead of waiting for the afternoon train, 
 which would bring the old man and the 
 other heavy luggage. They could lunch at 
 the club and spend the afternoon on the 
 links. 
 
 Mrs. Carroll, with an apron on and quite 
 
 unconscious of the approach of the enemy, 
 
 was caressingly dusting certain precious 
 
 possessions never entrusted to the unap- 
 
 396 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 preciative touch of the servants. There 
 was, for instance, a mediaeval salt-holder 
 of marble, which they had brought back 
 from Italy, an odd thing with interesting 
 relief work worn almost smooth by count 
 less generations of handling. They kept 
 it on a table in the living-room, as a com 
 bination paper-weight and ash-holder, be 
 cause the vague carving was very beautiful 
 and shadowy with the reading-lamp shining 
 down upon it. There was also a bit of 
 Venetian mosaic work which, after holding 
 together for centuries in Italy, was rinding 
 an American Boynton furnace too much 
 for it. These and other sacred idols she 
 was handling with the deftness and devo 
 tion displayed in bathing her babies. She 
 was singing the same cooing song she sung 
 to them. 
 
 Hearing an automobile snorting up the 
 drive, she ran, still in her apron, to the door, 
 expecting to see her brother, who often 
 came out to play tennis, and lunched with 
 them when he did so. Her smile of 
 sisterly welcome changed to a look of con- 
 
 397 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 sternation when she beheld three strange 
 women in the tonneau of a new and shining 
 car. 
 
 "Will you ask Mrs. Carroll if it would be 
 convenient to let Mrs. Sterling leave some 
 hand-baggage here until this afternoon?" 
 asked the eldest of the three ladies. The 
 ladies also looked new and shining. 
 
 "They think that I am a maid/ said Mrs. 
 Carroll to herself with an inward smile. 
 "Mrs. Carroll is not at home," she said, 
 feeling herself blush; "but you may, of 
 course, leave your things." 
 
 They began handing them to her. This 
 made her blush still more but she took them, 
 smiling, but furious. 
 
 "Mamma," said one of the girls, "if 
 they ve gone already, let s get out and see 
 what the house is like." 
 
 Mrs. Carroll put down the bags. "I 
 believe Mrs. Carroll was not expecting you 
 quite so early," she said, "the house is 
 hardly ready." 
 
 "Oh, that doesn t matter," said Mrs. 
 Sterling graciously, "we ll understand," and 
 393 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 by this time they were descending, the man 
 in front with the chauffeur, who afterward 
 proved to be their steward, having jumped 
 out to help them. 
 
 " Isn t it a cunning little house!" said one 
 of the daughters, a great strapping girl, as 
 she brushed past the small owner of the 
 little house, who didn t find it little to take 
 care of. (Sixteen rooms and plenty of 
 baths.) 
 
 "Just like some of those lodges we saw 
 in England," replied the other, not quite so 
 strapping, girl. "See, they have vines 
 and lattice windows and everything. Oh, 
 there s a sun-dial, too. I want to look at 
 the sun-dial." So she, at least, ran out again. 
 
 The others, however, had gone in and 
 there was nothing for Molly to do but to 
 follow meekly behind. 
 
 "It s real cosey," said Mrs. Sterling, look 
 ing about with a kindly expression, while 
 Molly shuddered impotently. She particu 
 larly loathed the word "cosey" even with 
 out the "real," and even when not applied 
 to her home. 
 
 399 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 "Could we take a look upstairs ?" asked 
 the daughter. 
 
 "Mrs. Carroll would much prefer your 
 waiting until she is ready to receive you," 
 said Mrs. Carroll with that quiet dignity 
 which made the tradesmen quake. 
 
 But the Sterlings did not quake; they had 
 long since ceased to be afraid of servants, 
 even haughty ones. "Oh, we won t mind 
 its being tossed up," said Mrs. Sterling. 
 
 "But Mrs. Carroll will," said that lady 
 decisively. 
 
 Mrs. Sterling knew a language which ap 
 pealed to all servants, even the most su 
 perior. "Mrs. Carroll needn t know any 
 thing about it," she said, and, placing a coin 
 on the newel-post under Molly s pretty chin, 
 she marched serenely up the stairs, com 
 menting on the pictures on the way. 
 
 For a moment Molly was too much as 
 tonished to speak, then turning to the man 
 servant, who was carrying in the wraps, 
 "Remove that!" she commanded haugh 
 tily, pointing to the twenty-five cent piece 
 on the newel-post as if it were a spider. 
 400 
 
"Remove that," she commanded haughtily 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 "Sure!" said the man, and he removed 
 it effectively. The grave respect of man 
 ner which he had shown toward his mis 
 tress had disappeared now that she had 
 gone upstairs, and he ogled Molly with 
 smiling impudence. Her indignation gave 
 way to something like fright. She looked 
 out into the dining-room lined with pictures 
 of ancestors but they couldn t have helped 
 her even if they had been the originals in 
 stead of merely copies Fred had made of 
 family portraits. She glanced up the stairs 
 but she couldn t appeal to those people. 
 So in a panic she turned and bolted out of 
 her own house. 
 
 Half way down the drive siie met Fred re 
 turning from the village. He was whistling 
 carelessly. "I ve ordered three dozen coat- 
 hangers for the plutocracy," he began. 
 
 "They ve come!" she cried, wild-eyed and 
 panting. "They re in our house they re 
 upstairs!" You might have thought that 
 she referred to the Indians that had harassed 
 some of those oft-mentioned ancestors of 
 whom both Mr. and Mrs. Carroll were so 
 401 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 justly proud. For had not Molly s gentle- 
 born forebears killed off many of the heathen 
 savages whom Fred s stern Puritan pro 
 genitors had failed to convert ? Besides, 
 both sides of the house had played a dis 
 tinguished part in cheating and maltreating 
 the lingering remnant, in accordance with 
 the principles practised by Christian na 
 tions upon unchristian barbarians standing 
 (upon their own land) in the path of true 
 progress. Well, neither squad of worthy 
 ancestry was here to guard the house of 
 Carroll against this sudden raid of modern 
 barbarians. 
 
 "So they took you unawares, eh?" 
 laughed Fred. "Well, what of it?" Where 
 are you going ? " 
 
 "I m going away anywhere! I ll never 
 come back." 
 
 "If that s the case," said Fred, "I d take 
 off my apron and put on a hat, if I were 
 you." 
 
 "My hat s up there! They are there! 
 And there s a button off my coat, too. 
 They ll see it! They didn t give me time to 
 402 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 sew it on." And she told him the whole 
 story, but as Fred did not seem to take it 
 very tragically she also was able to laugh 
 by the time she had finished. 
 
 " We ll live it down in time/ he said. 
 "Suppose you give me that apron and I ll 
 sneak around and give it to Laura. I ll tell 
 her to get our things and bring them down 
 to the Parkers . We ll have to wait there 
 till train time." 
 
 The Parkers kept a very respectable and 
 rather expensive boarding-house across the 
 meadow from the Carrolls. "Luckily our 
 trunk has gone on ahead." The children, 
 it may be added, had been shipped with the 
 nurse to their grandmother s the day before. 
 
 A few minutes later Carroll joined his 
 wife on the Parker porch. She was gazing 
 nervously across the meadow at her beloved, 
 now desecrated home. "Never mind," said 
 Fred comfortingly; "think of the wonder 
 ful color on those dunes! Think of the fine 
 walks and drives we ll have in the after 
 noons!" 
 
 "Let s take the first train," said Molly. 
 403 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 "I want to get out of sight of the house at 
 once. It s awful!" 
 
 "So do I," said Fred; "but we haven t 
 got our money yet, and, you know, we ve 
 overdrawn our account at the bank!" 
 
 "Here comes Laura with our things," 
 announced Molly, jumping up as the fat 
 figure of the ancient negress waddled into 
 view. "Perhaps they ve sent the check by 
 Laura. We always paid our rent in ad 
 
 vance." 
 
 Laura had no check, but she had a mes 
 sage from the steward. He wanted to know 
 how the kitchen range worked. Laura, not 
 understanding that kind, said she would ask 
 her mistress to come and show him. The 
 Carrolls cook had been sent away imme 
 diately after breakfast for a week s vacation 
 (at full pay). 
 
 "Indeed, I ll do nothing of the sort!" de 
 clared Mrs. Carroll with a glance at her 
 husband. 
 
 "Let him know it s a French range," 
 said Carroll with a humorous twinkle, "the 
 kind all the best chefs use." 
 404 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 "And when their cook arrives/ put in 
 Mrs. Carroll, relenting, "if he doesn t un 
 derstand it, tell him where he can find our 
 cook." 
 
 "Who is Irish/ remarked Fred paren 
 thetically. 
 
 "By the way, Laura," asked Mrs. Car 
 roll, hesitatingly, "I hope do the ladies 
 seem to like the house?" 
 
 " Deed, m m, I ain t heard dem say, 
 but when dey looked in de studio dey begun 
 laughin fit to kill when dey looked at de 
 picture Mr. Fred made of Miss Molly." 
 
 "Laughed, did they?" snorted Fred, 
 sitting up; "what do they know about it!" 
 
 " Deed, I don t know, suh," said the 
 darky departing. "All I know is dat dey 
 kept on gigglin . Mamma s always mak- 
 in brakes/ said one of de young ladies to 
 de other. Den dey goes off in de automo 
 bile. I don t know what dey meant." 
 
 Molly did. She looked at her husband. 
 He broke out laughing; she blushed and bit 
 her lip. 
 
 In a little while Laura came back again. 
 405 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 She reported that the other servants had now 
 arrived, a second man and three maids, and 
 that the steward wanted to know if Mrs. 
 Carroll would kindly give him the key to 
 the dining-room china-closet, so that he 
 could get at the rest of the dishes. 
 
 " Didn t you show him the whole set of 
 new ones in addition to the old ones in the 
 butler s pantry?" asked Mrs. Carroll. 
 
 Laura said that she had done so, but they 
 were not good enough for the Sterlings. 
 The servants were to use the onion pattern. 
 
 Fred laughed again, indulgently. "That s 
 not a bad pattern, and that particular set 
 has a good blue I picked it out myself. 
 But good enough to the Sterlings means 
 only one thing expensive enough. The 
 poor, stupid slaves." 
 
 "We can t let them have the Spode!" 
 cried Molly, aghast, looking at her husband 
 for support. She was not interested at 
 present in the theory of "Conspicuous 
 Waste" or "Honorific Display." 
 
 "Laura," said Fred, "those dishes be 
 longed to a great-grandmother, and 
 406 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 "Yessuh, I told him so, suh; but he says 
 he don t mind dere being ole fashioned 
 it s only for a week." 
 
 Fred looked at Molly until even she 
 laughed a little just to please her hus 
 band. But the morning s experiences had 
 put her out of humor, women being so 
 personal. 
 
 "And he says," continued Laura, "he 
 will replace all dey breaks." 
 
 "A dozen Mr. Sterlings could not replace 
 those plates," broke out Molly indignantly. 
 
 "What ll I tell him, m m?" 
 
 "Oh, let him have the keys," flung out 
 Fred, for he saw how the distasteful situa 
 tion was getting on Molly s nerves, and 
 wanted to end it. "Let em have every 
 thing. What s the use of fighting the Money 
 Power." 
 
 "And then Laura, please go home," put 
 in Mrs. Carroll, resigning her sacred keys. 
 "I don t want you to stay there any longer." 
 
 Laura looked at the ground. "I prom 
 ised to stay and help em clean up. He says 
 Mrs. Sterling s a most particular lady." 
 407 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 "Clean up ? Why, you ve been cleaning 
 up for three days!" cried Molly, outraged in 
 her housewifely pride; "didn t you tell him 
 that ? " Her lip began to tremble. 
 
 " Well, no, m m, he offered me two dollars 
 to stay and I need the money." Laura 
 showed her white teeth in a broad grin. 
 "But I told him," she made haste to add, 
 wagging her head with the true negro re 
 tainer s loyalty, "that you was just as fine 
 a lady and just as particular as his missus, 
 even if you does sleep in a white-enamel 
 bed." 
 
 "Now that ought to encourage you!" 
 laughed Fred. 
 
 Molly looked at Laura. "What s this 
 about the beds!" she asked. 
 
 "Nothin , only he says that at all de Ster 
 lings houses even de help has better beds 
 den yourn. Dey are movin yourn up to 
 de servants flo for de steward to sleep in, 
 an de ole-fashioned four-poster is goin to 
 be for de missus." 
 
 "Laura," said Mr. Carroll no longer joc 
 ular, "tell that person, Mrs. Carroll s bed 
 408 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 is not to be used by any of Mr. Sterling s 
 servants no matter how many he has!" 
 
 "Yessuh," said Laura chuckling. She 
 always loved Mr. Fred when he "got mad." 
 "An don t you worry, Miss Molly, you re 
 my people, an I ain t agoin to let dose 
 new people hurt nothin o yourn," she 
 added as she took her deliberate departure. 
 
 Somehow, Molly derived a great deal of 
 solace from this. Along with the indignity 
 of the situation, she felt that, at least, she 
 had one thing that millions could not buy, 
 and that was personal affection and loyalty 
 from her servants. 
 
 In a little while Laura was back again. 
 
 "Now, what is it!" thought Mrs. Carroll. 
 
 "De steward, he s sot de second man to 
 paintin de scratched places de childern 
 made on yore bed, m m. Mrs. Sterling s a 
 most particular lady, he says." 
 
 Molly made no comment but to drum 
 on the floor with her foot. 
 
 "Well, what of it?" asked Fred sharply. 
 The gossippy servant seemed to be distress 
 ing her mistress unnecessarily. 
 409 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 "Nothing only I thought I d better tell 
 you he s usin yore paints, suh." 
 
 "What!" cried Fred springing out of his 
 chair. 
 
 " He says he ll only use a few cents worth 
 and he ll pay double if you object. Dem s 
 his very words." 
 
 "Object!" shouted Fred. "I don t allow 
 anybody to monkey around in my studio, 
 not even Mrs. Carroll. You ought to have 
 told him that, Laura." It appears that 
 men, too, at times, are "so personal." 
 
 " But he ain t doin it in de studio. Dey 
 
 turned yore studio into a servants 9 dining- 
 
 t j> 
 room! 
 
 This lack of art feeling caused Frederic 
 Carroll, the promising young painter, to 
 turn resolutely toward his beloved, now 
 desecrated, home of art but he was re 
 strained by his wife. "Don t go near the 
 horrid things," she implored him. 
 
 Fred hesitated, mopped his brow, sat 
 
 down again, and smiled. "I was only 
 
 wondering," he said in a changed manner, 
 
 "if they wouldn t like the key to the trunk 
 
 410 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 where our love-letters are. They might like 
 them to start the fires with. They could 
 easily pay double for what the paper is 
 worth, couldn t they, Molly?" 
 
 But Molly did not laugh. The chagrin 
 and horror of the whole affair swept over 
 her, and tears welled up in her eyes. She 
 might be able to live this down in time, as 
 Fred had remarked, but she would never 
 forget it. Life would never be as pure and 
 sweet again. 
 
 " Never mind," said Fred, "the old man 
 will arrive soon and then he ll send down 
 his tainted money by Laura, and," he added, 
 seeing that Molly refused to be comforted, 
 "we ll stop off on the way through town and 
 forget all about everything in a grand cele 
 bration we ll have a bully dinner and then 
 go to the theatre afterward." He leaned 
 over and patted her hand. She was taking 
 it too seriously. Therefore he took her too 
 seriously. That s the trouble with these 
 happy marriages. They re so wearing 
 too absorbing for busy men with work to 
 do in the world. 
 
 411 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 But though the old man came that eveiv 
 ing, no check was sent, because his sec 
 retary attended to such trifling affairs, and 
 his secretary was in town. So the Carrolls 
 instead of dining grandly at the Plaza, 
 ate a miserable dinner at the Parkers and 
 spent the night in a stuffy room there, the 
 better rooms having already been engaged 
 in advance by people arriving for the horse 
 show. 
 
 The next day Fred said, "Shall I go and 
 dun the old man?" 
 
 "Decidedly not!" his wife replied. "If 
 they haven t decency enough to do the cus 
 tomary thing, we sha n t put ourselves in 
 their class by reminding them of it." 
 
 Fred said he failed to see the satisfaction 
 in this feminine revenge, but as Molly was 
 so nervous and unstrung he would humor 
 her, hoping this would amuse her, and it 
 did a little. She knew that he would rather 
 be shot than dun his tenants. 
 
 They hung around the boarding-house 
 all day. Fred s sketching materials had gone 
 with the trunk down to the blessed dunes. 
 412 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 and so he could do no work. Nor did they 
 feel like going to the club, now that the 
 horse show had begun, because they had 
 told every one they were leaving town, and 
 because Molly would be sure to run into 
 Mrs. Sterling who had tipped her. So Fred 
 took it out in reading the Parkers paper- 
 covered novels, and Molly in gazing resent 
 fully across the meadow at her pre-empted 
 house, where she could see the usurpers 
 having tea in her cups on her terrace. 
 
 Now, like many of the immensely rich, 
 newly or otherwise, the Sterlings were 
 disappointing though it might be to the 
 Carrolls and other satirists simple, kindly 
 folk, who did not care a hang about being 
 impressive or superior, except perhaps in 
 the presence of older or greater wealth; 
 then, to be sure, an interesting phenomenon 
 invariably appeared. No smirking or kow 
 towing; the Sterlings were not that sort. 
 They had the pride of natural (or unnatural) 
 rulers of our land, conscious of their powers 
 for gaining possession of it. But whenever 
 in the embarrassing presence of our already 
 413 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 established dynastic rulers, straightway, like 
 a galvanic reaction, frills and foolishness 
 arose stiffly upon the kindly Sterlings, like 
 bristles upon the back of a good-natured 
 dog in the presence of strange and bigger 
 dogs. Being of good, plain American stock, 
 given to loud laughter and practical jokes, 
 they never enjoyed the uncomfortable sen 
 sation which accompanied the bristles. The 
 Sterling daughters, having gone to the best 
 schools the most expensive things are al 
 ways the best, or else how could they be 
 the most expensive? those big, healthy 
 girls, who had had "all the advantages 
 money can buy" could not help hating their 
 poor old mother whenever she too made a 
 well-meaning effort to give the illusion of 
 refinement. And this, in turn, made them 
 hate themselves, and drop their handsome 
 eyes to hide this feeling, and that, of course, 
 revealed it to their uneasy mother, who 
 wondered what "break" she had made this 
 time. As for the old man, if things in the 
 Street had not been going as he wished, his 
 fine daughters made him so sick with their 
 414 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 expensively acquired accent, at times, that 
 he was driven to drink, and then said such 
 coarse, horrid things that afterward (when 
 he had arranged matters to suit him in the 
 Street) he had to buy them each a handful 
 of diamonds, or something equally costly, 
 in order to "make up"; for he loved them 
 all devotedly, wanted them to have "the 
 best of everything," saying (and believing) 
 that this was why he enjoyed working so 
 hard. No, unfortunately, though given to 
 practical jokes, none of the Sterlings had 
 much fun out of pretending to be what they 
 were not (as yet). They hadn t even the 
 artistic (or rather the academic) satisfaction 
 of making a correct copy of some one else s 
 art. But though little dogs know better, 
 they can t keep those bristles down, even 
 when the big dog trots serenely past, intent 
 upon his own pursuits without so much as 
 seeing them. It s the nature of the brute. 
 Later, as we may see, if Charles F. Ster 
 ling s wealth kept on quadrupling as at 
 present he would be forced to go in for 
 a social career seriously. Those rapidly 
 415 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 plumping daughters would have to be sup 
 plied with appropriate husbands upon whom 
 to bestow their fat fortunes and their sweet, 
 wholesome persons. Then the old man 
 would wake up and add to his already large 
 retinue a couple of expensive social couriers, 
 a male and a female one, and thus attain 
 another ambition, with the business-like 
 thoroughness so characteristic of the golden 
 age of the greatest people civilization has 
 ever had a chance to boast of. But as yet 
 the simple Sterlings were diverted with the 
 mere novelty of spending, which they were 
 doing amiably and with a guileless wonder 
 that certain of their old friends, for whom 
 they were more than willing to do nice 
 things, hated them for it. 
 
 They wanted to be comfortable and have 
 fun with their money. They had looked 
 over the CarrohV house, saw that they 
 would be comfortable in it, and were pro 
 ceeding to have a lot of fun out of the 
 horse show, where they had the honor and 
 perplexity of meeting members of a con 
 servative colony complacently regarding it- 
 416 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 self as more exclusive and desirable than 
 certain richer and more fashionable cen 
 tres of which the Sterlings had read with 
 mingled scorn and envy. They didn t 
 know that the Carrolls hadn t been paid. 
 The Carrolls didn t enter into their exist 
 ence. 
 
 Having let the matter of the rent pass by 
 a day or two, the Carrolls felt more reluc 
 tant than ever about bringing it to Mr. 
 Sterling s attention. They did not care to 
 do things of that sort. Besides, it would in 
 volve an explanation; and while they main 
 tained that it was a matter of utter indiffer 
 ence to them if the whole world knew that 
 they were hard up, being beautifiers of the 
 world, not predatory exploiters of it (like 
 some vulgar people) yet they "were not 
 accustomed to explaining their actions" to 
 any one! So they kept on hoping each 
 day that their millionaire tenant would re 
 member and send a check without being 
 reminded. In short, the Carrolls spent 
 horse-show week at the Parkers expensive 
 boarding-house, taking exercise only at 
 417 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 night under cover of darkness, so as to 
 avoid meeting their friends. 
 
 " Going to have something of an electric- 
 light bill this month," Fred would say as 
 they stealthily passed the brilliant house 
 which belonged to them and whence issued 
 music and laughter. But Molly would not 
 look. She only sighed and passed by in 
 silence to the dreary boarding-house. 
 
 A woman is always attached to her home, 
 for isn t it her sphere, as has been well said ? 
 Man has never been completely attached. 
 He merely pays for it, and that takes him 
 out of it. 
 
 IV 
 
 Laura proved so useful to the steward 
 that she was retained throughout the week. 
 " De ole man, he s mighty pleased with our 
 house," she reported to Molly, "so nice and 
 cosey, he says. He asked de ladies how much 
 did Charlie pay for it. Dat s de secretary. 
 Dey didn t know, so he asked de steward, 
 and de steward he say, Two hundred, I 
 believe, suh. A day ? asked de ole man. 
 418 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 No, suh, for de whole week. Dat s a 
 shame/ he says, sort o cross. I m a-gun- 
 ter speak to Charlie about dis. So, I spect 
 we ll get more n any ole two hundred dol 
 lars, when it do come!" 
 
 "Indeed!" cried Molly/ the vulgar parve 
 nus! As if we d dream of accepting more 
 than the stipulated amount!" 
 
 "Of course not," snorted Fred and 
 probably they would have declined, but 
 they obtained more than the stipulated 
 amount of satisfaction out of being indig 
 nant about it. 
 
 " I am bound to say," Molly added, " their 
 unbusiness-like negligence has cost us much 
 more than two hundred." 
 
 "I haven t earned a dollar since you be 
 gan cleaning house for them," sighed Fred. 
 
 "Besides, there s all the vexation and 
 annoyance," said Molly thoughtfully, " But 
 if the pigs try to make us accept a cent more 
 than two hundred," she added quickly, 
 "we ll send it straight back." A pause. 
 "Won t we, dear?" 
 
 "Of course," said Fred, Another pause. 
 419 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 "I wonder how large an amount the pigs 
 will try to make us accept." 
 
 They talked about this a good deal, hav 
 ing so little else to do. They decided that 
 the check would be left for them in the 
 house. Molly wondered in what part of 
 the house. "On the newel-post/ sug 
 gested Fred. 
 
 At last the dreary week was finished, and 
 the Carrolls, restraining each other on the 
 Parkers porch until the last trunk had left> 
 ran across the meadow hand in hand to 
 their beloved home, their very own again. 
 
 "This makes it almost worth while," 
 cried Molly rushing into the house and 
 picking up one after another of her precious 
 possessions, fondling them like long-lost 
 children, talking to them, asking them if 
 they had missed her. In justice to the pigs 
 it must be stated that they had left their 
 temporary sty in very good shape. Even 
 Molly admitted that, grudgingly. None of 
 the ancestral Spode was broken. But pres 
 ently her husband heard a cry of alarm. 
 "Fred, Fred!" she called, running out into 
 420 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 the studio, " I can t find the mediaeval salt- 
 holder!" 
 
 "Well," said Fred, "I may as well tell 
 you that my grandfather s portfolio is gone!" 
 It was wonderfully colored, that piece of old 
 leather. 
 
 They stared into each other s eyes. 
 
 "We ought to have known better than 
 to leave such valuable things about," said 
 Fred. 
 
 "Let s telegraph," said Molly. 
 
 Just then Laura, having heard the alarm, 
 waddled in impressively. "Now, Miss 
 Molly," she said sententiously, "don t you 
 get so excited," and with that crossed the 
 room with dramatic deliberation. " I reckon 
 you-all didn t look in dese shelves where 
 Mr. Fred keeps his drawin s," she said 
 chuckling, and quietly produced the missing 
 idols. 
 
 "Oh, Laura!" cried Molly gratefully, 
 "how good of you to hide them for us!" 
 
 "Bless yore heart, honey, / didn t hide 
 em. De steward he put em out o sight 
 because dey was too old and shabby for his 
 421 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 people, he says. Mrs. Sterling is a mos 
 particular lady." 
 
 The Carrolls looked at each other and 
 burst into laughter, and the longer they 
 thought about it the more they laughed. 
 If "a good laugh" is worth two dollars at a 
 Broadway theatre a rebate was already 
 due the generous Sterlings. 
 
 "And dose old-timey goblets you-all 
 brought from de city ? Dey was given to 
 de servants 9 table!" shrilled Laura with a 
 fat African cackle, worth at least a gallery 
 seat, at the Sterlings expense. 
 
 While continuing their tour of investiga 
 tion Fred began to laugh afresh and di 
 rected Molly s attention to the mantel 
 piece in the living-room. There stood the 
 new pair of old candlesticks, the ones whose 
 rich green color had led them to the extrava 
 gance of the purchase. They were now as 
 bright and shining as the brass-work on the 
 Sterlings yacht. The tone of time had 
 gone. But progress should not be blocked 
 and the desert must bloom for the larger 
 good. 
 
 422 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 "Well, it serves us right/ said Fred, "for 
 renting our house to such people." 
 
 "By the way," cried Molly, "the check!" 
 
 "That s so," he answered springing up, 
 "the check!" and off they sped to search 
 for it, like a pair of children. They had 
 forgotten all about the check. 
 
 " Look in your studio ! " called Molly who 
 was looking upon her desk in the living-room. 
 "That s your place of business, you know." 
 
 "Look on your bureau," shouted Fred, 
 "that s where tips are usually left." 
 
 But it wasn t in any of these places nor 
 on the hall table where the letters were usu 
 ally left. At last they looked on the mantel 
 piece in the dining-room, and found not a 
 check, but something that Molly had never 
 seen in her sacred home before a wine- 
 glassful of toothpicks. "Remove that!" 
 she commanded Laura in the same horri 
 fied tone she had employed with the Ster 
 lings man servant. 
 
 It was not until after the first of the fol 
 lowing month that they received their check. 
 Fred passed it in silence over to Molly. 
 423 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 "Why, it s only two hundred, after all!" 
 she remarked. 
 
 "Well," said Fred, "that saves us the 
 trouble of returning the balance." 
 
 "But I wanted to return it!" she cried. 
 "Now we sha n t have even that satisfac 
 tion." 
 
 Then they had another good laugh and 
 went on with life where it left off before the 
 attack of the Philistines. 
 
 They thought that ended the matter, but 
 it did not. The set-back to Fred s work 
 was a climax to many set-backs since he had 
 established himself in the country. It was 
 difficult to get models for his figure-work. 
 He was losing touch with his friends and 
 affairs in town. The Carrolls spent a month 
 or two there in the winter, but that was 
 hardly enough, though often too much for 
 the children. He was not getting ahead 
 in his work, he was getting behind. He 
 was still doing illustrations at a time in 
 424 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 his career when by the prognostications of 
 his early critics he should have been doing 
 nothing but masterpieces for museums or 
 millionaires like Mr. Sterling. But while 
 there were plenty of other young fellows 
 coming along to supply spots of color in 
 gilt frames for the homes of those who could 
 afford such superfluous luxuries, there was 
 no one else to supply food and clothes for 
 the children in his own home. So though 
 right to stick to illustrations, he sometimes 
 thought it wrong to stick to the country. 
 So did Molly. But they seldom talked 
 about it. It was an awful thought. 
 
 Now, the old man was a very busy old 
 man, and had forgotten to speak to Charlie. 
 But the very next fall he remembered how 
 much he liked that little house he had occu 
 pied during the horse show; was reminded 
 of it by the ladies of the family, for they 
 liked it too. Such being the case the Ster 
 lings decided to buy it. They had no 
 house, as it happened, in just that part of 
 the world, and they might want to build a 
 place out there. Meanwhile, and in any 
 4*5 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 case, this little house, they agreed amicably, 
 would do perfectly well. It would be con 
 venient for the horse-show week, or if they 
 ever wanted to go out and play golf there. 
 Perhaps the old man sensed the future value 
 of this bit of real estate. Perhaps the girls 
 cherished a secret but worthy ambition of 
 "getting in with" those "awfully nice peo 
 ple" who did not care much for frills. 
 
 So Fred received another call from the 
 brisk young secretary. Charlie stated in a 
 polite, business-like manner that Mr. Ster 
 ling was prepared to make an advantageous 
 offer for the property, if it could be done 
 quietly and without delay and if Mr. Car 
 roll didn t ask too much for it. 
 
 "Indeed?" said Fred, "I hadn t heard 
 about my house being on the market." 
 
 " But it will do no harm to make you an 
 offer just in private," said the smiling sec 
 retary. "You would not mind?" 
 
 "Not in the least," said Fred. "I m sure 
 
 it will be interesting, but I do not care to 
 
 sell." As he spoke he glanced out of the 
 
 window. The children were playing Indian, 
 
 426 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 brown-legged, red-cheeked, merry, and con 
 tent. There were no near neighbors to mind 
 the noise. 
 
 "I understand, Mr. Carroll, I under 
 stand/ said Charlie, thinking he did. 
 
 The secretary understood, through the 
 steward, who understood through Laura, 
 something about the Carrolls predicament 
 during horse-show week. Other inquiries 
 had confirmed his original surmise, made 
 when they asked only two hundred dollars 
 rent for the week. It was clear that they 
 were hard up, and it was shrewd to go di 
 rect to the unpractical artist, instead of 
 dealing through a real-estate agent. For, 
 however covertly and indirectly such ap 
 proaches were made, the news often leaked 
 out that Charles F. Sterling was the pros 
 pective buyer and straightway prices soared 
 annoyingly. 
 
 "I am authorized," said the secretary, 
 his beady little mouse-like eyes now fasten 
 ing themselves on Carroll s face, "to offer 
 you the sum of twenty-five thousand dollars 
 cash for your property." When we "get 
 427 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 down to business" we nearly always get a 
 different look in our eyes. 
 
 A smile flittered about the corners of 
 Fred s mouth. He was disappointed in 
 " de ole man/ This was not a liberal offer, 
 but he did not like to tell the secretary so; 
 it might hurt his feelings. You are most 
 kind/ said Fred, "but well, I don t care 
 to sell anyway." 
 
 Evidently this artist was no fool; perhaps 
 he, too, saw the real-estate future of the 
 neighborhood. " Mr. Carroll," said Charlie 
 urbanely, "usually these affairs are long 
 drawn out. I am obliged to settle this mat 
 ter at once and take the return train for the 
 city." He glanced at his watch, " I am very 
 busy to-day.". 
 
 " I can sympathize with you," said Fred 
 thinking of the canvases he was preparing 
 for his exhibition next month on Fifth 
 Avenue. 
 
 "Mr. Sterling told me that in order to 
 close the deal at once I might give you thirty 
 thousand dollars for your property." 
 
 "Did he, indeed!" said Fred, "that was 
 428 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 very generous of him, but it s out of the 
 question." 
 
 "It s five thousand more than the place 
 cost," said the secretary in his business 
 like manner. 
 
 Fred resented this. " You are mistaken," 
 he rejoined, "it is nearly six thousand more 
 than it cost." This was merely to show 
 that he, too, could be business-like when he 
 tried. " But, you see, the great trouble is 
 that I don t care to sell." 
 
 Charlie now regretted that he had not 
 put the matter in the hands of an agent 
 after all. But he had been told to get the 
 house, and get it he would, or else receive a 
 scowl of disapproval on his return to the 
 office. A few minutes later he was offering 
 Fred thirty-five thousand for the property, 
 then thirty-eight, and, finally, "just to make 
 it an even sum and close the deal," Fred 
 was obliged to refuse forty thousand of 
 Charles F. Sterling s hard-earned cash. 
 
 "I cannot tell you how flattered I am," 
 he said, now drawing an exqusite amuse 
 ment out of the situation, "to find my 
 429 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 humble home so greatly admired by one of 
 Mr. Sterling s means and taste. Frankly, 
 I had no idea that it could appeal to him so 
 keenly, but " 
 
 " You ll never get such an offer again/ 
 interrupted Charlie. 
 
 "I hope not," said Fred, "and I hope 
 you ll soon stop this bidding up of the price. 
 It may be business-like, but it makes me 
 dizzy." 
 
 "That is my limit," said the secretary 
 rising to go. 
 
 "Good," said Fred in sincere relief. 
 
 " I won t offer you a cent more," snapped 
 out the other somewhat angry at Fred s 
 flippancy. 
 
 "I am so glad," said Fred. 
 
 "Oh, come!" cried the exasperated sec 
 retary, "what is your price ?" 
 
 "I haven t any." 
 
 " Do you want to sell or not ? " demanded 
 the secretary impatiently. 
 
 "Not in the least," laughed Fred. "I 
 said so in the first place, you know." And 
 just then the wild Indians without set up a 
 
 43 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 treble war-hoop. It was a shout of tri 
 umph, the enemy had been routed. 
 
 Charlie picked up his hat. "I thought 
 you were bluffing." 
 
 "That was your mistake. But in order 
 that you may not make another one, just 
 tell Mr. Sterling, with my compliments, that 
 he hasn t money enough to buy this place." 
 
 "Why not?" asked the other, laughing 
 at the artist. 
 
 "Because," said Fred, "he could never 
 appreciate my house." 
 
 That was all right to say to Sterling; but 
 behind it loomed a motive bigger than a 
 house: formerly the Carrolls owned their 
 home now the home owned them. The 
 rising generation was knocking at the door. 
 
 VI 
 
 At the exhibition of landscapes by Fred 
 eric Carroll, the following month, two- 
 thirds of the canvases were snapped up dur 
 ing the first day of the sale. This made 
 such a sensation that the rest sold quickly. 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 "Frederic Carroll, the former illustrator, 
 has undoubtedly arrived," wrote a well- 
 known critic. Most of the canvases re 
 ferred to were crated to the town house of 
 Charles F. Sterling. 
 
 "And yet," said Fred swaggeringly to 
 Molly, "some people say painters aren t 
 practical." 
 
 "It s simply," quoted Molly applaud 
 ingly, "that usually there are more impor 
 tant things to think about." 
 
 432 
 
IX 
 
 THE CARROLLS FORMAL GARDEN 
 
 SCENES: Fred s studio, Molly s mind, and the Carrotts 
 terrace. 
 
 (MRS. CARROLL THREATENS TO BECOME A NEW WOMAN, 
 MUCH TO THE PERPLEXITY OF HER LOVING AND LOVED 
 HUSBAND. THE CHILDREN AND OTHER CONSERVATIVE 
 ALLIES STAND BY HIM, AND WE NEED FEEL LITTLE CON 
 CERN OVER THE NET RESULT.) 
 
 I 
 
 WHEN Fred and Molly finished the build 
 ing and furnishing of their celebrated coun 
 try house there had been no money left for 
 what they had always counted upon most 
 of all the garden. Though scarcely half 
 as extensive as the " rambling old" manor 
 house they had previously constructed in 
 their dreams, it may be recalled, the placid 
 little home they now lived in had innocent 
 ly swallowed more than double the amount 
 of their original "appropriation," as their 
 433 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 combined available assets had been lightly 
 termed by Wilson Peters, originally their 
 trusted friend, subsequently turned their 
 arch-architect, with whom they were at pres 
 ent upon a footing of noticeable politeness, 
 far more formal than any garden of theirs 
 would ever care to be. 
 
 For, when it came to the apportioning of 
 their share of the world and the problem 
 had reduced itself to a choice between a 
 tennis court for Fred or a garden for Molly, 
 they decided to compromise upon the tennis 
 court. Exercise was a necessity, whereas 
 gardening was a mere luxury. "Besides," 
 as Molly added to clinch the matter, for she 
 advocated the tennis court because she knew 
 Fred preferred it, just as he insisted upon a 
 garden because he knew how she longed for 
 it "Besides, I can play on the court, but 
 you would never work in the garden." So 
 Fred laughed and good-naturedly gave in, 
 not willing to appear unreasonable in the 
 matter. Wives are wonderful wheedlers. 
 
 Now, otherwise, as has already been re 
 corded, the house had proved a notable suc- 
 
 434 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 cess "despite that man Peters," as Car 
 roll would say, with a reminiscent smile at 
 his wife, when week-end guests seemed to 
 appreciate the Carroll estate or made a well- 
 meaning effort in that direction by saying 
 "so artistic!" 
 
 "The good features of the house were all 
 Fred s ideas," Molly would always say in 
 answer to his smile, readily recognizing her 
 cue, as all true women should learn to do if 
 they would succeed as wives, actresses, or 
 in any other womanly sphere. 
 
 But though so eminently comely and 
 comfortable, though as much like their 
 dream of a house in the country as any 
 thing so grossly material and expensive as 
 a house could hope to be, the house could 
 never become a home, it seems, would re 
 main a mere house, so long as it lacked an 
 out-door room to smile back at the in-door 
 rooms, a shadowy place, secluded, unim- 
 agined even, from the public road; a place 
 to stroll in in the cool of the evening accord 
 ing to the precedent established in the 
 Garden of Eden, and followed with some 
 435 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 interruption ever since; a place to work in 
 at play hours and mayhap to play in at 
 what ought to be work hours. 
 
 A few flower borders Molly possessed, and 
 plenty of shrubs, properly planted along the 
 edges of things or massed in corners in ac 
 cordance with the orthodox outlines of the 
 landscape architect whom Carroll had em 
 ployed when that man Peters had at last 
 finished making a mess on the commend 
 able principle of its paying "in the long 
 run" to start right. ("We ll save money in 
 the end by spending a little more now," said 
 Fred, quoting the expert landscape opinion. 
 " But do you suppose we ll ever reach the 
 end?" asked Molly). Planting here and 
 there, however correctly, however success 
 fully, did not compose a garden. This was 
 not an out-door room. These more or less 
 interesting bits were not a structural part of 
 the habitation. Indeed, some of Molly s 
 more recent flower-beds looked rather lonely 
 and detached, as if they were camping out 
 a very good thing in its way, Carroll said, 
 but not the only way or the best for civil 
 436 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 ized living. The proper place for beds is 
 within the walls of a room, even though a 
 hammock or two outside will do no harm if 
 placed unobtrusively. 
 
 Indeed, as the seasons rolled by and the 
 Carrolls vines and children grew, the truth 
 was borne in upon Molly that this yearning 
 for a garden was not a mere luxury, as she 
 had supposed, but a necessity, an organic 
 need of her nature; that her otherwise good 
 and useful life could never be complete, that 
 she could never " really live" until she had 
 a garden. Some women feel the same thing 
 as to children. She pondered the matter 
 in her heart and wondered if her husband 
 ever felt this void in their lives, but she did 
 not like to broach the subject of her secret 
 sorrow. He was a Carroll, and the Car- 
 rolls are all so reserved. It was such a deli 
 cate matter. We all have hidden depths in 
 our natures where even our dearest dare 
 not enter. 
 
 Now, as it happened, they had done very 
 well in the way of children or were doing, 
 we might more accurately state, since they 
 437 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 were still young and healthy parents very 
 well indeed, considering the present price 
 of the necessities of life which a wise civ 
 ilization allows young parents to pay for 
 the privilege of supplying well-reared future 
 citizens, and well-built country places to 
 keep poor-lonely-old bachelors in over Sun 
 day not to speak of keeping them and all 
 others not blessed by the Lord with chil 
 dren alive during the rest of the lonely week 
 by supplying destructive consumers of our 
 variously necessary or luxurious products. 
 
 By this time, indeed, nearly all the rooms 
 hospitably designed for guests had been 
 permanently appropriated by offspring 
 the impudent squatters. Perhaps if the 
 Carrolls had not been so long on future 
 citizens but why should public spirit and 
 private gardens go together ? Race-suicide 
 is an atrocious evil. We can condemn it 
 openly now, even in mixed company, since 
 the unpleasant topic has been decently 
 clothed with a becoming phrase by an au 
 thority who has an independent income. 
 Often the modern American woman was 
 438 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 heartlessly reviled at "The Meadows" by 
 bachelor guests even the most refined 
 while their hosts listened, looking impressed 
 with this properly indignant eloquence. 
 
 Frederic Carroll, watching solicitously, 
 knew and understood what the noble 
 woman who bore his name was suffering in 
 silence; with mingled feelings of shame and 
 tenderness, of sympathy and perhaps aver 
 sion he understood as well as a man can 
 understand a woman s yearnings. So, in a 
 man s blundering but well-meaning way, he 
 would draw near, pat her hand tenderly and 
 say, "Let s play tennis." 
 
 And it was noticed at such times that he 
 was very thoughtful and solicitous, serving 
 easily to her and cheating himself consci 
 entiously in the score, quite as during their 
 honeymoon, years and years ago. 
 
 Yes, sometimes she felt that he under 
 stood. Once she had caught him surrep 
 titiously measuring off spaces on the slop 
 ing lawn below the south terrace, and when 
 she asked him, as women will, "What are 
 you doing, dearest?" he had started, an- 
 
 439 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 swered gruffly, "Oh, nothing darling," and 
 hid the tape measure. And one day when, 
 supposed to be out upon social duties, she 
 entered the studio unexpectedly, her heart 
 gave a great bound of primal joy, for there 
 upon the easel (where he was supposed to 
 be turning out a money-maker) she beheld 
 the very vision of her dreams a silent, sil 
 very pool gleaming in twilight shadows, re 
 flecting serenely a pair of stately cypresses 
 in the background, one a little taller than 
 the other; a broad flight of easy steps in 
 the foreground, half hidden in the shadow, 
 a little crumbling perhaps at the edges, 
 half choked by flowers at the bottom; and 
 surrounding it all an old stone wall, very 
 tall, very mellow, nearly hidden by vines 
 and completely covered by the tone of time, 
 as Frederic Carroll could suggest so well, 
 so much better than any painter of his 
 day. 
 
 "What s that you are taking down?" 
 asked Molly, framed in the doorway in her 
 calling clothes. She tried to make the ques 
 tion sound casual, unemotional. To have 
 440 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 remained silent would have been more sig 
 nificant, embarrassing. 
 
 "Oh, nothing/ said Fred with the well- 
 known Carroll reserve. He was blushing 
 furiously. He hid the canvas abruptly in 
 a drawer and turned the key, quite as once 
 long ago when he had come upon Molly in 
 the sewing-room she had abruptly hid some 
 of her "work" in a lowest bureau drawer, 
 also blushing furiously, only she had 
 laughed on that occasion and he did not on 
 this, for he was a Carroll. She had taught 
 him to talk, but there were times when he 
 could not be made to smile, except at 
 jokes. 
 
 "It looked very nice/ said Molly, ignor 
 ing the Carroll reserve. The Carrolls were 
 rather proud of it, but it always irritated 
 her immeasurably. 
 
 "Just a pot boiler." 
 
 "Let me see it." 
 
 "Now, Molly, you know I never like to 
 show things until I ve finished them. How 
 pretty your new dress is! I always like you 
 in that sort of thing." 
 441 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 She looked at him a moment until his gaze 
 fled from hers. Then she knew and under 
 stood that he, too, alas! had a vacant place 
 in the hidden recesses of his deep, strong, 
 and reserved nature. Their sorrow, though 
 unspoken, was shared. 
 
 II 
 
 "But that s a formal garden!" sniffed 
 one of the neighbors, to whom Fred secretly 
 showed his plans, carefully drawn to scale. 
 
 "What of it ?" asked Carroll. "Does it 
 embarrass you ?" 
 
 "What do you want with a formal garden ? 
 A mere affectation, utterly artificial." 
 
 Fred Carroll was a painter, but lay opin 
 ions seldom irritated him; they interested 
 him. "The term formal seems to frighten 
 you. It still misleads so many good Ameri 
 cans. You think that a formal garden must 
 be like a formal function something pre 
 tentious and uncomfortable. It simply 
 means," he added, "one that has form, not 
 forms forms of beasts and birds clipped 
 442 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 out of yew trees, and similar atrocities. 
 Your house has form carefully studied pro 
 portions, an arrangement of lines and colors 
 in such a way that the whole composes pleas 
 ingly, so why shouldn t the out-door portions 
 of your home be treated with architectural 
 consideration, too?" Perhaps Carroll also 
 found interest in giving laymen the benefit 
 of his views. 
 
 But this layman shook his head. "I be 
 lieve in letting God s good out-doors alone. 
 Nature is a good enough landscape architect 
 for me." 
 
 "But not for me," answered the artist 
 imperturbably; "nor for you either, only 
 you don t know it." 
 
 "I should say I didn t!" and the layman 
 sniffed more than ever. "I prefer nature s 
 arrangement of flowers and woods and 
 meadows to the gingerbread patterns ar 
 ranged by man." 
 
 "Well, I like woods and meadows and 
 things, myself," the artist rejoined, smiling. 
 "I ought to, I make my living painting 
 them. But I shouldn t care to have my 
 
 443 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 house plunked down in the middle of an 
 uncleared woods or a rank, ungraded 
 meadow. Nor do you, I notice. If nature 
 is a good enough landscape architect for 
 you, why don t you let her run riot up to 
 that imposing front door of yours instead of 
 having your extensive lawn carefully cut 
 every week at considerable expense?" 
 
 "Oh, that s different; every one does 
 that." 
 
 "It s utterly artificial/" quoted Carroll. 
 "So is keeping those neat hedges of yours so 
 carefully clipped a mere affectation." 
 
 "Well, it s the custom." 
 
 "So you re a slave to fashion, are you? 
 Then you might as well prepare to build a 
 formal garden; it is rapidly becoming a 
 fashionable fad in this country." This was 
 several years ago. 
 
 "Not for me. I won t have stiff, dinky 
 flower-beds like a cemetery, fancy stone 
 balustrades like a comic-opera stage --not 
 on my place!" 
 
 "I don t blame you," said Fred, joining 
 in the other s laugh, "if you judge formal 
 
 444 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 gardens by cemeteries and stage settings; 
 but the trouble is you have dinky little 
 flower-beds already, scattered about all over 
 your place, in little dabs here and there in 
 a meaningless manner, neither like God s 
 good out-doors nor man s good art. Long 
 as you are going to be unnatural, as of 
 course we are all bound to be from the 
 moment we prefer houses designed by man 
 to caves designed by nature, or family life 
 to a beastly promiscuity, you might just as 
 well arrange it all decently and rationally 
 and beautifully instead of hideously. This 
 requires individual thought as well as col 
 lective authority not a mere stupid fol 
 lowing of your neighbor s customs." 
 
 So the argument went futilely on, as simi 
 lar arguments on the same subject have gone 
 for centuries and will keep on going, no 
 doubt for many centuries more. But the 
 joke of it was that the one so jeeringly 
 prejudiced against the foolishness of formal 
 gardens acquired one on his place oh, 
 quite a pretentious one, full of gingerbread 
 patterns within a very few years, whereas 
 
 445 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 the painter who was so keen on the subject 
 had still nothing but plans on paper and 
 ideas in his head. 
 
 And the further comedy of it was that the 
 neighbor was not converted by Fred, as the 
 latter believed, but merely had acceded to 
 the importunities of his wife, who wanted 
 "an Italian garden" for the good and suffi 
 cient reason that Everyone was getting 
 them the fad had arrived! 
 
 It sometimes seemed to the Carrolls all 
 wrong that those who have the ability to 
 conceive and make and fully appreciate the 
 beautiful things of life so seldom have the 
 money to acquire them. But that was a 
 narrow, selfish view of the matter. For if 
 Fred had "devoted his life" to cultivating 
 the acquisitive talent, his aesthetic talents 
 might not have prospered so well. And 
 more of that sort of prosperity is sorely 
 needed in this broad land of ours. Besides, 
 it is good for the character, as Aunt Bella 
 often remarked, to do without what you par 
 ticularly want. She was the wealthy aunt 
 who had a town house and a couple of 
 446 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 country places. So the Carrolls, whose 
 sorrow was no longer secret, ought to have 
 been glad about it. It isn t every one that 
 can beautify the world while being ex 
 ploited by it. Not all of us are enabled to 
 pay tribute to the privileged classes and yet 
 enjoy "the blessed privilege of bringing up 
 little souls in the nurture and admonition of 
 the Lord/ to quote again from excellent 
 Aunt Bella, who had never married. Char 
 acter-building is far more important than 
 building mere gardens. All the Carrolls of 
 the past had been keen on character-build 
 ing, including that ancestor (only by mar 
 riage) who had done so much to build up 
 the South African trade in Medford rum. 
 Even Archie, of the present, talked a good 
 deal about self-abnegation to his Sunday- 
 school class. He was the one who had 
 married the rich widow. The Freds did not 
 talk so much about it. They hadn t time 
 nor money to do good. So they had a fine 
 lot of character brought to them free. 
 
 "I m afraid we re getting more than our 
 just share," said Molly, who abominated 
 
 447 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 selfishness though she also was only by 
 marriage a Carroll. From which it may 
 be seen that she, too, had a broad public 
 spirit, though not a citizen at all, being 
 merely a non-voting female woman. 
 
 Well, Fred, at least, had had a chance to 
 dissipate his garden passion upon plans and 
 sketches for his neighbor. Carroll was so 
 glad to have been the means of making a 
 convert, as he thought, and was so full of 
 ideas and enthusiasm and spent so much 
 time upon the project that the practical 
 business man he prided himself upon his 
 shrewd knowledge of human nature 
 thought that the artist must be " trying to 
 work him for the job," and wondered what 
 he would charge. But when he found that 
 there was "nothing in it" for Carroll, ex 
 cept the fun of the thing and the satisfaction 
 of seeing wealth wake up to its aesthetic 
 responsibilities, the practical man, who was 
 not strong on aesthetics, jumped to the 
 shrewd conclusion that Fred s ideas could 
 not be very good because he held them so 
 cheap. So he told Fred that it was not 
 44 8 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 right to impose upon his time, old man, 
 which was very true, and turned the job 
 over to a landscape architect who charged 
 a great deal, and therefore must have been 
 good. The latter let Fred s neighbor in for 
 an enormously costly garden. Therefore, 
 it must have been good, too. It takes a 
 shrewd, practical man to deal with art. 
 
 Well, Fred did not mind that. He had 
 had his fun, making designs and sketches. 
 He could not have worked them out in 
 terms of cubic feet of earth and Italian day 
 labor anyway. He did not know enough. 
 He would have made a mess of it. He was 
 a landscape painter, not a landscape archi 
 tect. Only it made him furious that his 
 pet ideas for spacious dignity were ignored 
 in the final plan for naturally the landscape 
 architect did not care to work out another 
 man s design, a mere amateur at that and 
 when the finished sketch in colors was com 
 pleted Fred and Molly agreed that it was 
 "very bad/ just as the landscape architect 
 and his client agreed that Fred s ideas were 
 "very crude." But of course the Carrolls 
 
 449 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 tactfully refrained from letting their neigh 
 bors suspect that their garden was "restless 
 and self-consciously expensive and quite out 
 of scale with the severe old house beside it"; 
 and the owners of the gay garden consider 
 ately refrained from telling their young 
 friends how much they had to learn about 
 the formal treatment of great American 
 estates. 
 
 When the garden was finished the owner 
 led the Carrolls through its gladsome geo 
 metric intricacies on a tour of inspection. 
 "What do you think of it ?" he asked Fred. 
 
 Carroll gazed helplessly at the pie-crus- 
 tean costliness, wondering what to say. 
 Most people are as sensitive about their 
 gardens as their children. A caller can t 
 very well say "My! but that child is ugly." 
 With a wink at Molly he turned to the owner 
 and exclaimed soulfully, "How you must 
 enjoy having it!" 
 
 "Not in the least!" the other replied, 
 "but that damned landscape architect says 
 it s the correct thing. It ought to be. It 
 cost enough." 
 
 450 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 At this point the landscape architect him 
 self appeared. He glanced at Carroll ner 
 vously. "Well, what s the verdict?" he 
 asked. For he respected those who knew. 
 He only pretended to respect those who 
 paid unless they also knew, as has been 
 known to happen. 
 
 "How you must have enjoyed doing it!" 
 said Fred. 
 
 The landscape architect took the artist 
 aside, as if to show him the pergola which 
 led nowhere, but his clients "knew what 
 they liked." "Not in the least. But they 
 wanted to make their money show and 
 well, I guess I ve shown it all right!" 
 
 On the way home, Fred turned to his 
 wife and declared vehemently, "Thank 
 Heaven we couldn t have a garden when we 
 first wanted it!" 
 
 " But ours would never have been like 
 that," she answered. 
 
 " Don t you see ? The design he has 
 
 foisted upon those poor innocent people is 
 
 merely an amplification of the foolish little 
 
 doyly pattern he tried to tempt us with. It 
 
 45 1 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 looked interesting on paper. Such plans 
 always do, when you can t get the effect of 
 fore-shortening and we might not have 
 known any better then!" And they gazed 
 at each other, shuddering at their narrow 
 escape. 
 
 "Well," said Molly, " there are advan 
 tages in poverty and procrastination after 
 all." Then after a pause she added, "But 
 all the same I wish we had a garden." 
 
 Ill 
 
 Frederic Carroll, deeply absorbed in the 
 finishing of a canvas, was pondering over 
 certain minute details which, possibly, would 
 not make a vast difference to the progress 
 of civilization one way or the other, and 
 were undoubtedly delaying the start of a 
 lot of other work which was to make money 
 to pay for keeping a house, a wife, four 
 children, and three dogs, not to speak of 
 other luxuries with which it is said artists 
 should not encumber the free expression of 
 their own individualities. 
 45 2 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 But he was not thinking about the flight 
 of time or the progress of civilization or 
 any of his other obligations. He never did 
 while at work (only when he got through 
 and had bills to pay), though he had placed 
 his studio with one of its windows in full 
 view of the drive so that the morning pro 
 cession of butchers, grocers, plumbers and 
 other constant callers would remind him of 
 what he was there for. 
 
 This tendency was called temperament, 
 and it was something to be proud of, 
 though, "My dear, it s a dreadful thing to 
 keep in the house," Molly confided to her 
 dearest friend over the tea-cups. "It s 
 worse than a skeleton in a family s closet 
 until you get used to it." 
 
 Molly was getting used to it. She was 
 seated in the studio now near by him to 
 watch his genius burn. She was not work 
 ing. It is not a woman s place to work. 
 She was merely mending a few dozen gar 
 ments of varying sizes and descriptions be 
 longing to future citizens who at the present 
 moment were seeing how hard a tennis ball 
 
 453 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 could be thrown against their loving father s 
 sky-light without smashing the glass. Fred 
 did not mind; he had become used to it. 
 So long as the ball did not come all the way 
 through, he rather liked it they might do 
 so many worse things. He had also become 
 used to having Molly around while he was 
 working. She had taught him it took 
 years. She seldom bothered him and al 
 ways admired his work. She had wonder 
 ful taste. 
 
 She even helped him, though he did not 
 know that. He thought she was merely ask 
 ing him eager, child-like questions, as when 
 he was a young and precocious lecturer and 
 she a young and precocious pupil at the 
 League, where each had begun teaching the 
 other several things unknown before. Judg 
 ing from her questions she was quite intelli 
 gent for a woman. He told her so. 
 
 To-day, however, she asked a banal one, 
 one she had asked before, and should have 
 had intelligence and taste enough not to 
 ask again. But it distressed her to see him 
 working himself into pale exhaustion over 
 
 454 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 something which was already beautiful 
 enough and might be rendered less beau 
 tiful now that he was tired, yet would not 
 give up. "Oh," she burst out, threading 
 her needle, "why don t you just dash it off, 
 and let it go at that." She made a striking 
 gesture, thimble and all. 
 
 He came back, startled from his tanta 
 lizing vision of the thing he wanted to 
 grasp and hold in paint, ever beckoning, 
 bewitching, but always hovering just out of 
 reach. He came back just in time to see 
 the gesture. It interested him. He would 
 have liked to dash off a study of that. Then 
 he heard her words, realized the proportions 
 and the curious arrangements of the world 
 he lived in, felt guilty, ashamed, and then 
 irritated. He knew all that as well as she 
 did, but it was a wife s duty to understand 
 and be sympathetic. He took his pipe out 
 of his mouth. "Let s see you just dash it 
 off," he replied, imitating her gesture with 
 his pipe, not having a thimble. Then he 
 smiled indulgently and bent to his work 
 again until the very last of his daylight was 
 455 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 gone, which meant, as the month was June, 
 after the Carroll s usual dinner hour, and 
 this not only caused a cold, stiff dinner, but 
 made the waitress give notice, for she had a 
 lover waiting down the lane, and not even 
 waitresses lovers ought to be kept waiting, 
 any more than artists ought to be married. 
 
 Molly had been a great artist herself, or 
 was going to be, when Fred had come along 
 and spoiled her life. So it was rather rub 
 bing it in to jeer at her, even in fun. But 
 then, she had spoiled his life, too, as she 
 often reminded him. Each, it seems, had 
 succeeded in making a complete negative 
 of the other s life when they affirmed their 
 intention of taking each other for better or 
 worse. It was very sad. 
 
 When first married she had wanted to 
 be "just an old-fashioned wife," because 
 that seemed to be what Fred wanted. And 
 now she had to be something of that sort, 
 whether she wanted to or not. It seemed 
 too bad. So many women could be pro 
 ducers of children, but so few women have 
 had a fair chance to produce great works of 
 
 45 6 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 art. For that reason most men think they 
 can t. Therefore women say so too, many 
 of them. For we give them everything, 
 even their ideals of themselves, which is 
 true chivalry. And we ask nothing in re 
 turn, except their entire selves, which is 
 true gallantry. 
 
 Well, a few days later, Molly ordered her 
 husband out of the house and sent him off 
 to the city to rest and have a good time with 
 friends at the club. One of the things she 
 had learned was to prevent his getting at a 
 new piece of "creative work" when in the 
 exhausted state immediately succeeding a 
 finished product of creation. For he had 
 at last finished it at least, he wanted to 
 fuss with it some more, only she smilingly 
 but firmly refused, took it away from him, 
 in fact, as she sometimes took a toy away 
 from Frederic, Jr., when he became tired of 
 its proper normal functions and tried to 
 suck the paint off. 
 
 " But I ve got a new slant on the thing, 
 entirely," pleaded Frederic, Sr., the morn 
 ing he was to start. 
 
 457 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 "It s too late/ said his smiling mentor. 
 "I ve expressed it to MacPherson s. It 
 will make a hit." And sure enough it did, 
 being one of the most charming and char 
 acteristic Carrolls now in existence. It is 
 now worth thousands though that does not 
 help the Carrolls much, as they accepted 
 mere hundreds for it. Others got the un 
 earned increment which, however, Carroll 
 earned for them by painting later and more 
 powerful works of art. -Still, some credit 
 should be given the learned critics, especially 
 as they fell to scrapping among themselves 
 and thus advertised the collection. But it 
 would not aid Fred s deserving heirs and 
 assigns, if the multitude paid quarters to 
 gaze in amiable ignorance at the notable 
 work of the late Frederic Carroll notwith 
 standing that this kind of "consumption" of 
 his products would not in the least consume 
 them. And there is an economic phenome 
 non difficult for brother Roger, the professor, 
 to adjust in his scholarly book, "The New 
 Economics." It is an oddly arranged world 
 for men too, except those who go in for 
 458 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 possessing it. It is arranged very well for 
 them. They arranged it. Or rather we all 
 arrange it nicely for them by graciously 
 perpetuating well-meant institutions which 
 have resulted in rewarding worthy com 
 mercial individualism with the ultimate con 
 trol of all other forms of worthy individual 
 ism. 
 
 Having got rid of her husband, Molly 5 
 with a quiet glow in her determined eyes, 
 sent her elder offspring in charge of the 
 nurse across the sloping meadow to the 
 woods for a picnic by the spring. Anything 
 with guava jelly in it was a picnic. Then 
 having conferred with the cook, given in 
 cisive orders to butcher s and grocer s boys, 
 answered half a dozen telephone calls, con 
 sulted with the gardener about the irises 
 (they had an excellent gardener, even 
 though they had no real garden), written 
 three or four letters for Fred he often let 
 her do such things, it made her feel that she 
 was of some use and helped make half a 
 dozen beds, moving with light staccato foot 
 steps about her immaculate and glistening 
 
 459 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 house, she suddenly, stealthily darted into 
 Fred s studio, picked up brushes and palette 
 and began to "dash off" an oil of that 
 portion of the Carroll estate bounded by 
 the studio window a graceful bit of trellis 
 with large grape leaves in sun and shadow 
 framing an old gate (erected the year be 
 fore). She was still a child and did not 
 like to take dares. Or, was she a woman 
 with the spirit of the old-fashioned one 
 trying to express itself in terms of the 
 new ? 
 
 But just as she was well started upon her 
 dash, young Frederic, Jr., aged three, 
 bleating loudly for her, tracked her down, 
 found her out, regarded her reproachfully 
 and reproved her for deserting him. Ap 
 parently this healthy male shared the com 
 mon masculine prejudice against a woman s 
 going out of her sphere. Woman was made 
 for man. He did not in the least approve of 
 her gazing with such rapt eyes out of the 
 window of her happy home. Why should 
 she when she could look at him ? That 
 ought to be enough for any true woman. 
 460 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 But the training of women has made 
 them very adaptable, some would say de 
 ceptive. Those worth keeping are always 
 making romantically interesting excursions 
 from their homes in spirit; not less ro 
 mantic because they keep their men in com 
 placent ignorance of these clandestine sal 
 lies. 
 
 When Molly saw that what she was 
 doing failed to coincide with his beautiful 
 ideal of sweet femininity she put him in a 
 chair (before the window) and began to 
 paint him. He did not know that, but 
 he saw that he had her undivided atten 
 tion, and this pleased him very well. She 
 told him how wonderful he was and she 
 looked as if she meant it. She admired his 
 work (sucking his thumb). She asked him 
 intelligent questions. She laughed gayly at 
 his witticisms. He thought he was filling 
 her life. He complacently believed that he 
 had put an end to her nonsense. What they 
 do with their soft little feminine hands does 
 not matter so long as they gaze admiringly 
 at us. It is just as well to let them play 
 461 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 with fancy work, beads, baubles, what not; 
 it gives them something to do, and keeps 
 them out of mischief against the return of 
 the superior sex. 
 
 Molly painted rapidly, not being ham 
 pered by a temperament. She was obliged 
 to. He had gone to sleep looking con 
 tented and adorable. It was a chance she 
 had often wanted. She was painting him 
 so with the background of out-doors. The 
 pose might not last long. He might wake 
 up and want to go off to the city that is, the 
 sand pile. And yet she had the impudence 
 to jeer while she took this unfair advantage. 
 "How furious you would be," she smiled at 
 the poor duped male, "if you only knew 
 what a joke I have on you, you angel! You 
 hoped to prevent me you are helping me!" 
 There was a gleam of triumph in her eye. 
 This was an achievement. Any woman of 
 intelligence may regard a mere fatuous 
 father as so much putty in her hands, but 
 it takes unusual gifts to get ahead of his 
 child of three. 
 
 And yet these females assume a guile- 
 462 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 less wonder that we seek to keep them in 
 the home, where they should be securely 
 locked. They even pretend, in order to 
 dupe us, that the motive we allege is chiv- 
 alric. It is not they that we wish to pro 
 tect, but ourselves, and they know it, even 
 when we do not. For the first law of nature 
 makes itself felt and obeyed even among the 
 blind. 
 
 By the time the children had wandered 
 back from their picnic and Fred had re 
 turned from town, weary from too much 
 smoking and weighted down with gossip 
 and shop talk from the club (but refreshed, 
 all the same, and glad to be back), Molly 
 had finished her creative dash and had 
 hidden it carefully away (in the lowest 
 bureau drawer where she kept other things) 
 and, dressed all in white men loved them 
 "all in white" she was seated serenely 
 before the white wicker tea-table upon the 
 cool green terrace to welcome him, looking 
 as sweet and guileless and fresh as the ter 
 race itself or Freddie, Jr., who was also 
 in white and who knew no more of what 
 463 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 had happened or of what its consequences 
 would be than Frederic, Sr. 
 
 "You poor dear boy, it must have been 
 dreadfully hot in town/ she said kissing him. 
 "Boys, bring the reclining chair for your 
 father. There, sit down here s your tea 
 now tell me a- all about everything." 
 
 And he did, adding beamingly, "And 
 how have things gone with you, dear ?" 
 
 "Very smoothly. The children have been 
 perfect angels all day. And Freddie has 
 helped his mother wonderfully haven t 
 you, my adorable?" 
 
 The unsuspecting namesake had been 
 hugging one of her fair hands; this he now 
 kissed, being fond of her. It was the very 
 hand that had betrayed him. 
 
 IV 
 
 For fear it might worry him, it had been 
 Molly s intention to let her husband remain 
 in ignorance of her faithlessness so long as 
 possible. That is always the best way to 
 do it. The fiction about women and se- 
 464 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 crets is one of the traditions men fatuously 
 enjoy handing down from generation to gen 
 eration of males, while women listen pa 
 tiently and enjoy men s believing it. But 
 the female is the only sex which can keep 
 important secrets, being trained to do so 
 from infancy by almost every relation in 
 life. It is only that so few secrets we con 
 sider important these females consider im 
 portant enough. 
 
 But when one day, a month or two later, 
 an express package of familiar shape was 
 brought into the studio Fred, without no 
 ticing the "Mrs." prefixed to his own cele 
 brated name, and supposing that it con 
 tained the original of one of his own works 
 of art returned after reproduction for pub 
 lication, opened the package and gazed 
 first in perplexity, then in admiration at a 
 certain dashing style in the "vigorous brush 
 work," then in astonishment at recognizing 
 a portrait of his own flesh and blood, and 
 finally, in utter bewilderment, at seeing 
 the modest signature of his small and be 
 loved wife. Next, recovering his breath, he 
 465 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 clamored loudly for his helpmeet. " Molly! 
 Molly! come quick! he called as if some 
 thing had happened to one of the children 
 and something assuredly had. His name 
 sake had been immortalized. 
 
 Trembling like Bluebeard s wife, Fred s 
 soon stood in his presence. The evidence 
 of her guilt was before her eyes, and now 
 in her cheeks. 
 
 "When did you do it?" It was clear 
 from his excited tone and the light in his 
 eyes that her work had found favor in his 
 sight. 
 
 " I am sorry," she said. " I did not mean 
 you to know 
 
 " Sorry ! Look at it. Why I didn t know 
 you had it in you!" 
 
 "Oh, it s just a little thing I dashed off 
 in an idle moment 
 
 But he did not feel this thrust. He was 
 gazing and chuckling with delight again 
 at the canvas. It was not an excellent 
 portrait of Frederic, Jr. It was some 
 thing better. It was a baby, The Baby, all 
 babies; bland, bulging babyhood with its 
 466 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 well-fed arrogance, its healthy individ 
 ualism, its smug disdain of worry, its vo 
 luptuous content; as well as also, more 
 commonly portrayed, often more senti 
 mentally piled on, its soft fragrant cuddle- 
 someness, so terrifying to most men, so in 
 toxicating to most women (not all!), caus 
 ing them to beam and say, "Ah!" in that 
 tone which betokens not only maternal 
 tenderness but a sort of self-satisfied ex- 
 pertness of appreciation to which man can 
 never hope to attain. 
 
 "I didn t know you had it in you," Fred 
 repeated. There were crudities; it was not 
 professional work; but it had charm, and 
 it had the easy flowing confidence of vir 
 ginal ignorance. Fred knew too much 
 about his job to work so easily. "I wish I 
 could have done that," he said sincerely. 
 
 "Oh, don t be sarcastic," she answered, 
 glowing at his praise, trying in vain to con 
 ceal her joy of it. "So you re really not 
 offended at my trying ? " 
 
 " Offended ? " He looked perplexed. He 
 had forgotten his prejudices for the mo- 
 467 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 ment. " Why, that s good work, I tell you." 
 Art, it seems, is sexless. 
 
 Molly was surprised, a little taken aback. 
 Somehow the big, blundering brutes do at 
 times show a generous fairness which rather 
 shames and confuses the petty sex. We 
 have taught them much, but not sportsman 
 ship. But Fred had gone on, talking of the 
 merits of the work and some of its demerits, 
 to show sincerity, in the masterly manner 
 men talk shop to women, making queer 
 movements with his thumb and head as 
 many painters seem to feel relief in doing. 
 " And the background the trellis frame, the 
 big leaves the kid s head against the green 
 gate. You have the decorative instinct, 
 Molly, rare in women. This sketch might 
 make a successful special cover for a maga 
 zine reproduce well, too. But, of course, 
 they didn t see that. Too bad they re 
 turned it. I am awfully sorry. I remem 
 ber how it used to be myself." He covered 
 it up with its wrappings, to go on with his 
 day s work, for man is the wage-earner. He 
 could be genuinely sorry for his wife, and 
 4 68 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 at the same time feel a slight pang of relief 
 for himself. He did not mind other wom 
 en being strenuous and "artistic" but 
 not his Molly. She was his wife. 
 
 Now was her supreme moment. :< They 
 had to return it/ she said, casually, "be 
 cause I sold only the rights of reproduction, 
 dear, just as you do." 
 
 "What! They took it?" He forgot 
 about his day s work. 
 
 "They did not take it. It took one of 
 those prizes they offered for covers, for the 
 Baby s number." She said it as if accus 
 tomed to doing such things. 
 
 "The prize! It took a prize?" 
 
 "Only the second prize," she added 
 modestly. 
 
 "Why, that s the very contest I told you 
 of they asked me to act as one of the 
 judges in that contest." 
 
 "Yes, dear." 
 
 " Is that why you advised me not to act ? " 
 
 "Yes, dear." 
 
 Fred burst out laughing. It was one of 
 those moments when a husband realizes 
 469 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 that he does not know his wife so thor 
 oughly as he had supposed, and likes her 
 more for it. It does them both good, as a 
 rule. 
 
 "Oh, it wasn t much," she added, "not 
 half as much as you get for your things 
 you know." 
 
 "Molly," he declared after a smiling 
 pause, half-jocular, half-earnest, "I always 
 said I spoiled a good painter when I mar 
 ried you. Now I m sure of it. But, you 
 would marry me." 
 
 Her smiling answer took him unawares. 
 "I can live it down, my dear," she said in 
 nocently, pushing back her hair. "It is 
 not too late yet. They have asked to see 
 more of my work." 
 
 The artist looked up at his wife, artist no 
 longer, all husband now. Art may be sex 
 less, but marriage is not. "Do you mean, 
 you are thinking of drawing for the maga 
 zines regularly ? that sort of thing ? " 
 
 "Why not ? if I can make money at it." 
 
 The so-called civilized instincts, dormant 
 for the moment in the unworldly artist en- 
 47 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 thusiasm, were now awakened. Somehow 
 he could not like it. He showed it in his 
 scowl. It was not a desire to absorb all her 
 time and attention, any more than it could 
 be jealousy. He wanted her to have more 
 time and fewer cares. He believed in 
 women s doing things but not for money. 
 
 He thought this due entirely to the in 
 stinct for protecting his mate. Perhaps it 
 was, though when carried to its logical con 
 clusion it kills them as mates. He thought 
 that the instinct for displaying his mascu 
 line power to protect her before the gaze of 
 other males had nothing to do with it. Per 
 haps it hadn t, consciously, but it may be 
 that even artists, who see themselves upon 
 enlightened heights far above the burrow- 
 ings and jostlings of the sordid horde, pro 
 fessing to despise the absurd ideals of our 
 pecuniary culture, sometimes show that they, 
 too, are tempered by the pecuniary canons 
 of respectability derived therefrom. 
 
 It is quite all right to allow the cling 
 ing creatures to do a little real work now 
 and then, some of them do rather good 
 471 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 work, winning, even commanding the re 
 spect of the superior sex. But they should 
 not be paid for it. The only thing they 
 should be paid for is living with a man. 
 Men will give them as much as they can 
 afford, or at any rate as much as they, in 
 their superior judgment, see fit. That is 
 the only respectable economic sphere for 
 the female. Others are sometimes neces 
 sary, to be sure, but they are compromises 
 with man s lofty ideal of womanhood. 
 Men so decreed it when physical force ruled 
 the world, and are doing their best to per 
 petuate it while financial force rules the 
 world. And women have heretofore ac 
 cepted this ideal for what else could they 
 do, poor things! barring a few queer, un- 
 sexed creatures whom (or which) we pity 
 or laugh at. 
 
 "See here, Molly," he said, smiling, but 
 sympathetically trying to think in feminine 
 terms, "are you unhappy ?" 
 
 She looked at his easel. "But are you?" 
 "Oh, but that s different; I m a man. I 
 have my work to do in the world." 
 472 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 " Artist 5 can be either masculine or 
 feminine or neither." 
 
 To be sure, it was not so bad as if it 
 were law or medicine she wanted to prac 
 tise. He looked interested, amused, alert, 
 and finally laughed indulgently. They will 
 get these crazy notions now and then, when 
 you forget to kiss them or something. "So 
 the kids and I aren t enough, eh?" 
 
 "Enough! I really don t feel the need of 
 any more husbands or children." 
 
 He laughed, as she had intended that he 
 should; but she knew that he was serious 
 from the slangy manner in which he asked: 
 "Oh, come, wouldn t you really rather take 
 care of kids than paint em ?" 
 
 Molly took a dance step toward him, 
 raised her impudent face to his and shook a 
 small capable finger under his nose, "Oh, 
 but I can do bothy you see," and she swag 
 gered across the room from him. It was 
 the New Woman Rampant most adorably 
 so. 
 
 Fred chuckled, and catching her by her 
 waist, still attractively slender, kissed her 
 
 473 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 mouth, still eminently kissable. For this 
 still seemed to him the best way to end an 
 argument with a woman. He avoided, so 
 far as possible, arguments with other men s 
 wives. 
 
 Molly, though a new woman, liked to be 
 caught and kissed by the man she loved. 
 It is said that the soft yielding creatures 
 seldom get over it. Perhaps it is not in 
 consistent with the new womanhood. For 
 it is undeniable that men, at least, while 
 still given to catching and kissing in robust 
 man fashion, have been known to succeed 
 in other ways at the same time. 
 
 But that did not end the argument. 
 Frederic, Jr., ended it by a summons from 
 the throne room. Molly ran with cheer 
 ful loyalty. But even that did not settle 
 the question of the proper limitations of 
 her sphere. It settled itself, as such things 
 usually do. . . . 
 
 Molly s triumph was to be kept a secret 
 in the family until the day when it should 
 burst upon the world in the shape of the 
 magazine itself, a worthy journal devoted 
 
 474 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 io the interests of women, true women. 
 Molly did not tell a soul. 
 
 But Fred did. He told everybody, man 
 like. He boasted of it to all their friends 
 under the transparent guise of merely tell 
 ing the joke upon himself, "Why don t you 
 just dash it off and il Let s see you do 
 it" especially to those who still consid 
 ered Molly merely a cunning little thing, 
 because she took her clothes more seriously 
 than her clubs. He seemed, indeed, more 
 proud of his wife s achievements than of 
 his first picture in the Salon in his bachelor 
 days. 
 
 It was the money that appealed most to 
 Molly, the sordid little parasite. She was an 
 economic entity at last. It made her self- 
 respecting. It gave her a superior, elated 
 sensation. It is not every woman who 
 can be an economic entity. "It s the first 
 money I ever earned in my life," she said, 
 beginning on the heels of the tenth pair of 
 stockings. 
 
 "I see," said Fred, who didn t. He was 
 painting swingingly this morning. There- 
 475 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 fore he was happy. "Quite a capitalist, 
 aren t you ? What are you going to do with 
 it all?" 
 
 "I suppose I really ought to turn half of 
 it over to my husband/ she said demurely. 
 
 "He might spend it foolishly," said Fred. 
 "Husbands are so inexperienced in money 
 matters." 
 
 "I think I shall invest it," she said seri 
 ously. She seemed impressed with her new 
 responsibility. 
 
 "Where or is that something a husband 
 oughtn t to bother his little head about?" 
 
 "In the savings bank for little Fred. 
 You see, I can have all the glory except 
 what you get as the husband of Mrs. Car 
 roll. So it is only fair that he should have 
 the money. He earned it. Besides, he 
 hasn t a cent in the world, poor darling." 
 It was too true. The earlier children, 
 whether namesakes or not, had fared pretty 
 well among grandparents and bachelor 
 uncles on both sides of the house, but tow 
 ard the end of the string the recurrence of 
 new little dears became an old story and 
 476 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 rather a drain. Besides, there was now 
 considerable competition among the vari 
 ous in-laws, and even grandparents can 
 become blase. 
 
 "Poor little chap/ said Fred, "but you 
 will do nothing of the sort. He s my name 
 sake. I will put the proceeds of one of 
 these money-makers to his credit. You 
 must get something pretty for yourself with 
 your wealth. Nothing useful, something 
 extravagant. You haven t blown yourself 
 since we built the house." 
 
 Molly s darning needle worked in silence 
 for a moment. "I do need a new evening 
 dress," she began tentatively, then seeing a 
 faint frown on her husband s brow " Do 
 you think me horribly selfish ? " 
 
 "Yes, I ve often noticed that," he said 
 with his nicest look. "We ll go to town 
 next week. I ll help you pick out some de 
 cent clothes." 
 
 They were indeed decent, and almost as 
 
 costly as those of the early days when Fred 
 
 had only Molly and himself to clothe. 
 
 " But it s your own money," urged Fred, 
 
 477 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 when the frugal habit of later years knitted 
 her brows. "You earned it. You deserve it/ 
 
 When the wonderful things at last came 
 home, the bill with them was receipted. 
 Fred ducked behind his newspaper. 
 
 " Do you think this a fair, a manly thing 
 to do?" she asked. "Was it thoughtful? 
 Was it Christian ? Was it kind ? " All this 
 with orthodox interludes according to an 
 cient conjugal custom. 
 
 "You needed some new things," he said 
 gruffly, "you never would have got decent 
 ones otherwise." Then he turned to the 
 newspaper again. 
 
 "It seems to me I have some rights," 
 Molly complained. "It s my own money. 
 I earned it. I used to think that if I could 
 only earn some for myself I should not feel 
 so degraded, but -what will you let me 
 spend it on?" She looked desperate and 
 determined. 
 
 Fred liked the look. He put down the 
 newspaper, arose, approached and took her 
 by the shoulders. "What do you want 
 most in all the world ?" 
 47 8 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 She looked up into his eyes, then sprang 
 off the floor into his arms. "Our garden 
 at last!" 
 
 "No, yours. I ve got a tennis court." 
 
 Nevertheless, Molly, though a new wom 
 an, felt a little badly about it s not being 
 our garden, until Fred made that all right 
 by showing her the plans he had scores of 
 them. "I design it, and you merely pay 
 for it. I have already put in more time 
 upon the job than your money can pos 
 sibly cover, and I ll probably put in a lot 
 
 more." 
 
 (He did, as it turned out. In fact, not 
 only Molly s picture of his namesake, but 
 his picture of her garden the one she had 
 caught him at went into their out-door 
 room. Even then it did not achieve the 
 mellow charm of Fred s painting. It could 
 not expect to do that for a hundred years. 
 But it was a garden, and their own, and 
 they loved it.) 
 
 479 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 "You see that is the new way," he had 
 gone on; "the new woman supplies the 
 money, tosses over a check with an ab 
 stracted scowl try to make that last the 
 month out/ she says, and goes on with her 
 more important affairs. The mere husband 
 supplies the time, taste, and attention to 
 petty details. Man s sphere is the garden. 
 It is all right. We are merely a little in 
 advance of our generation. That s all." 
 
 Molly looked up at him soberly. She 
 had derived an idea from his fooling. "It 
 doesn t really matter so much, which does 
 which, Fred, does it, so long as they do 
 them together." 
 
 It seemed to be a good enough idea for 
 the present. 
 
 480 
 
THE CARROLLS FORTUNE 
 
 SCENES : First act, the House of Sterling and the House of 
 Carroll. Second act : The House of Mammon, and the 
 wicked but inspiring world. 
 
 (A LOGICAL CONCLUSION TO ALL THAT HAS PRECEDED. 
 BY THE SIMPLE AID OF THE " MISTAKEN IDENTITY" TRICK 
 
 (DEAR TO DRAMATISTS) VIRTUE is EASILY SHOWN TO TRI 
 UMPH INEVITABLY, AND, APPLAUDING AS THE CURTAIN IS 
 RUNG DOWN, WE TURN AWAY TO OUR OWN SWEET HOMES.) 
 
 JUST when the affairs of "the Freds" 
 were approaching a crisis, a sordid financial 
 crisis, the enormously wealthy Mr. Sterling 
 recurred in their orbit, like a comet, to 
 brighten their horizon. 
 
 Mr. Sterling had helped to avert financial 
 panics in Wall Street, but to the Carrolls he 
 was better known as that horribly rich per 
 son who had once rented their house during 
 horse-show week at the near-by country club, 
 and liked it so well that he afterward sent 
 481 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 his secretary out to buy it one afternoon 
 when not too busy with other things. It 
 has already been related in these annals 
 how the Freds had cruelly refused to sell at 
 any price because they liked it so well 
 themselves and because Mr. Sterling was 
 hardly worthy of such a charming place as 
 theirs. They were painters, and he was a 
 mere millionaire. 
 
 Now, some men might have been dis 
 mayed by this rebuff. Not so Mr. Ster 
 ling. He consoled himself by secretly secur 
 ing options upon the greater part of the 
 adjoining township. Then he let it leak 
 out that he proposed to establish a country- 
 seat worthy of him upon the most command 
 ing site of all this land, thus making a 
 market for what he did not want at prices 
 which reimbursed him for the entire opera 
 tion. So he was now engaged upon the 
 amiable pastime of crowning an unsuspect 
 ing American hill with an Italian villa whose 
 south fagade was almost as extensive as the 
 home hole at the golf links, thus giving 
 honest employment to many workmen. 
 482 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 "As exuberant and spectacular as the 
 Villa Caprarola," said Molly Carroll con 
 temptuously. 
 
 "More so/ said Fred, sniffing at the 
 many wide-spreading terraces, the flam 
 boyant redundancy. "That man Peters 
 must be having the time of his life. He s 
 going to beat Vignola at his own game!" 
 
 Wilson Peters had risen in the world since 
 he had been the Carrolls architect. He was 
 now the Sterlings architect. 
 
 It is possible that Mr. Sterling had never 
 heard of Caprarola or its designer. At any 
 rate, the Carrolls derived a certain satisfac 
 tion from thinking so. But Mr. Sterling 
 would not have cared a hang about that. 
 Why talk about such things when you have 
 the money to buy them. Money talks. The 
 Sterling place when finished could be seen 
 from miles around to be more expensive 
 than any of the estates in that part of the 
 country, and it was also clear that he would 
 have spent even more upon it if any one had 
 told him how. True architecture should 
 483 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 always be an expression of the individuality 
 of the builder. 
 
 Well, having erected one of the show- 
 places in America, he now desired to deco 
 rate its interior in such a way that those 
 Americans and visiting foreigners who were 
 privileged to penetrate the barocco entrance 
 would admire the owner s noble art of spar 
 ing no expense from the inside point of 
 view. And that is how the painter and the 
 billionaire met again upon a business basis. 
 
 For Mr. Sterling had decided to have "a 
 symposium of leading American artists" 
 represented upon his walls, instead of im 
 porting foreign labor for the purpose, as 
 others of our aristocracy often do, on the 
 same principle that they buy foreign titles 
 for their daughters, nothing being too good 
 for them. This Captain of Industry was a 
 patriot, and America was good enough for 
 him, he said. He believed in encouraging 
 home industries. That was how he began 
 stepping heavenward toward the dizzy 
 heights of high finance. 
 484 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 Now, Frederic Carroll was not so well 
 known as some of the others on Mr. Ster 
 ling s type-written list, but experts in such 
 matters had said that he was worthy to 
 be there. Besides, Sterling had been im 
 pressed by the young man s independence 
 and therefore by his pictures; had bought 
 some of them once, he believed; and wanted 
 to help the poor artist along. He was a 
 kind man, and wealth is a sacred trust, and 
 we are here to help one another. After all, 
 we have but one life to lead. 
 
 Mrs. Sterling, it may be added, observed 
 that the Carrolls, notwithstanding their lack 
 of outward and visible signs of inward and 
 financial grace, seemed to have an effectual 
 calling list. They were popular among a 
 God-fearing colony of conservative wealth, 
 where Mrs. Sterling proposed to be popular 
 too. Every little thing helps. 
 
 The Carrolls, too unworldly to see any 
 such motive, were delighted. They thought 
 it spoke well not only for their position in 
 the world of art, but especially for the 
 Sterlings taste. It was encouraging to 
 485 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 see their fellow-countrymen making prog 
 ress. The Carrolls, too, were patriots. 
 Besides, they needed the money. The 
 children were growing up, and seemed to 
 take it for granted that they would get an 
 education and the other "advantages" and 
 disadvantages their parents had received. 
 
 All the preliminary overtures were de 
 lightful. The Sterlings beamed upon the 
 Carrolls and invited them to dine in the 
 vast, new-smelling house in order to talk the 
 project over. The Carrolls beamed upon 
 the Sterlings and graciously overlooked the 
 fact that the new-comers had not yet been 
 invited to dine at "The Meadows," as the 
 Carroll house was called on their letter- 
 paper but never elsewhere. 
 
 They admired the house as much as they 
 could, Fred whispering to Molly as she re 
 joined him after taking off her wraps, 
 "Why, there s nothing very bad here." 
 
 Each side politely put the other at ease 
 
 all through the long, elaborate dinner. 
 
 "We cannot all have the sacred trust of 
 
 wealth," was the benign attitude of the 
 
 486 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 hosts, "but let us be kind to those not so 
 blessed." 
 
 "We cannot all have birth, breeding, and 
 a sense of the beautiful," was the tactful 
 attitude of their guests; "let us keep them 
 from suspecting it." 
 
 "Now," said Mr. Sterling expansively to 
 the painter, who was lighting one of his 
 host s cigars with the pious carefulness of a 
 connoisseur who seldom had a chance at 
 such delicious ones, "I ll show you the little 
 room you are to make famous." He led 
 the way. "Here it is our library." 
 
 Fred raised his fastidious nose. He blew 
 smoke in thoughtful silence. He looked 
 about the "little room," which was even 
 more expansive than its master, with the 
 critical, authoritative air of the expert, ob 
 livious of the owner, his millions, his power 
 a master craftsman busy with his craft. 
 Mr. Sterling suddenly felt dwarfed and 
 neglected. He did not like it but it amused 
 him. He had often felt this same curious 
 atmosphere of dominance when physicians 
 and lawyers were summoned to his presence. 
 487 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 Being of the dominating sort himself he was 
 always inclined to resent it though he could 
 not have told just why, for after all had he 
 not the money to command their expert 
 services ? He had. 
 
 "It s a good room," said the painter with 
 eloquent simplicity. "Peters did a good 
 job here." And he strode down the centre 
 of the room to get another point of view. 
 
 "Of course it s a good room," said the 
 owner tagging on behind the expert. "Now, 
 what I want done But Carroll did not 
 hear, for in his arrogant stride (as if he 
 owned the whole place) he had stopped 
 abruptly. There upon the wall hung a 
 celebrated picture he had heard of all his 
 life, but had never seen before an old mas 
 ter which had recently found a new one. 
 The artist forgot about the library, forgot 
 the ladies who had joined him in it, even 
 forgot what he was there for, as he gazed in 
 reverent silence at the canvas, and from that 
 time forth owned it as Mr. Sterling never 
 would or could own it. However, as he did 
 not take it down from the wall this did not 
 488 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 disturb the lawful possessor. On the con 
 trary, the latter was pleased with the paint 
 er s tribute to his prowess. He looked at 
 the picture himself, then at the artist, and 
 at the picture again. It belonged to him. 
 He had bought it. 
 
 "Lord! we are lucky to have that here in 
 the colony/ said Fred turning to his wife. 
 And he heaved a sigh of great satisfaction. 
 
 "Well, I think we ought all to .do our 
 little part to encourage art," said the ac 
 quisitive genius modestly. "And I mean 
 to have only the best here. Now let s get 
 down to business." 
 
 Mr. Sterling, it seems, wanted a big alle 
 gorical presentation of The Search for Truth 
 running clear around the library over the 
 books fine new books all of them latest 
 editions. 
 
 Fred smiled tactfully and suggested some 
 thing else. "I used to go in for allegorical 
 stunts when I was young," he said, "but 
 I ve lived it down since." 
 
 The free use of colloquialisms, not to say 
 slang, on the part of the Nicest people was 
 489 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 always perplexing to the Sterling daughters, 
 who had been working nights to acquire 
 culturine for they had inherited the acquis 
 itive temperament. Such flippancy always 
 made them blink, and in this case it seemed 
 so incongruous with Mr. Carroll s lingering 
 taint of a Boston accent. That was not the 
 way high-life parts talked on the stage or 
 in Irving Lawton s stories. It is so disil 
 lusionizing when life is not true to fiction. 
 They grew sceptical of Mr. Carroll s being 
 "a real artist," after all. He had been not 
 a bit absent-minded during the dinner, re 
 membering to help himself bountifully as 
 each worthy course was presented. He 
 wore a conventional evening tie and instead 
 of a Vandyke beard he had a charming 
 wife. 
 
 But Mr. Sterling had warmed to the 
 painter, for the old man detested the lah- 
 de-dah manner of certain high-brows. So 
 he too smiled tactfully, but still seemed keen 
 for Truth. 
 
 Fred stopped smiling and explained kindly 
 but emphatically that if he did anything at 
 490 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 all it would have to be "a representation of 
 life not a misrepresentation." 
 
 Mr. Sterling stopped smiling and sug 
 gested kindly but emphatically that it was 
 his library. 
 
 "But it s my work/ said the painter, 
 smiling again. 
 
 This gave Mr. Sterling pause. Then he 
 said "Twenty thousand dollars" the la 
 dies having disappeared and now he too 
 srniled again. 
 
 This gave Fred pause. Then he scowled 
 and threw up his hands. "Look here," he 
 said, "you d better get young De Courcey 
 on the job. He s a good fellow, and is 
 given to doing searches for truth." 
 
 But Mr. Sterling also scowled, saying: 
 " You d better sleep over it," and the next 
 day sent Wilson Peters, the architect, to 
 finish the negotiations. 
 
 " But you know I don t believe in the mere 
 voluptuous joy of line and color and design," 
 said Fred to Peters. "When I paint I ve 
 got to say something not merely smile and 
 look pleasant." 
 
 491 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 Peters remarked that so-and-so, naming 
 a much higher priced American decorator, 
 was certainly saying something, and say 
 ing it beautifully, on the ceiling of Mr. Ster 
 ling s ballroom. And Peters was right, even 
 though Fred did sniff at his colleague s glad 
 some pink females in appropriate decollete 
 evening clouds. 
 
 "It s charmingly done of course," Fred 
 admitted, "that chap couldn t help doing 
 it charmingly only, to me it s all as silly as 
 an ice-cream soda-water." 
 
 " But the women like it almost as well," 
 said Peters humorously, "and there ll be a 
 bunch of minor millionaires after you fel 
 lows now. If Sterling takes you on that 
 proves to them that you re the real thing. 
 He has become a patron of the arts." 
 
 "Yes," said Fred. "He knows the names, 
 dates, and prices of all the old masters." 
 
 "And can pay them too," rejoined the 
 architect "new masters as well. This 
 seemed to me a grand opening for your 
 future" for the architect had suggested 
 Fred to his client "and twenty thousand 
 492 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 dollars is not bad to open with. He told 
 me positively he would not pay you a cent 
 
 more/ 3 
 
 "It looks big as a house to me," said 
 Fred; "it ought to get a man s best work." 
 
 "Oh, you could pull it off. The old man 
 would never know the difference." 
 
 " But I should. So would you and all the 
 fellows that count." 
 
 "Oh, we d never tell," said the rival of 
 Vignola. "The old man has taken a shine 
 to you." 
 
 "But so have I to him. He s a real per 
 son. He deserves the best there is in the 
 market for the price. I could never give it 
 my best. It isn t my sort of thing. You 
 had no business recommending me in the 
 first place. In fact, you ought to be 
 ashamed of yourself." 
 
 "Thanks, old man, thanks. I had an 
 idea I was doing you a friendly turn." 
 Peters dropped his eyes. "We were friends 
 once, you know." Pete wanted to "patch 
 it all up." 
 
 "Oh rot!" said Fred, shrugging his 
 493 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 shoulders, "you know I m grateful to you, 
 and all that but the simple fact is, though 
 I didn t care to admit it to Sterling, De 
 Courcey can do that sort of thing better. 
 You know that as well as I do." 
 
 The architect looked at his old friend a 
 moment in quizzical silence. "A magnifi 
 cent gesture," he said, and took his depart 
 ure, looking hurt. 
 
 Well, in the end young De Courcey got 
 the commission, and Sterling got his Search 
 for Truth, running rampant all around the 
 library a very able piece of work all the 
 same and the pig-headed painter got noth 
 ing but a disappointment. 
 
 There was no magnificent gesture about 
 it. A year previously Wilson Peters physi 
 cian had sent him to a well-known surgeon 
 to have his appendix removed. The physi 
 cian had often performed that now simple 
 operation in his younger days at the hospital. 
 He could have done it again. There was 
 no magnificent gesture about that. Every 
 year some of Peters own competitors turned 
 down thousands of dollars worth of work 
 
 494 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 because it wasn t the kind of work they 
 believed in doing. No gesture at all. 
 
 The colony however, when the story 
 leaked out, was delighted, for it was a con 
 servative crowd, and resented the melo 
 dramatic entrance of the new billionaire, 
 especially certain too-conservative business 
 men who had long cast thoughtful glances 
 upon that fine tract of land. For the tribal 
 instinct is strong, and when a young David 
 arises to smite the encroaching Philistine, 
 we all shout "Hosanna! Blessed be the 
 name of the Lord!" no matter what may 
 have been our previous opinion of slings or 
 of harmless young shepherds that use them. 
 
 But this did not help the Carrolls finan 
 cially, and the recurrence of Mr. Sterling in 
 their orbit did not solve their difficulties in 
 the least. It only explained them. 
 
 II 
 
 If no man can serve two masters it goes 
 without saying that two mistresses are still 
 more out of the question, especially when 
 495 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 one of them is so jealous as art is acknowl 
 edged to be by new students at the League 
 every year, and the other so exacting as do 
 mesticity proclaims itself even more elo 
 quently on the first of every month. It was 
 fine to be appreciated by "the chosen few/ 
 but that didn t pay the plumber or any 
 other piper. It is commendable to cling 
 to high ideals but this did not lower the 
 high cost of living. It is noble to be 
 true to a heaven-sent gift, but Carroll had 
 heaven-sent children, and numerous other 
 expenses entailed by a marriage also made 
 in heaven but exported to America. 
 
 Obviously in such a dilemma a man 
 should follow the Biblical injunction 
 "cleave to one and forsake the other." 
 Frederic Carroll was undoubtedly a better 
 painter than provider, so, on the prin 
 ciple of the greatest good to the greatest 
 number, it would seem altruistic nor would 
 precedent be lacking to forsake his wife 
 and family and give himself over entirely 
 to the Other. 
 
 But it is to be feared that Carroll, though 
 496 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 now a matured and thoughtful citizen, inter 
 ested in civic righteousness, lacked this 
 broad racial view of the matter. For he was 
 still trying to be true to both heavenly 
 trusts, and thus was faithful to neither. He 
 loved his work, but unfortunately he loved 
 his family, too. So he led a tortured ex 
 istence, which served him right for keeping 
 up this iniquitous dual life, but it was hard 
 upon all three sides of the triangle his 
 family, his work, and himself. 
 
 Every year now Fred and Molly gave up 
 a few more of the "things they were accus 
 tomed to," a few more luxuries they had 
 once considered necessities. Fred wore old 
 clothes to buy his children new ones. 
 Molly made her own. That was not hard 
 poverty; merely hard luck. They were 
 working to live, instead of living to work, as 
 they had intended the common lot. It 
 was not the high cost of living, but the cost 
 of high living that was troubling the Ameri 
 can people, as was ably remarked by a rail 
 road president when interviewed in his pri 
 vate car. But these orthodox sacrifices in 
 
 497 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 the interest of the children had begun to 
 tell upon the parents, and as the children 
 were dependent upon the parents, it might 
 soon affect even the children, for whom it 
 was all supposed to be done. It was a 
 goodly sight to behold Fred and Molly 
 gaining character by sacrifice, but the chil 
 dren preferred beefsteak, being gross ma 
 terialists. At the present rate even they 
 might have a chance, early in life, to see 
 how they liked Self-abnegation, Self-sacri 
 fice, and all the other selfish things the 
 older generation of Carrolls were so fond 
 of writing to Fred about. Surely even 
 stern Aunt Bella would hardly approve of 
 this newest generation s lending a hand at 
 that. Its hands were too small. 
 
 But the pleasing picture of his little 
 daughter playing in the sunshine outside 
 the studio door did not seem to inspire 
 Frederic Carroll in the propei way, and the 
 rattle of butcher s carts coming up the 
 drive, with something else to be paid for, 
 failed to increase his capacity for work. 
 It only decreased his capacity for play. 
 498 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 The boys did not matter so much, but 
 when this young female looked up at him 
 with her mother s eyes and a smile of femi 
 nine trust that her future was in safe hands, 
 those skilled hands sometimes shook so that 
 her future began to tremble. The orthodox 
 spur of necessity doesn t always work in 
 the orthodox way. Why should it ? It 
 does not seem inevitable that a spirited race 
 horse should show his best gait hitched to a 
 furniture van, however precious the house 
 hold goods therein may be. . . . 
 
 Molly was playing her proper part in her 
 proper sphere. She had even tried, it may 
 be remembered, to break out of her proper 
 sphere. Other helpmeets of her acquaint 
 ance were making helpful incomes as paint 
 ers or illustrators. Some of these were 
 women whom Molly had excelled when they 
 were all girls together in Paris. But while 
 they had been learning their trade this wife 
 had given that one up for another, the an 
 cient and honorable trade of marriage. A 
 few of them had managed to keep both go 
 ing at once with success. "I m afraid I 
 
 499 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 dropped out too long/ said Molly. "I 
 must have won that prize on a fluke. I m 
 just a sweet old-fashioned wife/ she 
 added, caricaturing the well-known tone of 
 self-satisfaction. " That s what we always 
 say, Fred, when we can t or won t be any 
 thing else." 
 
 But her clever mimicry sometimes failed 
 to amuse him as formerly. He stared at 
 her with impolite abstraction an old-fash 
 ioned woman at that, and he a Carroll! 
 
 "I ve got an idea!" she exclaimed with 
 sudden enthusiasm. "I can t help being a 
 sweet, old-fashioned wife, but I can easily 
 stop being a real lady. So she reduced 
 her domestic staff to its lowest terms, and 
 stopped "helping her husband in his work," 
 because she had so much of her own to do. 
 The children were not "bringing them to 
 gether" but pulling them apart just when 
 they enjoyed being together most and were 
 profiting by it. ... 
 
 Well, it was bound to come out all right 
 in the end. Aunt Bella said so, and Aunt 
 Bella ought to know. Those lots she had 
 500 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 tried to sell many years ago in the East Side 
 had increased enormously in value. Virtue 
 is always rewarded, and genius always tri 
 umphs over adversity. Aunt Bella said 
 that too. Genius that does not triumph 
 over adversity is never heard of; therefore 
 whoever heard of genius not triumphing 
 over adversity ? 
 
 "I don t want character, I want cash," 
 said Fred opening another letter from dear 
 Aunt Bella. But this one contained not 
 only sound advice, but a substantial check. 
 Fred handed the check over to Molly and 
 read the long letter with a disagreeable 
 smile. 
 
 "Give me back that check," he demanded, 
 and writing a brief, but let us hope consid 
 erate, note of thanks to his beloved aunt, 
 he returned her proffered gift. 
 
 "Well, I admire your pride, at any rate," 
 said Molly. 
 
 "Yes, it will help the children through the 
 hot spell," replied her husband. 
 
 Then why are you returning the check ? " 
 asked Molly. 
 
 501 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 "Read her letter. It seems, she approves 
 of our clinging to our ideals/ and throw 
 ing down old man Sterling s tainted money, 
 but she stipulates almost in so many words 
 that we are to go to church and take an 
 active part in good works. " 
 
 "The horrid old thing!" exclaimed Molly, 
 who had never appreciated Aunt Bella. 
 
 "Now, I shouldn t mind going to church 
 and having a good loaf on Sunday if I 
 could afford the daylight, but I must be too 
 religious! I d go for a rest, but not for a 
 bribe." 
 
 Molly laughed. Then she became seri 
 ous. " But what are we going to do ? We 
 can t keep this up much longer." 
 
 "Why, it s perfectly simple," said Fred, 
 not liking her worried expression. "I ll go 
 back into illustrating again. Irving Lawton 
 is rounding up a new book, called High 
 Tide, or High Life, or something of that 
 sort. I think I can get the job of doing the 
 pretty girls for it. Molly, there s nothing 
 like having a trade to fall back upon." 
 
 "It seems a pity," sighed Molly as he 
 502 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 started for town, "that you should have to 
 go back to that sort of thing at your time 
 of life." 
 
 "I ought never to have gone out of it," 
 mused Fred on the train. 
 
 Now, it would be a shame to leave the 
 impression that the hero of these annals 
 an American hero at that had failed to 
 make money, even as a painter. It would 
 be so disillusionizing. Let us make him a 
 noble hero at once by showing clearly that 
 he made a great deal; not so much as some 
 other painters who did more popular work, 
 or (must it be admitted ?) better work, or 
 even both! All the same, this honest day- 
 laborer, without taking toll of the labor of 
 others, actually earned more than some of 
 us who are blessed by the Lord with great 
 possessions, giving tithes to the poor and 
 thanking God that we are not as that man. 
 
 For, however unbusinesslike Fred may 
 have been during the process of conceiving 
 and producing his wares for the market, 
 alone in his silent studio, removed from the 
 hum of competition and progress, he needed 
 503 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 no guardian when it came to disposing of 
 his finished output. He had inherited his 
 share of Yankee shrewdness along with the 
 less profitable New England conscience. 
 There were enough of the chosen few to 
 pay him the high prices he exacted for his 
 works of genius, grinding the faces of the 
 rich, according to the laws of supply and 
 demand. He could not exploit the poor, 
 even if he wanted to. He could only up 
 lift the affluent. He could not employ un 
 derlings in his one-man plant. He had to 
 operate his factory all alone, or not at all. 
 Nor could he run day and night shifts, 
 because he needed daylight to work in and 
 nights for sleep. 
 
 As a painter he could not take advantage 
 of "the capitalistic system." He had done 
 so as an illustrator. Once upon a time, 
 seeing Irving Lawton glide by in a limou 
 sine acquired by royalties from his interest 
 ing volumes about the Rich/ Fred having 
 just acquired a baby-carriage and feeling 
 poor, went to Horace Beck, already known 
 as "that live young publisher/ and sug- 
 504 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 gested that a picture-book called "The 
 Carroll Girl" might go. It went, and was 
 followed by a calendar or two, thus exploit 
 ing schools for refined young ladies and 
 colleges for raucous young men. Rare 
 copies may still be found here and there, 
 displaying such archaic sleeves, such obso 
 lete hair arrangement that most of these 
 frayed quartos have been relegated to nurs 
 eries presided over by those former school 
 girls and provided for by those former col 
 lege youths. Fred s royalties had helped 
 found his own happy home and Molly s 
 sunny nurseries. Therefore, had he any 
 right to question the justice of the capitalis 
 tic system ? He never dreamed of doing so. 
 He wasn t interested in muck-raking. 
 
 But while he could not take advantage of 
 the capitalistic system as a painter, it kept 
 right on taking advantage of him as a pro 
 vider. In short, this able-bodied man, like 
 all other day-laborers (the only true indi 
 vidualists) was helping to support the 
 families of those blessed by the Lord 
 with the aid of the Supreme Court of the 
 505 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 United States, which can do no wrong. 
 Now, this seems a good deal to ask of an 
 impractical painter who had a good-sized 
 family of his own to support, even though 
 he did believe in "letting good enough 
 alone." 
 
 Moreover, it hardly seems "practical." 
 Mr. Sterling, for instance, was able to sup 
 port himself. He actually did so. Unlike 
 certain members of a conservative colony, 
 whose wives had been looking forward with 
 secret pleasure to snubbing Mrs. Sterling 
 though they were called off from this ami 
 able intention and made to receive the 
 newcomers cordially, because their pro 
 viders had shrewdly invested in the "Ster 
 ling Interests" unlike some of these repre 
 sentatives of old substantial wealth, this 
 new-rich man actually earned a good deal 
 of what he got; maybe twenty per cent., 
 let us say fifteen per cent., at any rate; 
 which would have netted him a million or 
 so a year, and that is not a bad income even 
 for commercial geniuses to earn. He de 
 served more by his country than did Fred 
 506 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 and was getting it. For Mr. Sterling s 
 business ability was not "a mere low order 
 of cunning" as it has been called by some 
 visionary professor who must be envious; 
 Mr. Sterling s was a high order of intelli 
 gence, combined with courage, imagination, 
 and bewildering resourcefulness. He, too, 
 was creative. He was an empire builder, 
 a dreamer, like all great men. That must 
 have been why he and Fred instinctively 
 took to each other. They say great men 
 always recognize and respect each other s 
 greatness. 
 
 But, unlike Fred, he was making his 
 dreams come true; for his were the talents 
 cherished and protected, like wives, by our 
 economic and social arrangements, which 
 husband them. Whereas Fred had to work 
 out his dreams alone, despite handicaps 
 and hinderances. It is, of course, a free 
 country and a man need not eat if he doesn t 
 want to, but Fred and family wanted to, 
 and bought at least eighteen meals a day 
 whether work went well every day or not. 
 
 It is a free country, so Sterling et al. were 
 507 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 not obliged to buy Fred s products unless 
 they wanted to. Art is a mere luxury, like 
 diamond studs. Well, even so, Fred had 
 made them want to. For he too was an 
 able and industrious man and worked fully 
 as hard as the Mr. Sterlings though they 
 would never believe it. In short, they paid 
 his prices, he paid theirs, and he might 
 have kept on doing so, saying "the measure 
 of success is not the amount of money one 
 makes," but for an insuperable difficulty, 
 foreshadowed by all that has been related 
 previously in these veracious annals: Fred 
 had exhausted his capital; just when the 
 demand for his products had become greater 
 than the supply; just when he was dream 
 ing dreams for wonderful work in his ma 
 tured efficiency, work calculated to set the 
 world on fire, as could be proved by Molly, 
 who understood these dreams and approved 
 of them. 
 
 This exhaustion of capital has little refer 
 ence to mere money. He did not need 
 much money to operate his plant success 
 fully; merely enough to meet current per- 
 508 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 sonal expenses. A lot of money would 
 have been a nuisance to him, like having 
 more food than he could conveniently eat. 
 You can t do good work if you have to stop 
 and eat all the time and to store supplies 
 away in the refrigerator. 
 
 There are three prerequisites for the 
 successful conduct of a harmless industry 
 like his machinery, steam, and raw ma 
 terial. He was still young enough to have 
 plenty of steam. He had perfected an effi 
 cient machine of the well-known Carroll 
 model. But he had very little left by this 
 time to dump into the hopper. 
 
 Those who do not understand the ap 
 parently simple piece-work of a sweat-shop 
 like Fred s, seem to think that all a painter 
 has to do is to sit under a white umbrella 
 before a "view" and copy it, smoking a pipe 
 picturesquely and chatting humorously with 
 the natives who look over his shoulder and 
 say: "Well, I know what I like, anyway." 
 But as a matter of every-day practical, tem 
 peramental fact, even the painting of corn- 
 shocks bears evidence of the mountains the 
 59 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 painter has, or has not, sketched and climbed, 
 and "communed" with; of the walks and 
 talks on and about them with others of his 
 craft who speak his own peculiar language. 
 What a man does in his studio is but a 
 rendering of what he gets outside. 
 
 Every year Fred had been getting less 
 outside. Every year he had more to pay 
 but less to say. He had used up his ideas; 
 he could not stop to get new ones. So 
 journs abroad to study the foreign schools 
 had been abandoned long ago to pay for 
 the children s schools at home; sketching 
 trips to wild and rocky headlands had gone 
 into summer trips to tame and safe sea 
 shores. Meanwhile his critical faculties had 
 continued to develop, unfortunately, until 
 now they were far ahead of his capacity 
 for creation. He had to build his creations 
 up from meagre remembered suggestions, 
 somew r hat as a paleontologist constructs 
 prehistoric mammals from the fossil im 
 prints of a left hind foot. Most of Fred s 
 canvases he now hid aw ; ay in portfolios, 
 hoping some day to have the leisure and 
 5 10 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 exuberance to breathe the glow of life into 
 them. He might have sold them on his 
 reputation, but he knew they were not good, 
 and did not try to sell them. He was at 
 one of those appalling periods in the career 
 of many a painter, when he feels that the 
 end has come. Everything since and in 
 cluding his marriage apparently led to this 
 result. Mild extravagance and mistakes 
 of judgment hastened the day but did not 
 cause it. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Horace Beck, the live young publisher, 
 said: "Sure delighted! We didn t sup 
 pose you d deign to touch it." 
 
 "Well, I come high," said Fred. 
 
 "I think there ll be no difficulty in meet 
 ing your price," said the publisher. "Fred, 
 you know I ve always said that you were a 
 chump not to sail in and take it away from 
 these cheap skates who are making thou 
 sands with their pert-faced, empty-nozzled 
 matinee girls. Now there s some class about 
 your work." 
 
 5" 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 "Thanks/ said Fred. 
 
 " You and Irving used to make a winning 
 combination. This new school of artists 
 don t know the real thing when they see it; 
 and most of them never see it except at 
 long range." 
 
 "Thanks," said Fred; "I ll try to live 
 up to Irving." 
 
 "Oh, that s all right as high-brow s sar 
 casm, but Irving delivers the goods. He 
 makes more out of me than I make out of 
 him and I got over my high-brow notions 
 before I d been out of college three years. 
 Ideals are all right but they don t pay bills." 
 
 "You re right," said Fred. . . . 
 
 The Carrolls were now so hard up that 
 Molly acted as Fred s model for the illus 
 trations "Though my gowns aren t just 
 right," she said smiling. 
 
 "But we can fake the latest fashions 
 from these Parisian magazines," said Fred. 
 
 She had to neglect her children to do this, 
 
 but then the actual old-fashioned mother 
 
 did not dream of taking such fastidious 
 
 care of her children as the much-maligned 
 
 512 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLb 
 
 modern mother does. So it must have been 
 all right. 
 
 " I m going to make a good thing of this/ 
 said Fred working hard. "I m going to 
 show those cocky kids how to draw real 
 women, with bones inside of their bodies 
 and souls inside of their eyes." 
 
 "It s the artist in him/ thought Molly, 
 though she sighed to think of the amount 
 of time he was spending on these pot 
 boilers. And yet it wasn t the artist in 
 Molly that made her want to put an untidy 
 room to rights whenever she saw one, even 
 in other people s homes. Nor is it the 
 artist in carpenters, including some union 
 carpenters, that make them prefer to "fin 
 ish up the job right." Fred was a skilled 
 amateur carpenter himself. Perhaps it was 
 merely the carpenter in him. More likely 
 it was the normal human craving, slightly 
 exaggerated perhaps by habit, to make 
 good things better. It isn t even confined 
 to humans. Birds and beasts have the 
 same proclivity though to be sure in man 
 it is sometimes perverted by the pecuniary 
 513 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 consideration which we have begun to ac 
 cept axiomatically as the only kind of ef 
 fective " competition." It is so perverted, 
 indeed, that even when men like brother 
 Archie go in for civic house-cleaning their 
 motives are apt to be questioned cynically. 
 Work, which is as natural in a world made 
 by and for it as eating, has been turned 
 into drudgery for so many people for so 
 long a time that the Hebraic slave concep 
 tion of heaven has become a loafing place 
 with expensive furniture and a decorative 
 scheme so garrish that it would drive fastid 
 ious Fred Carroll to some other place. 
 
 Well, Fred s drawings were returned. 
 "The public doesn t want character," said 
 Horace, "it wants clothes." He begged 
 Fred to get a new model one that looks 
 joyous, like a well-bred school girl at a dance. 
 That s what the public wants. They don t 
 want to think. They want to forget. Give 
 us something in your old manner." 
 
 Fred redrew his girls. He attempted to 
 imitate his former self a most difficult 
 thing to do. It is still more difficult to 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 give an illusion of youth and joy when one 
 is feeling desperate, though many have to 
 do it every night of their lives. Fred made 
 a valiant effort, but the former charm was 
 gone. The urban touch had become sub 
 urban. He had not done figure work of 
 late. Models were scarce in the country. 
 . . . The drawings were declined. One 
 of the new "cocky kids" got the job of illus 
 trating Irving s best seller. 
 
 Molly was aghast. "The audacity of 
 them! declining work of yours when they 
 have a chance at it!" 
 
 "Well, they aren t in business for their 
 health," said Fred trying to hide his cha 
 grin, "they ve got to publish what the 
 public wants. And the public wants to for 
 get. Among other things, they have for 
 gotten me, I fancy. My little reputation as 
 a painter doesn t help much with the people 
 who read Irving s stories. I m like you, 
 Molly, I dropped out too long. I m afraid 
 I ve lost the hang of doing black and white." 
 
 This was doubtless true. The work of 
 the cocky kid, a by no means cheap skate, 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 was better than Fred s, though neither of 
 the Carrolls would admit it. 
 
 Each tried to make light of it to deceive 
 the other. Even this did not succeed. 
 They were too well acquainted by this 
 time. 
 
 Said Molly, " I can t be a model wife, or 
 even a wife-model." She laughed and 
 patted his shoulder. "All the same, I ad 
 mire you for despising popularity." 
 
 "But I don t despise it, I love it," said 
 Fred. "It would be lots of fun to have 
 the girls along the avenue point me out 
 again and say, That s Frederic Carroll. 
 
 "Which is it you love that or the pretty 
 girls ? " asked Molly teasingly. 
 
 "Both," he answered. "When I get old 
 enough not to get excited at a pretty face 
 or a racing fire-engine, I want to die if 
 that is " with a glance at his sturdy chil 
 dren playing in the twilight outside "if 
 I can afford it." 
 
 "All right," said Molly, ignoring that 
 last touch, "so long as you don t tell any 
 of the others that you love them." 
 516 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 "Why not?" he rejoined. "As for you, 
 you know it already I don t have to tell 
 you." 
 
 "So I ve noticed," said Molly. "Come 
 along, its time to dress for dinner." For 
 they still dined in state even though their 
 meals were becoming meagre. She called 
 the children in, and remarked to Fred: 
 "Let us eat, drink, and be merry, for to 
 morrow we live." 
 
 It is commendable to be facetious about 
 our troubles, but that does not cure them. 
 It is much easier to be humorous about 
 them after they are safely over. The Car- 
 rolls kept this gayety going for a while, but 
 the children in the mean time kept on eat 
 ing. The habit had grown upon them. 
 
 Now that Fred was failing, both as a 
 painter and a provider, married life be 
 came a confused disillusionment, home a 
 place to get away from as often as he con 
 scientiously could. But as he conscien 
 tiously couldn t very often, he stayed at 
 home and became a nuisance to every one 
 in it. The children were no longer a joy 
 517 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 to him. When they came "romping" into 
 the studio, after the orthodox manner of 
 "little tots," with the smiling approval all 
 children, dogs, and old ladies bestow upon 
 men of his type, Fred trying to paint while 
 knowing he couldn t, turned upon them 
 like a traitor and drove them out with loud 
 rage. And once when Molly flew to their 
 rescue, he turned on her. . . . After that 
 she would never be able to say, as some 
 weeping widows do: "He never spoke a 
 cross word to me!" These two had lived 
 together all this time without a single vulgar 
 row. Well, it s never too late to learn. 
 
 Now, it would be too bad if, after taking 
 all the trouble to study an honest trade, 
 and to slight it honorably for marriage; to 
 master that difficult art also, to build a 
 house and have it find itself, to beget a 
 brood of children and have them well 
 started if then the whole edifice of a happy 
 home, a good clean unit of the State, were 
 to go to smash, spoiling not merely the 
 work in the world this man was born for, 
 but, most unkindly of all, the lives of those 
 518 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 born to him and for whom he had slighted 
 his work! That would be rubbing it in. 
 It would seem such a sheer waste of good 
 horse-power, efficient usefulness, and, alas! 
 even character. 
 
 One would suppose that in the case of 
 worthy couples like the Carrolls, doing the 
 right thing in the right way; stanch up 
 holders of our best institutions, yet valiantly 
 shedding their cunning little caste preju 
 dices; professed optimists, yet doggedly 
 trying to maintain a family and a sense of 
 humor at the same time; meeting poverty 
 together bravely, yet stubbornly ignoring the 
 fact that if they had not come together they 
 need not have met it at all in such cases 
 surely we have a reasonable right to expect, 
 or at any rate a sentimental habit of de 
 manding, that the ordinary arrangement of 
 cause and effect should be suspended. 
 
 And yet nature s law of the survival of 
 the fittest ought to be inexorable. For 
 how otherwise can we hope for justice or 
 any sound optimistic philosophy ? True, 
 the ravens fed Elijah in the wilderness. 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 But we have changed all that since then 
 The wilderness has been taken over by the 
 Sterlings, has been made to bloom by the 
 corporations. The natural resources of the 
 earth which God gave to man, man has 
 given to men by due process of law for the 
 larger good. If the chirping Carrolls were to 
 be fed by any ravens, the latter would have 
 to raid cold storage warehouses and thus 
 cut in upon the divine right of dividends. 
 
 Aunt Bella still believed that the Lord 
 would not forsake them that feared him. 
 Witness the case of Joshua who needed a 
 few more hours daylight for the worthy 
 purpose of slaying some more of his fellow- 
 men. Possibly the war-correspondent s 
 despatch got by the censor. The report 
 must have been grossly exaggerated. It is 
 so irreverent to believe in a kinder, juster 
 God who does not break His own laws, 
 giving us eyes to search them, intelligence 
 enough to understand some of them, and 
 capacity to formulate our own accordingly. 
 If we have defied or amended His law so 
 as to read: "The survival of the fittest for 
 520 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 getting money," it is surely quite orthodox 
 to request Him to change what we have 
 wrought. But it would not be upheld by 
 the Supreme Court. Somebody had to 
 earn even Aunt Bella s unearned increment. 
 Nowadays money does not descend from 
 heaven like manna. Some of Aunt Bella s 
 fortune was earned by African traders and 
 African slaves; not all of it could have been 
 earned by the business acumen of that 
 shrewd ancestor (only by marriage) who 
 had manufactured Medford rum. Other 
 more or less honest traders and other more 
 or less free slaves were doubling and trip 
 ling her fortune now in the slums. 
 
 No, a wiser and more practical course, 
 one more in accord with our institutions, 
 would be to make statutes compelling every 
 one to be fit for making, or at least getting, 
 money, or else prevent them from making 
 marriages and begetting children, thus re 
 producing their unfit species four little 
 Carrolls, for instance, all possibly deficient 
 in the commercial instinct, each very likely 
 susceptible of marriage when the time came. 
 521 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 To be sure, we are doing our best, with 
 out the aid of written laws. Law, we are 
 told, is merely the established habit of 
 the community. Despite the handicap of 
 baccalaureate sermons, greater proportions 
 of the youth of our land every year are 
 wisely casting aside false ideas with their 
 graduating gowns, in accordance with the 
 unwritten law " Seek ye first the king 
 dom of Wealth and its affluence and all 
 else shall be added unto you." (See almost 
 any class triennial record.) For they are 
 taught now from the cradle that "Man s 
 chief end is to glorify Capital and enjoy It 
 forever." 
 
 Every year, likewise, the proportion of 
 dreary boarding-houses increases, and the 
 building of more or less chaste bachelor 
 apartments is a flourishing industry. Al 
 ready one woman in every seven, with or 
 without a hungry heart, gains a livelihood 
 by some other means than marriage, de 
 spite our best efforts to push back these sex 
 less creatures into their true spheres by 
 underpaying them. 
 
 522 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 And as for children, despite the altruistic 
 advice of Kaisers and their friends, the 
 family that is the "nice" family is rap 
 idly dwindling throughout our entire civil 
 ized world. In our country, according to 
 unpleasant statistics, the old American stock 
 will soon have disappeared entirely. We 
 breed most of our consumers abroad now, 
 or among the "lower classes" who have 
 immigrated from abroad. The "intelligent 
 classes" do not seem to like the prospect of 
 their, children or their children s children 
 becoming commercial or domestic servants 
 to the Sterlings children. It is selfish. 
 They ought to get a racial sense. The 
 way to bring it about is by handing each 
 individual a higher ideal. That is the way 
 the church has cured the evils of corporate 
 wealth. 
 
 But Fred Carroll was at last beginning to 
 realize that he had committed the unpar 
 donable sin. He had blasphemed against 
 the unholy ghost which haunts so many of 
 our homes. Sin is any want of conformity 
 unto or transgression of the law of Wealth. 
 523 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 And Fred, poor hopeless sinner, had cursed 
 money. He who does not worship the 
 golden calf shall surely be trodden beneath 
 its cloven hoof. 
 
 Well, now that he had been converted, he 
 went to brother Archie to confess, hoping 
 piously for absolution. 
 
 IV 
 
 Fred found his brother scowlingly busy 
 in one of our huge, modern law offices oc 
 cupying a whole floor in a tall sky-scraper 
 and employing numerous alert underlings 
 with very intelligent faces and extremely 
 polite manners. The caller had to wait 
 his turn. Then Archie saluted his brother 
 with the cordial: "Well, what-can-I-do-for- 
 you" briskness of a man of affairs kind, 
 though incisive. 
 
 Fred was businesslike enough to go 
 straight to the point. "Archie, do you 
 recall the time years ago when I skipped 
 out to Paris, instead of accepting a posi 
 tion Uncle Thomas offered me in his bank ? 
 524 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 You said I was a fool. I said I would show 
 you. Well, I ve come to say that you were 
 right/ 
 
 This was really too straight to the point. 
 Those who come to lawyers for advice 
 seldom state their cases so succinctly. The 
 legal mind was perplexed. "What the 
 devil!" said Archie, not being in his Sun 
 day-school class, where they believe in the 
 devil, but in Wall Street, where they 
 don t. 
 
 Fred smiled drolly and shrugged his 
 broad shoulders. "I m thinking of drift 
 ing into money-making, as father used to 
 call it. Just how does one go about it, 
 please?" 
 
 Archie looked at his brother a moment, 
 then burst out laughing. " Ton ? in busi 
 ness!" The elder raised his scowling eye 
 brows. "Are you crazy?" 
 
 "Pretty nearly. Or else, I m just coming 
 to my senses. Rather late in life, I sup 
 pose not too late, I hope." 
 
 Archie, able lawyer, experienced in re 
 ceiving confidences, trained for piercing 
 525 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 below the surface to the essentials of things, 
 detected a basis of seriousness under Fred s 
 flippancy. Fred was not feeling very flip 
 pant! Still, we should hardly expect him 
 to say, "Please be sorry for me." He was 
 not given to telling hard-luck stories. 
 
 The elder brother had understood vaguely 
 that affairs had not been going altogether 
 well at The Meadows. He had been tempted 
 more than once to supplement business 
 advice with financial aid; would have done 
 so, but for his younger brother s foolish 
 pride, for which Archie had a frank admira 
 tion. He and his wife, the pink and placid 
 Julia, often joked among their intimates 
 about the artistic wing of the distinguished 
 House, its happy-go-lucky life in the coun 
 try; its self-centred narrowness; its pictu 
 resque ups and downs, and its humorous 
 aptitude for finally arriving safely, like a 
 well-crated picture "this side up with 
 care." . . . Therefore the more aston 
 ishing, this sudden announcement of sur 
 render. Fred was too temperamental. 
 
 "Oh, come!" said the acting head of the 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 house, not unsympathetically. "What s it 
 all about ? You re all right." 
 
 "Then everything else is all wrong." 
 
 "Oh, there are other things than money. 
 You mustn t grab at fame and fortune 
 both. Why be a hog?" 
 
 "I don t think I ve been a hog exactly 
 not so s you d notice it," said the painter 
 with that shrug of the shoulders which still 
 seemed to all the other Carrolls "Parisian" 
 enough to annoy them. It was not "like 
 us" as e timable Aunt Bella used to say. 
 Fred added, "There may be other things 
 than money, just as there are other things 
 than air but you can t get any of them 
 without it; not even this fame business you 
 mention. I haven t been bothering about 
 fame much lately, Archie." 
 
 "Oh, you mustn t get so easily discour 
 aged. Every man has his early struggles 
 for recognition. He can t become a man 
 otherwise. Don t give up your ideals!" 
 
 "Where have I heard all that before?" 
 Fred mused aloud, with a slightly sarcastic 
 smile. "I had my early struggles all right. 
 527 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 I had them early. There s no kick coming 
 about recognition. I ve had all I deserve 
 of that too." 
 
 "Of course, you have/ rejoined Archie, 
 changing his first tone to a very agreeable 
 one. "Why, only last evening at the Cen 
 tury that distinguished French portrait 
 painter what s his name ? that visiting 
 Academician said to me, Ah, so you are 
 a brother of Frederic Carroll? You seel 
 had been bragging about it. I always do! 
 What has become of your brother? He 
 used to be in my atelier; one of my favorite 
 eleves gar^on de beaucoup J avenir, 9 or 
 something equally complimentary. Why, 
 we re all proud of you, Fred. You are 
 the bright, particular star of the family, 
 as Uncle Thomas enjoys putting it." 
 
 But the widely reputed vanity of the ar 
 tistic temperament did not purr in the 
 orthodox way. A cynical smile drew down 
 the corners of the artist s straight lips. 
 "All right, Archie, I m a perfect wonder! 
 Let it go at that. But that doesn t seem 
 to help Molly and the kids particularly." 
 528 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 "Now, now, you mustn t get to worrying. 
 It s bad for you. It s weak!" 
 
 "Yes, that s easy to say too." 
 
 Archie produced cigars. "Fred, we all 
 have our little set-backs at times." Archie 
 extended a lighted match. "I know how 
 it is myself." He threw away the match. 
 " Business is awfully slack just now in fact, 
 I would have stayed up in the country to-day 
 but for a couple of directors meetings 
 and an important conference this afternoon. 
 Fred, you don t appreciate your happy lot. 
 I m afraid you ve taken to looking at the 
 dark side of things. That s not like your 
 old buoyant self. Why, you lead an ideal 
 life! You don t appreciate your independ 
 ence. You are your own master; you can 
 work when you please and where you please 
 without saying by your leave to any 
 one! You have a happy home life, ador 
 able children, a charming little place among 
 those beautiful hills, in a delightful social 
 set; you have the affection of your many 
 friends, the respect of your competitors, 
 and, best of all, the love and admiration of a 
 5 2 9 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 lovely wife. Why, man ! what more do you 
 want?" 
 
 "Nothing," said Fred, who had waited 
 passively; "except to pay for it." 
 
 Archie threw up his hands and laughed 
 appreciatively; the wind had been taken 
 out of his sails. A perplexed scowl suc 
 ceeded his enthusiasm. When all the copy 
 book maxims are exhausted one has to open 
 the book of life as it really is. But Archie, 
 as it happened, had read both books more 
 thoroughly than his brother. "Bad as all 
 that, eh?" he asked solicitously. "What 
 seems to be the trouble?" 
 
 Fred, his reserve now melted by brotherly 
 sympathy, dumped out the facts the bare 
 results. He did not dwell on the causes. 
 Besides, he did not understand them, him 
 self. 
 
 Archie looked grave. Here was an im 
 portant matter to consider after all. Ar 
 tists and other impractical children really 
 needed guardians. Fred ought to have 
 come to him long ago. "Look here, Fred, 
 I still believe in you. I have always done 
 530 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 so, ever since the family tried to starve you 
 out in Paris and didn t succeed." He 
 hesitated, looked out of the window. "Just 
 as a favor to me, why not let me finance you 
 over this hard place. Now, don t get up 
 pish! That sort of thing is done every day 
 here in the Street. I m willing to invest in 
 your future; so you ought to be willing to 
 let me, if you believe in yourself." 
 
 "But I don t! I can t tell what s the 
 matter, Archie, but somehow I ve lost it. 
 I m afraid I should never pay dividends on 
 your investment." 
 
 "Well, what if you didn t ? Great Scott! 
 Aren t we brothers ? I could stand it. I ve 
 made more money than is good for me, as 
 it is." 
 
 "Perhaps you could stand it," said Fred, 
 "but / couldn t. I don t care to be helped. 
 Thank you, Archie. I want to help my 
 self." 
 
 Archie glowed internally. After all, blood 
 will tell, he thought. Fred was a true Car 
 roll. More could hardly be said for any one. 
 
 "What do you want to do?" 
 531 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 "Make money the only thing to do, 
 when you re married. It s wrong to do 
 anything else." 
 
 "And you think you can do that, do 
 you?" Archie could not restrain a laugh, 
 but it was not an unkind laugh. Family ties 
 are often stretched, almost to the breaking 
 point, but if they do not break like elastic 
 bands they snap back with sudden strength 
 when the tension is released by trouble. 
 These two had always admired but never 
 appreciated each other until the present 
 moment. Archie felt an almost overpower 
 ing tenderness for his young brother, the 
 ancient clan passion, recalling as it always 
 does to brothers their boyhood days, when 
 the smaller was aided in his fights with big 
 ger boys from other clans no matter how 
 they may have quarrelled (and appalled 
 Aunt Bella) when together alone. Archie 
 (oh, that we should have to expose it in a 
 Carroll!) could almost have embraced his 
 younger brother, like a member of one of 
 those absurd Latin races. But (never fear!) 
 Archie being a true Carroll himself, of the 
 532 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 noble Anglo-Saxon strain, infinitely superior 
 in every way, only said: "By the by, have 
 you anything on for the rest of the day ? " 
 
 "Oh, I ll go back to my charming home 
 in the charming hills," Fred replied with a 
 laugh, "to my lovely wife, my adorable 
 children, my affectionate friends, and all 
 my other valuable assets, and try to turn 
 out work." He paused. "I feel about as 
 much up to it as you would be to win the 
 hundred-yard dash after being licked in a 
 mile run." Archie had been an inter 
 collegiate champion in his undergraduate 
 days. 
 
 But the lawyer, who had won greater 
 prizes since that time, though none, by the 
 way, of which he was more proud, ignored 
 the aptness of the complimentary simile. 
 He was watching his brother s tired eyes, 
 saw lines about them that were new to him. 
 "You ll do nothing of the sort," he said, 
 after the manner of years ago. "You are 
 going up to the University Club now, where 
 we can thresh this thing out over a bang-up 
 luncheon. There s no one there to inter- 
 533 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 rupt, at this time of day, except doctors, 
 and naval officers, and a few abstracted 
 literary fellows. I ll telephone for the run 
 about and we ll take a spin out on Long 
 Island. I need some fresh air myself." 
 
 "I thought you had an important con 
 ference," said Fred. 
 
 "Oh, that doesn t amount to anything." 
 It might have amounted to one of Archie s 
 enormous fees, but this other conference 
 now seemed more important. 
 
 "All right," said Fred, slangily, "you re 
 on!" But his eyes glistened. He too had 
 recollections of boyhood rescues, and he 
 felt safe in Archie s hands. He had snapped 
 back unconsciously, unwillingly, into the 
 old attitude of hero worship for the won 
 derful Archie, the eldest son of the house. 
 So from that moment Fred, though now 
 the head of a house of his own, felt and 
 talked and conducted himself like a boy, 
 in his brother s presence. 
 
 Archie diverted him, tactfully, until Fred 
 was properly rilled with good food and 
 drink, for nearly all the modern Carrolls 
 534 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 have learned this noble art of self-defence. 
 Then said the leader of the Carroll clan, 
 with gentle raillery, "All you fellows who 
 are removed from the real world seem to 
 take for granted that any fool can succeed 
 in business. Roger has been talking the 
 same way since he got into trouble with the 
 college board of trustees over that radical 
 book of his on the New Economics. Did 
 you know that ninety-five per cent, of the 
 men who go into business fail?" 
 
 "A still greater per cent, fail at painting," 
 said the painter. 
 
 "But what makes you think you could 
 succeed in business if you fail in art?" 
 
 "Well, you see," said Fred, sound humor 
 sparkling up with Archie s vintage cham 
 pagne, "the trouble is, I succeeded in art, 
 so I thought Fd like to try failing in busi 
 ness. It might pay better, judging from 
 some of the ninety-five per cent, one sees 
 about town here." 
 
 Archie laughed applaudingly. He had 
 his father s laugh. "What do you think 
 you d like to do?" 
 
 535 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 "What s the use of having a legal ad 
 viser in the family !" answered Fred, with 
 his shrug. " But if the kid can make good 
 I don t see why I shouldn t." This re 
 ferred to Harry, the youngest brother, now 
 displaying a gold cigarette case on the floor 
 of the Stock Exchange and, later in the 
 afternoon, as Fred and Archie might see, a 
 Bleriot monoplane out on Long Island; 
 both evidences of affluence helping his credit 
 not less than they horrified his loving Aunt 
 Bella, who had given him up as hopeless, 
 though she still prayed for his forgiveness, 
 thus setting a good example to the Forgiver. 
 
 The two brothers had stepped into 
 Archie s waiting car. 
 
 "I may be removed from the world/ 
 and all that, but I m not fool enough to 
 rate that engaging youth s ability higher 
 than my own," Fred pursued. 
 
 "Of course not," said Archie, "but 
 well, he has youth for one thing, and a 
 specialized ability which has received a rig 
 orous training for his agile caper*s. Like 
 everything else, it is not so easy as it looks. 
 536 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 That kind of work has its technic as well 
 as yours." 
 
 "So has the work of any other crou 
 pier" said Fred, who, it is feared, shared 
 certain of the "high-brow" prejudices. "I 
 used to know one at Monte Carlo who 
 learned his job in a few months. He is 
 now at the head of a gambling house of his 
 own at Ostend. So there ought to be some 
 hope for me" 
 
 "But the trouble with you," said Archie 
 smiling idly at the cynical simile, "is that 
 you ve learned and practised for years an 
 entirely different game. You had a bent 
 for business as a boy. But since then 
 everything you ve done has twisted you off 
 in another direction. No, I can t see you, 
 Fred, as a business man." 
 
 Fred laughed and shuddered inwardly. 
 "Neither can I," said he. "But I can t 
 see my family starve. I ought to be able 
 to make a living. I never heard of a Car 
 roll who couldn t." 
 
 The car sped eastward over the bridge. 
 
 "I d hate to see you throw over all you ve 
 537 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 won," said Archie, "just when you are 
 coming into your own." He was beginning 
 to feel the heart-breaking significance of 
 his brother s mask of flippancy. He knew 
 how these artists loved their work, and by 
 the same token how it unfitted them for 
 anything else. 
 
 " Then what the devil would you advise ? " 
 They were now scudding past vacant lots 
 on Long Island, once farms, now "suburban 
 villa" sites, profitable to shrewd investors, 
 desirable to commuting clerks who upheld 
 the institution of marriage. Perhaps fresh 
 air and the rapid motion promoted moraliz 
 ing on the part of Archie a thoughtful ob 
 server, this Carroll. u There are only two 
 kinds of people in the world," he said, "those 
 who earn what they do not get, and those 
 who get what they do not earn." (He must 
 have read it in a muck-raking magazine!) 
 You belong to the former class, and I 
 belong to the latter. Now, any one who 
 gets what he does not earn must, naturally, 
 rob some one who earns what he does not 
 get for some one must earn it. And there 
 538 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 you have our whole economic system in a 
 moral nutshell." 
 
 Fred admired the epigram more than the 
 doctrine. "If you don t believe in it if 
 you think you are robbing me, why don t 
 you practice what you preach ? You re not 
 consistent." 
 
 "Simply because I prefer robbing to be 
 ing robbed. I don t believe in ocean 
 steamers racing in a fog, but I d jump into 
 the life-boat all the same if the two ships 
 collided. I don t own the whole ship ; merely 
 myself. I m a helpless passenger." 
 
 "I wish you d show me where they keep 
 those life-boats." 
 
 "I m offering to give you a lift in mine." 
 
 "I want to paddle my own." 
 
 "You don t know how." 
 
 "I could learn." 
 
 "When I married Julia," Archie broke 
 off, "she had more money than I had. I 
 made up my mind that I would get more 
 than she had or else I shouldn t have a 
 peaceful mind. Well, I ve got the money, 
 much more of it than any one, including 
 539 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 Julia, knows. I m proud of what I ve done, 
 I suppose. I used to be, at any rate. It 
 still gives me a smiling comfort when I 
 know people are thinking: Oh, yes, he 
 married money. But I somehow haven t 
 yet secured that peaceful mind! I m free 
 to say I earned a bit of what I ve got in 
 the practice of my profession. You know 
 how hard I ve worked. But the bulk of it 
 I made, as we say or won, rather, though 
 I deserve something for my risk and my 
 wisdom in playing the Wall Street game 
 with the inside tips I picked up in the legiti 
 mate pursuit of my profession, which is 
 not, by the way, confined to showing cor 
 porations how to get around the law not 
 in our firm." 
 
 "Then what are you kicking about?" 
 
 "Oh, I m not kicking just comment 
 ing." 
 
 "Well, I shouldn t kick either, if I could 
 do it." 
 
 Archie must have been disgruntled about 
 something; his political ambitions, per 
 haps. Or was Julia "too fond of atten- 
 540 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 tion?" Poor Julia, she had never been 
 fond of much else and now she was losing 
 her figure. That s not comedy; it s trag 
 edy. Well, in any case, why should Archie 
 attack Status, unless he had a personal 
 grievance ? He had won out. Why should 
 any man, worthy of the name, attack any 
 thing he considers wrong ? For if he has 
 lost by it, then he is a poor sport; envious. 
 If he has won by it, he oughtn t to "kick"; 
 inconsistent. Surely, this was no way to 
 talk to an innocent younger brother who 
 was "taking his medicine" like a man, only 
 asking for a sporting chance "to play the 
 game" against those who knew it well and 
 had stacked the cards. 
 
 "I don t believe business is so bad as 
 you make out," said Fred, thinking that 
 Archie was trying to shock him or scare 
 him off. "Look at all the good men in it." 
 
 "There are lots of them. The good men 
 in it are all right. The institution is stronger 
 than they are. Willing or unwilling, they 
 are its victims. I m good myself. I give 
 back little chunks of my winnings to the 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE* OF 
 
 poor. I m prominent in uplift move 
 ments. I m taking more time off every 
 year for social service and worthy causes. 
 I sacrifice my pleasures for the sake of 
 doing good to others. In fact, I m a 
 model citizen and incidentally I get a lot 
 of fun out of it," he added smiling. 
 
 "But I mean, these big fellows," said 
 Fred, "like Sterling; those higher up, who 
 make the game go. I don t believe they re 
 all so rotten bad as you reformers try to 
 make us believe." 
 
 "There s nothing Sterling would rather 
 do than do good. They all come to it in 
 time, if they re decent inside, as Sterling is. 
 There s nothing else to come to for any 
 one. He wants awfully to help education 
 and religion, and, as you know, art." 
 
 "Well, he s doing it too to the best of 
 his bungling ability. He has helped a lot 
 of your worthy causes. 
 
 "Oh, he s glad to help everybody, if 
 
 everybody will only do as he says. As soon 
 
 as they made him a trustee of the college 
 
 you can t run a college without money, and 
 
 542 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 he was made to pay first, which is a much 
 safer educational policy than electing trus 
 tees on trust as soon as he got his hands 
 on the plant he had Roger kicked out 
 because the doctrine preached in The 
 New Economies was dangerous/ in Ster 
 ling s opinion. The book has had a popular 
 vogue, unfortunately for Roger. Even Ster 
 ling read it." 
 
 "Poor old Roger," sighed Fred, forgetting 
 his own troubles for the moment as he 
 thought of a brother s. Roger was now 
 lecturing in the wild, insurgent West. 
 Sophia, his wife, and the children were 
 "visiting" Aunt Bella. 
 
 "You know what happened," Archie 
 went on, "in the case of that celebrated 
 young preacher Sterling imported for his 
 church from abroad at great expense. He 
 mixed up in these new-fangled social ser 
 vice notions, declined to confine his atten 
 tion exclusively to the good old gospel of 
 individual salvation. So Sterling then ex 
 ported him, also at great expense; and, no 
 doubt, thought he was pleasing God and 
 543 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 helping the cause of truth. Sterling be 
 lieves in individualism." 
 
 "Say what you like about the old man," 
 said Fred, "but he s no hypocrite. I know 
 a fakir when I see one." 
 
 "Of course, he s no hypocrite. Very few 
 men are. They are merely self-deceived. 
 He believes far more sincerely than I do 
 in business as it is done. Both these young 
 men were hurting confidence in business, 
 and that means hurting the country. Ster 
 ling honestly wants to help the country, 
 not merely himself. I don t say that he 
 was not right, according to his dazzling 
 lights, in either of these cases, any more 
 than when, for the cause of art, he threw 
 you down, but " 
 
 "He did not throw me down," inter 
 jected the painter hotly, "I threw him 
 down." 
 
 "Yes, that s what Roger said. But he s 
 got you both down at any rate. Maybe you 
 both deserve it. All I say is that Sterling 
 and even the best of his sort good men, 
 great experts in their line are not neces- 
 
 544 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 sarily the best judges of what is fit to sur 
 vive in every other expert s line in the 
 world. They don t know enough." 
 
 "Well, I should say not!" exclaimed 
 Fred with amusement. 
 
 "And yet they are the ultimate authority 
 in governing and guiding the destinies of 
 the race even its tastes, by example. They 
 are the ultimate authority because they 
 have the ultimate power. And they have 
 the ultimate power, not because they are 
 * stronger than some of the rest of you, 
 but because all the rest of you give it to 
 them. All of us are victims of the institu 
 tions we have made and can t afford to 
 modify." 
 
 "Well, this is all very fine in theory, as 
 Sterling would say, but I m up against a 
 practical proposition," put in Fred. "This 
 doesn t help me educate my children. All 
 I can infer is that fellows like Roger and 
 me have no business marrying if we won t 
 do as we are told by the Sterlings. I wish 
 I had searched for Truth and cashed in my 
 twenty thousand. At the time I thought 
 US 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 the only decent thing to do was to decline it 
 with thanks." 
 
 "It was. If Sterling ever found the 
 Truth he d drop dead," said the reformer. 
 " I wasn t thinking about you. We re mere 
 atoms." 
 
 "Eating atoms, however. You ve got to 
 think about me." 
 
 "Oh, you re all right. The only decent 
 thing for a man physically and intellectually 
 fit, as you are, is to marry, when he finds 
 his mate, as you did. Don t you realize 
 what you owe the race, my boy!" 
 
 "I can t afford to." 
 
 "That s only because the race does not 
 realize what it owes you. The race can t 
 afford not to realize such things much 
 longer. The thing that causes marriage is 
 the most individualistic thing in the world; 
 the result is the most racial. Society, when 
 it cuts its eye-teeth and becomes practical, 
 won t allow marriage and the rearing of chil 
 dren to remain so individualistically difficult 
 as it is to-day that is, if society wants to 
 save marriage and itself." 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 "You don t advocate letting the State 
 pay a man for the support of his own chil 
 dren and all that rot!" Fred was properly 
 amazed. 
 
 "That s the same tone of voice once used 
 in regard to the State s educating them. 
 No, I wouldn t pay the man a cent for it. 
 I d pay the woman. Hers is the most im 
 portant work in the world; and, as is usually 
 the case, the real labor is underpaid by 
 society, which reaps the profit. Women 
 aren t rewarded for their great work. In 
 most cases they are punished." 
 
 "Oh, now, any true woman " 
 
 " Yes, yes, I know what you ll say. That s 
 what they always say especially the men. 
 But the happiness and holiness of beautiful 
 motherhood does not make the present ar 
 rangement just or wise. Nor is it working 
 out practically" 
 
 "All the same, if I can t take care of my 
 own I deserve to suffer." 
 
 "But do they?" 
 
 Fred squirmed. He was suffering more 
 than "they" were just now. "Molly and 
 
 547 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 I " he said in a low voice, eyes averted, 
 c had always been pretty fond of young 
 things, dogs and so on. We didn t expect 
 many other luxuries, being painters. Be 
 sides, I was making a good income, and 
 hut, oh, I had no business having children! 
 I see that now/ 
 
 "You would have had no business not 
 having them/ said Archie. 
 
 "Well, I d never let anybody support my 
 children. That s why I m here to-day. I d 
 work for them, fight for them I d even 
 rob for them, before I d accept aid from 
 the government." 
 
 "Such as free parks, for instance?" 
 Archie put in. "Society is learning, gradu 
 ally. It takes a long time, naturally, when 
 there are so many prejudices, like yours, to 
 overcome. Every improvement that gets 
 into civilization has had to fight its way in, 
 despite the opposition or indifference of the 
 majority. In your case, you haven t robbed 
 for your children. You ve only worked for 
 them and fought yourself for them, and 
 now you re being robbed by them. You 
 548 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 have been sacrificing yourself for them 
 often the worst crime a man can commit. 
 You have only destroyed your efficiency for 
 those who need it. Sacrificing your pleas 
 ure or your preference is all right, though 
 even that can be overdone, but you have 
 no business sacrificing your God-given self, 
 if you can fulfil the object of your existence 
 in any other way. The object of existence 
 is seldom non-existence. Even Jesus Christ 
 did not allow Himself to be killed until He 
 had lived a life which changed the face of 
 the world though not its heart. Only the 
 heart of an occasional individual one meets 
 usually a failure. : 
 
 "My! but you are comforting, Archie. 
 This solves all my problems, pays all my 
 bills. How did you ever think of it!" 
 
 Yes, why all this attack upon established 
 ideals ? Why create popular discontent in 
 the unpoisoned mind of an honest day- 
 laborer willing to let good enough alone ? 
 Why all this talk about " robbery" and 
 from a lawyer, at that, sworn to uphold the 
 sacred laws of property? Nearly all thf. 
 
 549 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 nicest people get more than they earn. 
 How else could they be nice ? They would 
 hardly have time. Who could give to the 
 poor ? There would not be nearly enough 
 unearned increment. For that matter, there 
 might be no poverty, and then how could 
 we have any charity ? and without organ 
 ized charity how could we have any true 
 Christianity ? Besides, Archie failed to 
 mention the mere detail of a practical solu 
 tion. He had pondered these problems for 
 nigh a dozen years, and had never dis 
 covered in all that time a perfect working 
 substitute for a scheme of things which it 
 has taken as many thousands of years to 
 reach its present beautiful perfection. He 
 must have been visionary. Therefore he 
 ought to have left good enough alone. If 
 there is anything sickly about our civiliza 
 tion, why don t these reformers compound a 
 perfect prescription first ? Then make a 
 diagnosis after the autopsy ? Meanwhile 
 these questionings which are heard all over 
 the world, even from some of our nicest 
 people now (even in dear old America!), 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 ought to be silenced. Discontent among 
 the envious or these Utopians ought to be 
 dammed up until it bursts, like a French 
 Revolution. That is the nicer and more 
 conservative way of managing these little 
 affairs. 
 
 "Well, Archie," said Fred as he stepped 
 out of the car to take his train for home, 
 feeling more respect for himself, more love 
 for his brother, but even less confidence in 
 the future than when he arrived. "I ve had 
 a bully time, but I haven t landed a job!" 
 
 "Oh, that?" asked Archie, as if he had 
 not been pondering the difficult problem 
 the whole time beneath the surface of his 
 abstractions. u Why, that s perfectly sim 
 ple. Will you take a job from me ? I m 
 one of the rich robbers, you re one of the 
 poor robbed; you ll have to take employ 
 ment from some of us, you know. We ve 
 got you cornered." 
 
 "If it s something I can really work at," 
 said Fred suspecting fraternal generosity. 
 
 "Go down to my shooting-box in North 
 Carolina and paint that mountain I bought 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 in cheap from the natives ten years ago, and 
 those waterfalls at the bottom. I want to 
 increase their fame and value. Take your 
 whole family, so you won t be too lonely to 
 do good work. But you ll have to agree 
 not to do the waterfalls until you have 
 fished all those streams this spring. I ve 
 had them stocked again with rainbow 
 trout. In fact, you are not to do anything 
 but loaf until after you have shot ruffled 
 grouse on the mountain next fall. You 
 are all in now, no good for work, and I want 
 only the best that money can buy. 
 
 This seemed the only practical solution 
 he could offer, as a result of a sympathetic 
 diagnosis of the trouble with his little 
 brother, whom he had watched and sounded 
 thoroughly during the whole time that he 
 might have been landing a big piece of 
 business down town. 
 
 V 
 
 "Archie says," remarked Fred to Molly, 
 after reading a letter which contained a 
 large check from his brother (on account) 
 552 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 "that we shall save him the cost of a care 
 taker. That is to save my face, God bless 
 him!" 
 
 "God will, if it saves your health/ said 
 Molly, who was more concerned about her 
 husband at present than about God or 
 Archie. 
 
 "And he recommends their former gov 
 erness, to teach the children. Hence this 
 unnecessarily large check which he calls 
 a retainer/ " 
 
 "Yes, we are to be retainers upon his 
 feudal estate," laughed Molly. " But Archie 
 is a dear. I always have adored him since 
 that Christmas when we tried to reform the 
 family party." 
 
 "Waterfalls! Molly, can t you see me 
 painting waterfalls! That s about as much 
 my style as " 
 
 "As buying pictures is Archie s. He 
 never looks at them not even at the por 
 trait you did of Julia and her children!" . . . 
 
 Such is the pride and prejudice of the 
 Carrolls that even though Fred, "the one 
 that became an artist," now understood the 
 553 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 capitalistic system, he could not like the idea 
 of living on his generous brother. So he 
 got to work upon the waterfalls, within a 
 fortnight, declaring to Molly that he was 
 now in splendid working shape. It is all 
 right to live upon the bounty of some one 
 you have buried or married; but who wants 
 to live, like a parasite, upon the earnings of 
 some one living ? Nobody, except women, 
 children, and capitalists. 
 
 "Don t work so hard!" pleaded Molly. 
 "You ll kill yourself!" 
 
 "Well, what of it? I never could see 
 any particular joy or virtue in sheer exist 
 ence, mere breathing and spending exer 
 cises. There s nothing paintable down here. 
 I can t make anything decent out of it." 
 
 "But think of us!" 
 
 "I m doing so all the time. You ll have 
 to be supported by Archie and Aunt Bella 
 sooner or later. One less will make so 
 much the more to go around." Now surely 
 this was morbid. Any healthy man whose 
 family "has money" ought to feel secure^ 
 Think of the many who lack that comfort. 
 554 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 Fred should have been delighted, and gone 
 fishing. 
 
 "But, dear, you know," said Molly 
 shamelessly, "Aunt Bella can t last much 
 longer and then we can go abroad and get 
 a new start in life. Oh, think of being free 
 from everlasting worry!" Such a heartless 
 way to talk about a good old lady who had 
 never hurt Molly, except by saying recently 
 that Fred had forsaken the ways of his 
 fathers and deserved humbling. 
 
 "I suppose you ll say next that you won t 
 accept your inheritance, especially as it s 
 going to be a big one, from what Archie 
 tells us." For Archie had been heartless 
 too, though more tactfully so. He had 
 merely said: "Some day you and Fred will 
 be well fixed for life." 
 
 "Won t accept it, eh?" answered Fred. 
 "Just you watch me!" Then he added, 
 "Poor old Aunt Bella, I hope she isn t suf 
 fering much. I really ought to go and see 
 her but how can I ? I am painting pretty 
 waterfalls. Good old Archie!" 
 
 Well, as it happened, Fred did not finish 
 555 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 the waterfalls, and did not remain as a 
 retainer on his brother s baronial estate. 
 The years of overwork, overworry, and dis 
 illusionment were too much even for a 
 clean Carroll constitution. He came down 
 with nervous prostration and moved on to 
 a sanitarium. There he had to accept still 
 more bounty from his relatives. " Com 
 plexes/ said the famous neurologist, "dis- 
 associations. Half the men in this city are 
 more or less inclined that way. In most 
 cases it can be traced directly or indirectly 
 to the greed for money. Money isn t worth 
 it. Why should they want it?" The bill 
 was enormous. Archie and young Harry 
 fought to pay for it. For all the Carrolls 
 had rallied about the invalid with a rush, 
 even distant Carrolls who never appeared 
 except at weddings and funerals wanted to 
 know "if there was anything they could 
 do." For the word had gone forth that a 
 Carroll was in trouble. 
 
 When Fred had passed through the black 
 period, during which he hated his wife and 
 
 556 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 all who were dearest to him a symptom 
 difficult for the neurologist to explain clearly 
 to little Molly and when he was beginning 
 to see infinite possibilities for "joy in mere 
 existence," his wife at last was brought 
 to see him. Others were paying her bills 
 now, except such as she insisted upon meet 
 ing by raising violets for the market in place 
 of tending her formal garden, and in giv 
 ing drawing lessons to the younger Sterling 
 children. For Molly was a true old-fash 
 ioned wife. Hence she was ill-trained for 
 either these undertakings. But was helped 
 because kind people were sorry for her. 
 
 Fred, however, had no room for worry 
 about such things now; he was so glad to see 
 her. And she no longer worried even about 
 Fred; she was so glad to see him. 
 
 "Well," he said, "we still have each 
 other, at any rate." 
 
 She made the girlish grimace at him 
 which had attracted his fastidious attention 
 at their first meeting, years ago. "Yes," 
 she said whimsically, "that seems to have 
 been the whole trouble." 
 557 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 As she hoped, he broke into his old 
 chuckling laugh. It was a good sign. She 
 pushed back her hair, dropping her eyes in 
 stead of raising them, as was her way when 
 making people laugh, characteristics which 
 brought back a surge of goodly memories. 
 "All the same," he said, drawing her down 
 to him Molly found him strong enough 
 for that "so far as I am concerned, if I 
 had it to do all over again, why I d do 
 it all over again! . . . Would you?" 
 
 There was an adorable look in her hu 
 morous eyes when she raised them to his. 
 "I m afraid so," she said. . . . 
 
 Perfectly irrational, of course, and per 
 fectly right. Those who insist upon living 
 rationally never live at all. 
 
 Therefore, we submit, that inasmuch as 
 this rapidly middle-aging pair was now 
 melting in each others arms, the institu 
 tion of marriage is perfect, and admits of 
 no improvement in its requirements and 
 customs; that the mutual relations of civil 
 ization and the family fit into the scheme 
 of present things as admirably as in the 
 558 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 Patriarchate; that in this glorious age, it 
 just so happens, men have spoken the last 
 word on all important matters in the best 
 possible world; and that now, finally and 
 for all time, nothing shall ever be changed 
 again on a spinning globe made by and 
 for evolution, which has changed everything 
 from the beginning, human nature most of 
 all. Though, to be sure, "human nature 
 never changes/ Authority has so decreed 
 and, of course, that settles human nature 
 and everything else. 
 
 VI 
 
 When the Fred Carrolls returned at last 
 from abroad, brown and cheerful and 
 serene, they took a house in town for the 
 winter, and the gossips out in the country 
 for even the most refined and conservative 
 colonies have been known to include a few- 
 nodded their heads over the teacups and 
 said: "That aunt of theirs must have left 
 them more than we thought. " 
 
 Aunt Bella s magnificent bequest for es- 
 559 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 tablishing the "Arabella Carroll Memorial 
 Neighborhood House" down on the East 
 Side whence much of her fortune had 
 come and whither some of it dutifully re 
 turned though hardly comparable with 
 some of the other princely gifts of this golden 
 age of organized charity, was nevertheless 
 meritorious enough in size to get a head 
 line in the newspapers. The residue of the 
 estate went, according to the will, share and 
 share alike to dear Aunt Bella s beloved 
 nephews and nieces. Now, as there were a 
 number of these, a conservative reading 
 between the head-lines had at first made 
 Fred s portion only seventy thousand dol 
 lars, though there were others who stated 
 authoritatively that it was at least seven 
 hundred thousand, arguing that the very 
 fact of dear Aunt Bella s being able to give 
 so much to the children of the East Side 
 showed that her estate was "much larger 
 than at first estimated." 
 
 Fred had been appointed one of the trus 
 tees of the Neighborhood House. Members 
 of the upper class who are too selfish to take 
 560 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 an interest in the children of the poor, by 
 their own free will, should be made to do so, 
 by the will of a wealthy benefactress. So 
 he had hurried back to America in time to 
 attend the "ceremonies in connection with" 
 the laying of the corner-stone. He was now 
 sitting upon the platform, looking reserved 
 and dignified, like a true Carroll at last, 
 hearing what a good Carroll Aunt Bella 
 had been and realizing how it felt to have, 
 among other things, a fat heritage of high 
 ideals. 
 
 He looked plump and prosperous in his 
 eminently becoming London clothes " well- 
 groomed " is perhaps a more pleasing phrase, 
 though it must be confessed that he had 
 taken on weight during his residence abroad. 
 It became him well, however. It made him 
 more "distinguished looking." 
 
 But it is to be feared that Frederic Car 
 roll did not appreciate his sacred trust nor 
 the distinction of being a useful public cit 
 izen, for as soon as the ceremonies were over 
 he stepped into his waiting limousine and 
 dashed up the brilliant avenue as fast as the 
 561 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 traffic regulators would allow, delighting in 
 the opalescent twilight, the purple tones, and 
 the pretty girls. So much so that he failed 
 to see the nods of a couple of old pals of his 
 who were walking and who nudged each 
 other and smiled as he passed. He had re 
 gained his healthy exuberance during his ab 
 sence. With rest came objectivity. He could 
 see again. Morbid in-growing thoughts 
 had vanished and he had reached a period 
 in his artistic career where he could appre 
 ciate the charm of New York. He no longer 
 sought for the beauty of the Old World in 
 the streets of the new, as cubs do when just 
 back from Paris with long hair and false 
 ideals. He took and enjoyed what was set 
 before him, asking no questions, and got 
 more stimulation out of it than from a 
 bottle of champagne. 
 
 "You missed a great moment/ said Fred 
 when he joined Molly over the tea-table, for 
 his wife had refused to go. "There I sat 
 shivering in my last summer s suit, my 
 pockets full of unpaid bills, wasting two 
 good hours of daylight, and trying to look 
 562 
 
I hate Aunt Bella s public spirit," she cried vindictively 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 worthy of my heritage of high ideals while I 
 listened to the mayor praise Aunt Bella s 
 public spirit. " 
 
 " I hate Aunt Bella s public spirit," cried 
 Molly vindictively and she threw the after 
 noon paper describing the memorial across 
 the room. 
 
 Financially speaking, the Carrolls were 
 at the present moment worse off than ever. 
 They merely seemed to be better off. But 
 that was not their fault. Indeed, they were 
 so guiltless that they never even suspected 
 it. Their pecuniary sensibilities were still 
 quite rudimentary, despite all they had been 
 through. They knew how Aunt Bella had 
 treated them, and assumed, if they thought 
 about it at all, that others could guess by the 
 Neighborhood House. There is nothing 
 like having a clean conscience. But, again, 
 nothing looks so guilty as innocence. Every 
 thing they had done had been in the inter 
 est of art or economy. It looked like the 
 evidence of ease and solvency. 
 
 When the residuary legatees found that 
 their respective portions would be a scant 
 563 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 ten thousand apiece, Archie Carroll, who 
 was one of the executors of the estate, being 
 a good, conservative, business-like fellow, 
 invested his legacy and the very consider 
 able executor s fee in Steel Fives. Being 
 also a notably kind elder brother, full of 
 sound advice, he had suggested that the 
 unbusiness-like Fred should follow his ex 
 ample. 
 
 But Fred did not see it that way. "That 
 may be wise for you, Archie," said the artist 
 broad-mindedly, "but I can t afford such 
 luxuries. It would not be business-like. I 
 believe in putting one s capital into one s 
 business." So he packed up, took the 
 family to Europe, and stayed there until he 
 got his legacy all nicely spent. 
 
 He had been bankrupt in health, hope, 
 and ideas. The interest on a few Steel 
 Fives would not have restocked him in 
 these very necessary resources for the pur 
 suit of his trade. The stay abroad restocked 
 him. He also accomplished some very good 
 work over there, sketching with a congenial 
 group of fellow-craftsmen, who knew his 
 564 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 work, who liked him, who talked his own 
 language. He got the inspiration of a 
 change of scene. He studied the new 
 schools. He fell into the swing of a new 
 manner of his own. He achieved a new 
 grip on life and a new view of his own life 
 in perspective. 
 
 One of the chief advantages of going 
 abroad is what you see at home when you 
 get back. The Carrolls saw a whole row 
 of mistakes grinning at them from the 
 rear. But they also saw a crowd of op 
 portunities beckoning in front. There was 
 a chance to make good after all. You 
 are still young. You must -get back into 
 the city, Fred. If not with the family then 
 without us," said Molly, who could see 
 sometimes better than he could. "Don t 
 think about the family, think about your 
 work. Think what the big men over there 
 told you about it." 
 
 It so happened that on the steamer com 
 ing home they fell in with an old friend of 
 theirs, an admirer of the work of Frederic 
 Carroll, a gentleman of leisure who classified 
 565 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 in the preliminary trial heats for long-dis 
 tance culture prizes, as "artistic and lit 
 erary" inasmuch as he possessed a valuable 
 collection of ceramics and went in for old 
 prints and first editions, a flabby soul but 
 a kindly one. He said he hated New York 
 in winter he was always hating things 
 and proposed trading houses for a year. To 
 be sure, his town house, very nice and 
 spacious as town houses go, was not so 
 comfortable and complete as the Carrolls 
 country house, though it would have rented 
 for five or six times as much money. The 
 Carrolls, however, were so lacking in pe 
 cuniary consciousness that they never even 
 thought of this sordid, commercial view of 
 the matter. They hesitated only because 
 they knew the house and wondered if they 
 could stand the color of the drawing-room. 
 "But it will only be for one year," as Molly 
 reminded Fred, and "beggars cannot be 
 choosers/ as Fred cheerfully reminded 
 Molly. So they graciously accepted, and 
 Fred s friend had the honor of saying to his 
 acquaintances, "I have taken the Fred Car- 
 566 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 rolls place for the winter a simple little 
 cottage, but it s only for a year." 
 
 The rest of the illusion of affluence fol 
 lowed as naturally and easily as brother 
 Archie s smooth-running car. Archie still 
 felt so cut up over Aunt Bella s public 
 spirit that he had taken his family off on 
 a long cruise among the Bahamas and had 
 begged the Freds to use his car during 
 the winter because George was the best 
 chauffeur he had ever had and he did not 
 want to lose him. Fred did not feel like 
 accepting it at first, but Molly reminded 
 him that he had refused to accept any 
 thing from Archie for the portrait of the 
 latter s wife; a most interesting portrait, 
 showing the frivolous Julia (well known as 
 a mollusk in the Carroll family gossip) 
 posing as a perfect mother with the chil 
 dren entwined about her in a graceful 
 group while she wore an appropriately 
 low-cut evening gown. 
 
 "To-day in town," reported a member of 
 the colony, "I saw Fred and Molly Carroll 
 in their brand-new limousine. It s a very 
 567 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 smart one with an expensive purr and, my 
 dear, they have put their crest on the door." 
 
 Now, it may be that the Carrolls con 
 sidered crests and similar bravery rather 
 unnecessary in the land of the free, espe 
 cially when so fresh from a very different 
 kind of colony in France, with different as 
 pirations and absurdities. It is good for 
 Americans to go abroad and see some real 
 democracy occasionally. It s so quaint and 
 old-fashioned. However, Fred could not very 
 well paint out the crest, even though he was 
 a painter. Besides, it was only for one year. 
 
 Archie s expensive limousine, by the way, 
 was worth Fred s entire legacy. And yet 
 instead of decreasing his capital it only 
 seemed to put the Carrolls fortune up an 
 other peg. It now soared well above the 
 million mark, and they seemed to be getting 
 richer every day. 
 
 "That chauffeur of Archie s is a nice fel 
 low," said Fred to Molly. "He s lent me 
 one of his fur coats." Why not ? George, 
 a clean-cut, well-educated young American, 
 had three coats and he had nothing against 
 568 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 Fred. Even the coat was noted by members 
 of the colony, but Molly s clothes, of course, 
 occasioned more comment. "Doucet, I 
 think, so rich and yet so simple that in 
 describable something." 
 
 The acquisition of Molly s new outfit was 
 characteristic of the Carrolls. " Before we 
 spend all this money," Fred had remarked 
 in a business-like manner at Paris, "you ve 
 got to get a lot of new things." 
 
 "We can t afford it," protested Molly 
 weakly but with a gleam in her eye. 
 
 "We can t afford not to," replied her 
 more practical husband. "Things are so 
 cheap here, if you know where to get them, 
 and the Lord knows when we ll ever be over 
 again." So, with the aid of her husband s 
 talented eye for color and design, Mrs. Car 
 roll became the complacent possessor of a 
 brand-new trousseau, which was not only of 
 the latest mode any other wealthy woman 
 could achieve that but also of a subtle orig 
 inality which many even wealthier women 
 coveted. It should be added that Molly 
 only consented to this extravagance upon 
 569 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 the express understanding that Fred would 
 get a new outfit for himself while in London. 
 That was the way they usually compro 
 mised in the interest of economy. For "if 
 I can afford it then you can/ she declared 
 logically. And so they dawned upon New 
 York looking smart and quietly distin 
 guished. 
 
 Now, in town, of course, the Carrolls and 
 their wealth were not taken so seriously. 
 There were so many other people to think 
 and talk about, and there was hardly enough 
 wealth to make an impression upon our 
 great and glorious metropolis only two 
 or three millions. The self-centred city 
 hasn t time to go into details or look be 
 neath the surface. It takes you on your 
 face value. 
 
 It seems that this well-known painter and 
 his charming wife had been living on the 
 Continent for some time, where his pictures 
 had been making all kinds of a hit at the 
 Salons. They were now comfortably set 
 tled down for the season in New York to 
 "execute a few commissions" and to have 
 57 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 as good a time as possible, like every one 
 else, before returning to their "artistic" 
 country place and their beloved garden in 
 the spring. For the rest, they had an atmos 
 phere of cheerfulness and success combined 
 with quiet dignity and comfort. We all 
 like cheerfulness better than gloom. 
 
 VII 
 
 The guests now assembled at Molly Car 
 roll s pretty dinner-table were of this broad 
 elective acquaintanceship, old friends and 
 new, lasting or temporary. Formerly the 
 Carrolls had shown a regrettable tendency, 
 whenever in town, to drift into the quick- 
 whirling eddies of the literary and artis 
 tic" crowd despite the kindest regards for 
 the main stream, except where too sluggish 
 to be endured. Now, however, they were 
 practising what they had often preached. 
 They despised narrowness. Perhaps they 
 wished to spread the light. Perhaps they 
 wished to sell some pictures. 
 
 At any rate, their guests of honor this 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 evening were none other than Mr. and Mrs. 
 Sterling the new Mrs. Sterling, the old one 
 having died. Possibly the new house, which 
 the colony now called Sterling Castle, had 
 proved too much for the old wife, though 
 with a housekeeper and an assistant house 
 keeper and thirty servants not to speak of 
 keeping a couple of smiling social secretaries 
 about the place even the barocco ex 
 uberance oughtn t to have troubled her. 
 As a matter of fact, she had liked it, poor 
 thing. It made her feel valuable, just as 
 did the liveried servants. 
 
 The new Mrs. Sterling had been a suc 
 cessful emotional actress. She was still an 
 actress, playing the star part of the wife of a 
 billionaire, and playing it quite successfully 
 too, though not emotionally so far as one 
 could detect. She made an impressive en 
 trance with her new master, wearing about 
 her neck the dog collar of plump and price 
 less pearls he had given her as well as a peck 
 or two of diamonds expensively crowded 
 upon the covered and uncovered portions of 
 her beautiful body. 
 
 572 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 She had not wanted to come here very 
 much. She had known plenty of painters 
 in her brilliant but less affluent past. She 
 had not played her new part long enough to 
 tire of it as yet. She still felt the glamour 
 of rich people, just as some rich people feel 
 the glamour of the greenroom. But she 
 felt more reconciled to her husband s wishes 
 after she had entered the house, which, 
 though not comparable with her own, was 
 surprisingly fine for a mere artist. 
 
 The Carrolls had not particularly wanted 
 the Sterlings either, but they had never had 
 a chance before to return the former Mrs. 
 Sterling s invitation of several years ago, 
 so they were taking it out upon the second 
 Mrs. Sterling. Besides, in their present 
 mellow cheerfulness, they wanted the old 
 man to see that they cherished no animosity 
 against him for that matter of the Search for 
 Truth; though, as it happened, Sterling had 
 borne up very well without a Frederic Car 
 roll decoration on his walls, as could be 
 seen by his genial expansiveness. His coun 
 try place had proved a great success; a good 
 573 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 many of the colony thought it a fine house, 
 and all of them had decided to accept the 
 Sterlings (as he had cynically known all 
 along), and incidentally he had become a 
 great patron of the arts, as any one could 
 see by the way he patronized all artists. 
 
 So it was not altogether surprising that he 
 had insisted upon accepting this surprising 
 invitation. He was more surprised to find 
 the artist so comfortably established. "This 
 explains it all," he said to himself, thinking 
 of the Search for Truth. It was too bad. 
 Painters ought to be poor. For this col 
 lector of paintings, railroads, and other 
 bric-a-brac held to the orthodox faith that 
 for those who do the real work of the 
 world, like manipulating the stock-market 
 or jacking up the tariff, money was a good 
 thing, but not for artists. It makes them 
 lazy. 
 
 It is possible that Molly derived a lit 
 tle mischievous delight from showing the 
 Sterlings that a simple dinner could be good 
 and that even better people would come to it 
 than came as yet to Mr. Sterling s enormous 
 574 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 chateau on the Avenue. She seated him 
 next to Mrs. Langham. 
 
 It was Aline Langham, the distinguished 
 novelist, who not only wrote of the highest 
 society, but belonged to it a distinction far 
 from common among writers in democratic 
 America. For the most part they have to 
 put up with the company of those who, like 
 themselves, make books and pictures, not 
 those who buy such wares, though it stands 
 to reason that it is more delightful to asso 
 ciate with those who consume products than 
 with the men and women who create them. 
 But Mrs. Langham could not only satirize 
 in fascinating detail the expensive "entour 
 ages" of our American aristocracy, but she 
 possessed such things herself, as might be 
 seen when she took the air in the park in or 
 der to become refreshed for satirizing the 
 vanity of riches. But good Queen Victoria 
 endured a far more complicated domestic 
 ritual every time she "drove out," and al 
 though she wrote some letters of which none 
 of her family need be ashamed, the late 
 queen could not have written one of Mrs. 
 575 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 Langham s books to save her crown. In 
 America all our women are queens. They 
 deserve everything that makes for the dignity 
 and grace of living, and those who jeer at 
 such concomitants of an advanced stage of 
 civilization only show that they are out of 
 touch with the Zeit-geist of true democracy 
 or that they are envious, or else, worst self- 
 revelation of all, that they have not had 
 such things for many, many generations in 
 their own family an admission no self-re 
 specting American should care to make. 
 
 Now the Carrolls, in the innocence of 
 their hearts, had placed Mr. Sterling next 
 to Mrs. Langham, supposing that the novel 
 ist would enjoy the opportunity of "study 
 ing" him. But that experienced lady knew 
 the Sterling type by heart already. It is 
 quite too common in America nowadays, 
 thanks to a beneficent combination of nat 
 ural resources and unnatural laws. But it 
 is well known that there aren t nearly so 
 many newly rich painters. Accordingly the 
 authoress was quietly studying her host and 
 hostess instead. Being a psychologist, she 
 576 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 was naturally interested in observing the 
 effect of a sudden accession of wealth not 
 much, to be sure, only five millions upon 
 a conscientious painter who had not only 
 an eye for color but also for women, and 
 upon his rather clever wife, who was am 
 bitious not only for him but also for social 
 success. Every woman, of course, was 
 socially ambitious. It was sheer affecta 
 tion, inverted snobbery, to pretend other 
 wise. Thus the unsuspecting Carrolls bade 
 fair to be impaled upon Mrs. Langham s 
 pen and held up before the magnifying-glass 
 of her projective imagination to serve as a 
 useful example to the world, Fred mean 
 while feeling pleased that this brilliant and 
 delightful woman had fallen under Molly s 
 charm, and Molly that Mrs. Langham was 
 one of those gifted beings who appreciated 
 the genius of Frederic Carroll. 
 
 In passing it is worth observing that Mrs. 
 Langham was a little perplexed to account 
 for the meagreness of the Carrolls menage 
 only one man servant, and a poor selec 
 tion at that for being a true literary artist 
 577 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 she always observed servants with the care 
 fulness of a highly paid housekeeper. Home 
 has been woman s only sphere for so long 
 that it seems difficult to break the immemo 
 rial habit of the sex. The Carrolls sim 
 plicity appealed to her sense of fitness. It 
 showed a commendable restraint, an artist s 
 scorn of worldly display. It might be a 
 pose, but a very clever one. Nevertheless 
 she prophesied with a mental smile that 
 they would soon grow tired of this over- 
 simplicity. The dinner itself was very sim 
 ple too, and she wondered how this rather 
 inexperienced woman, new to New York, 
 had discovered that simple dinners just then 
 were very smart. The quick adaptability 
 of the American wife is always interesting to 
 novelists. It would be worth a paragraph. 
 All this would doubtless have interested 
 the Carrolls if they had only been aware of 
 it. For Fred had run up such a large bar 
 bill at the club purchasing wines for these 
 simple return dinners that his name had 
 been posted for non-payment of house 
 charges. However, he would have been 
 578 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 willing to admit that the dinner was good, 
 and, in fact, he complimented Molly upon 
 it after their guests were gone and they were 
 talking it over. "Big, heavy dinners/ he 
 said, "are so vulgar, Molly, especially when 
 attempted by simple people like ourselves. 
 The way some men and women in this 
 town, even in our trade, throw a bluff- 
 even some of the real ones it makes me 
 sick!" 
 
 Now, there were others among those pres 
 ent who took thought of Molly s dinner and 
 its relation to her husband s wealth. There 
 was Carlton Stillman, the art critic, and his 
 clever wife, who had sharp, black eyes which 
 watched everything. Being in the art- 
 critic business they were both rather critical 
 of artists just as patrons of the arts some 
 times patronize them. Mrs. Stillman tried 
 not to be aware of Molly s very successful 
 evening gown; for she feared it was a Pa- 
 quin; and she sniffed inwardly at the frugal 
 meal. She thought the Carrolls rather 
 stingy. Now, if she and Carlton ever came 
 in for any money but then they never 
 579 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 would; they had no rich aunts to endow 
 them. Some people had all the good-luck. 
 Carlton Stillman was an old friend of 
 Fred s who had known him "when." So 
 as he had failed as a painter himself it was 
 difficult to accept Fred s affluence and his 
 quiet air of having had it all his life as ami 
 ably as, for instance, the Sterlings, though 
 they, it should be remembered, had even 
 greater wealth. Nor could he look down 
 upon it with the godlike detachment of a 
 Mrs. Langham, who had the novelist s in 
 difference to the vanities and jealousies of 
 poor human nature. When the Stillmans 
 first entered the drawing-room and caught 
 sight of these personages, Carlton and his 
 wife exchanged glances as much as to say, 
 "Dear me! Aren t we flattered?" They 
 were, as a matter of fact, rather pleased but 
 were too much afraid of showing it. So 
 Carlton maintained a satirical smile all the 
 evening and confided to the woman he took 
 out, a broker s wife, that all this was going 
 to ruin Fred Carroll, as a painter. "He 
 used to be a very good sort, simple and un- 
 580 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 affected/ said the critic, "but now that he 
 has come in for all this wad of money- 
 well, I see his finish/ And Carlton shook 
 his head sadly. It s the critic s function to 
 analyze and interpret. "He hasn t been 
 doing much lately anyway. I suppose he 
 has been sitting down and waiting for this 
 to fall into his lap." 
 
 "I wonder what they see in people like 
 the Sterlings?" replied the broker s wife. 
 She had a soul above money, not being the 
 member of the family who had to earn it. 
 She was quite literary and artistic, and de 
 voted not a little of her husband s lucky 
 turns to these worthy causes. 
 
 "Oh, like seeks like," Stillman answered 
 sagely. "Wealth wants to play with greater 
 wealth. I shouldn t be surprised if Molly 
 intended eventually to marry off that inno 
 cent little daughter of hers to one of those 
 young reprobates of Sterling s by his first 
 wife." 
 
 Another friend of early days was there, 
 but he did not take it so hard the husband 
 of the broker s wife. He had been one of 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 Molly s admirers many years ago, but had 
 got over it enough since his own "ideal 
 marriage" to admire Fred as well as Molly. 
 He was an athletic, generous-minded fel 
 low, and was just glad to see these two de 
 lightful friends "so well fixed/ Indeed, 
 he thought seriously of buying a picture 
 for he had decided this evening that they 
 must be pretty good pictures if the market 
 went up another point, especially as he felt 
 grateful for the opportunity of meeting the 
 famous Mr. Sterling, "one of the biggest 
 men in the country." He appreciated the 
 honor, it seems, somewhat more than his 
 wife did. In fact, he watched the big man 
 all the evening, remembered every word he 
 uttered, laughed emphatically at all the big 
 man s little jokes and told his partners about 
 it the next morning in the office. 
 
 Young De Courcey was there too, he who 
 had sought and found Truth for Mr. Ster 
 ling. He sat on Mrs. Langham s right, and, 
 apropos of the propinquity of his patron on 
 her left, he asked her facetiously if she had 
 ever seen that work of art. "Well, it s 
 582 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 worth going miles to see/ he went on hu 
 morously, "though perhaps," he concluded 
 in a worldly whisper, "Mrs. Sterling s house 
 is going some for you." Then turning 
 brightly to the lady on his other side he 
 told her about it too. She was the art 
 critic s wife, and wives should always be 
 interested in their husband s profession. 
 When the conversation became general he 
 decided to tell the rest of the table about 
 it all at once. Then they would all know it. 
 " But all the same," he remarked apropos of 
 something his host was saying, in the au 
 thoritative manner of hosts at the end of 
 the table, as to the relative advantages of 
 town and country for working "all the 
 same, when one wants the work of real 
 genius to gladden one s ancestral halls in 
 the country, one comes to town to look for 
 it. Isn t that so, Mr. Sterling?" he added, 
 with a laughing glance at Fred. For he had 
 never heard the truth of Fred s connection 
 with the Search. 
 
 Now, the great man had not been alto 
 gether happy either with Mrs. Langham on 
 583 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 his right or his hostess on his left. He 
 wanted to talk high art with them, and they 
 insisted upon talking high finance with him. 
 It rather hurt his feelings. It was some 
 what aswhen certain sloppily dressed women 
 called on the Carrolls and talked exclusively 
 to Fred, except when they turned to Molly in 
 pauses saying, "And how are the children ?" 
 So Molly ought to have sympathized with 
 him. At any rate, he became so piqued 
 that then and there at Molly Carroll s little 
 dinner he decided to give a large, expensive 
 art museum to his native city out West 
 where his mill-hands were dying of typhoid 
 according to the law of the survival of the 
 fittest. And he did so, too, though Molly 
 never got a line of credit for it. But when 
 this glib young painter turned to him in 
 that assured manner he was thoroughly 
 provoked. In the respectful silence which 
 followed De Courcey s facetious appeal, the 
 great man smiled sardonically and said, 
 "If you want to know the reason you got 
 my library to do, it was because my old 
 friend Fred here recommended you. I 
 584 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 offered him twenty-five per cent, more than 
 you got, but he turned the job down." 
 
 The hostess laughed quickly to make it 
 plain that it was all good-natured chaffing. 
 So did the host and several of the guests, 
 most of all young De Courcey himself. But 
 after that he stared at the centre-piece and 
 remained silent, crushed by the heavy hand 
 of capital. That s the way with these in 
 fant industries unless we protect them. 
 
 Up to this point in the dinner De Courcey 
 had been genuinely pleased at seeing a nice, 
 quiet fellow like Fred in the lap of luxury. 
 "He s a thorough-bred," he had remarked 
 to Mrs. Langham. "Fits the frame so 
 well." But now discovering himself under 
 obligations to Carroll he disliked him for it. 
 "What does he amount to, anyway?" he 
 said to himself, with a glance at Fred, 
 seated at the head of a brilliant dinner-table 
 looking urbane and serene, and apparently 
 without a care in the world. "Simply be 
 cause he has money is no reason why he 
 should patronize me." Alas, one must pay 
 the price, even for wealth. And after that 
 585 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 whenever any one at the club said, "Good 
 old Fred s wad of money doesn t seem to 
 have changed him," De Courcey always 
 added, "But he takes too much pains to 
 show that it hasn t changed him. He 
 thinks we are thinking about his money all 
 the time, simply because he is." 
 
 And yet it is safe to say that, as the 
 dinner party now arose, nearly every one at 
 the table had given thought to the Carrolls 
 fortune, liking or disliking them for it, ex 
 cept the Carrolls themselves, who seemed 
 to like every one (including themselves), 
 beaming graciously upon all alike and now 
 glancing at each other by way of mutual 
 congratulation upon the success of the 
 dinner. 
 
 Indeed, as Fred gallantly drew back Mrs. 
 Sterling s chair, he felt so elated and expan 
 sive that he bestowed upon her a killing 
 glance and said: "How unkind of you to 
 go!" though he was longing manfully for a 
 cigar by this time. 
 
 " But I am coming to your studio on 
 Thursday," the emotional actress returned, 
 586 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 "to see that painting you were telling me 
 about." 
 
 "If you d only let me paint you! 9 he 
 sighed, though, having a keen eye for color 
 and women, as Mrs. Langham surmised, he 
 observed that he had been anticipated. 
 
 "Ah, we can talk that over when you 
 dine with us next week," said Mrs. Sterling, 
 as he bowed her into the drawing-room be 
 side the apparently unobserving authoress. 
 Then, leading the men away to the library, 
 he held a light for the broker s cigar and 
 hospitably tried to talk about the unsettled 
 condition of the market, though being ut 
 terly ignorant of such things he made a 
 mess of it. 
 
 "Ah, ha," thought the observant art critic, 
 with the satirical smile. "That s what inter 
 ests him now. Well, he ll probably lose it 
 all. Then he may come to his senses and 
 do some good work." Stillman loved art 
 for art s sake. 
 
 587 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 VIII 
 
 Before the season was over Fred and 
 Molly occasionally touched that effulgent 
 pinnacle of success which brought the illus 
 trious Carroll name among the names of 
 others present who had possessed wealth 
 and social eminence as far back as the 
 memory of the oldest society reporter could 
 reach. Surely this sort of success ought to 
 prove demoralizing to an impressionable 
 young painter, even without the comforting 
 consciousness of wealth adorable women 
 looking into his eyes and telling him how 
 they adored his work, which they had never 
 seen; teas in his studio so that they could 
 see it and adore afresh; younger painters 
 asking him to come to their studios and 
 kindly criticise their work. All this giddy 
 whirl of flattery might reasonably be sup 
 posed to turn his head. 
 
 But, regrettable as it may seem, it did 
 nothing of the sort. Perhaps the atmos 
 phere of feminine admiration made him 
 gallantly ambitious to prove worthy of the 
 praise of the women. Perhaps the attitude 
 588 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 of respect made him conscious of his re 
 sponsibilities as an adviser of youth. But 
 more likely there was nothing conscious 
 about it. He was working too hard by day 
 and playing too hard by night. He hadn t 
 time to think about himself, nor inclination; 
 he was too much interested in other people 
 and outside things. It was an unconscious 
 stimulation the subtle, psychic influence of 
 approbation. At any rate, he was getting 
 through a lot of work and doing it well. 
 Some natures thrive on excitement. 
 
 Such uplifts are quite as necessary as the 
 dull weight of adversity, though Carroll s 
 New England ancestry would have been 
 loath to admit it. As Mrs. Sterling told 
 him one morning in the studio, in the old 
 days she was beginning to call them the 
 "dear old days" she could never do her 
 best except when she felt that the audience 
 was loving her. "No wonder you were 
 successful/ said the painter, and he was 
 spurred on to do his best upon the head he 
 was making of her, even more than in his 
 own dreary old days by the prattle of chil- 
 589 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 dren s voices or the rattle of butchers 
 wagons. And at tea time, instead of going 
 home, he went to the club. And this used 
 to be "the children s hour." It was now 
 father s hour. Tis sad, but it s better to 
 work for them than play with them. 
 
 The head was shown at the mid-winter 
 exhibition of the Academy of Design. It 
 attracted considerable attention. Those 
 who did not like him said that this was be 
 cause of the interest in the subject rather 
 than the skill of the work. It attracted 
 attention all the same. Moreover, it re 
 ceived an honorable mention in the com 
 petition for the Bronson prize. Some of 
 his acquaintances were puzzled. They had 
 hardly expected him to do anything really 
 good. He was supposed to have dropped 
 out of the running now that he was rich and 
 lazy. 
 
 "I always told you he could do serious 
 work if he only tried," was the "what did 
 I tell you?" comment of those who had 
 once said, "great promise," and had not 
 lost faith in him. 
 
 59 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 Mrs. Sterling had a great deal of faith in 
 him. She bought two of the pictures that 
 he was preparing for his own exhibition in 
 the spring, before he had a chance to exhibit 
 them. She, too, had become a patron of 
 the arts. It ran in the family. One of the 
 canvases she bought appealed to her as 
 so divine this was her word at present, 
 "divine" that she could hardly stand it, 
 so she turned her face away and wept beau 
 tifully. She was beginning to bore him 
 dreadfully. That was why he said such 
 nice things to her. She dropped into the 
 studio at all hours, but as she sometimes 
 brought friends and some of them were 
 likely to buy pictures, Fred, as the father of 
 a family, could not very well put her out. 
 
 In May came the "Exhibition of Paint 
 ings by Frederic Carroll," at McPherson s. 
 
 It could hardly be said that the gallery 
 was crowded, though Mrs. Sterling testified 
 humorously that there was standing room 
 only. At any rate, never before had so 
 many people come to see his pictures, not 
 only the usual sprinkling of those who paint 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 or write or collect, but others who had gone 
 to their country places by this time made 
 special trips to town in high-powered cars. 
 Perhaps their fluttering presence irritated 
 certain of the critics. In the old days they 
 had usually dismissed Frederic Carroll with 
 a brief commendatory notice. But now 
 that he was favored by the financial and 
 social gods, the critics discussed his work 
 in long condemnatory notices, beginning 
 "After a long silence," charging him with 
 dilettanteism, with displaying his indiffer 
 ence, with engaging in subtleties. 
 
 Some of them, however, treated him more 
 kindly and spoke of his " distinction of man 
 ner." Fred liked that. Another, a young 
 man with elaborately fashionable clothes, 
 said, "He paints like a gentleman," which 
 offended Fred s professional pride. Carlton 
 Stillman summed it up authoritatively thus: 
 "Leisure should be used for taking pains, 
 not for showing that one is free from the 
 necessity to do so." And he implied a 
 scorn of being understood. For Art has to 
 do with things as they seem, not as they 
 592 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 are. Thus a work of art can seem so many 
 different things to so many different men. 
 
 "You mustn t let a little thing like that 
 bother you/ said an older painter to Fred. 
 "It s much better than being dismissed 
 with a light pat on the back and then for 
 gotten." 
 
 Another painter, a man whom Fred had 
 never met, wrote a letter to the newspaper 
 defending Frederic Carroll from the charge 
 of dilettanteism, and paying his respects to 
 critics who didn t know paint when they saw 
 it. "It is the ease that comes of years of 
 labor," said the letter, "the confidence of a 
 master hand." 
 
 "Now there," said Fred to Molly, "is a 
 man that understands me." 
 
 All of this drew more attention to the art 
 of Frederic Carroll. The picture-buying 
 crowd did not mind the charge of dilettan 
 teism. Perhaps some of them did not know 
 what it meant; perhaps others did, and 
 accepted the phrase at its etymological value. 
 At any rate, both kinds became more in 
 terested in Frederic Carroll and his work 
 593 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 a man who "did not have to work unless 
 he wanted to/ and yet did good work, and 
 won honorable mentions ! There are always 
 a few such noble souls. Every one respects 
 them, rich and poor alike. . . . Things were 
 coming the Carrolls way at last. Well, why 
 not? It seems no more than fair play. 
 Even a mercenary mistress is human. The 
 Freds had snubbed her enough in the past 
 to make her set her cap for them, cajole 
 them, win them. Was it not all "cause and 
 effect" "the survival of the fittest?" 
 
 McPherson the art dealer dropped into 
 the studio one day. "Say! we didn t do 
 a thing to em!" he said. "We must have 
 another show in the fall. It s the pyscho- 
 logical moment." 
 
 "That s impossible," said Fred. "I ve 
 got to have some rest this summer." 
 
 "What have you in these old portfolios ?" 
 
 "Old stuff, done several years ago, never 
 exhibited. It s rotten." 
 
 But when McPherson looked at it he pro 
 nounced it "swell." He said: "It s in a 
 different mood, but it s good work." Molly 
 594 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 backed up the art dealer. So did an older 
 painter, one of the big ones whose opinion 
 Fred respected. And now a curious thing 
 happened. Fred put his head on one side, 
 squinted his eyes and decided that it was 
 not so bad after all. In fact, he was quite 
 pleased with some of the canvases which he 
 had once cursed in impotent despair. "A 
 work of art can seem so many different 
 things to so many different men." Fred 
 was a different man now that fame was 
 thinking about him. 
 
 IX 
 
 But, alas! before the exhibition took place 
 in the fall, just when the tide was turning, 
 when articles were being written about the 
 art of Frederic Carroll, when he was re 
 ceiving honors, such as invitations to lect 
 ure before select gatherings of young women, 
 when all life seemed bright with promise and 
 good cheer and uplift, just when Fred and 
 Molly were about to take another step 
 heavenward in New York, the sad but in~ 
 595 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 teresting news went out that the Carrolls 
 had lost their money. 
 
 "Yes, my dear, they ve given up their 
 town house and have moved into one of 
 those co-operative studio apartments. They 
 have rented their own place in the country 
 for three years. They have even given up 
 their car!" 
 
 " I suspected that something was the mat 
 ter all along," said the broker, to whom Fred 
 had tried to talk stocks. "He s hopeless in 
 money matters." 
 
 "This explains their apparent lack of 
 public spirit when it came to subscribing 
 for charities," said the broker s wife. 
 
 " It all goes to prove," said De Courcey to 
 some of the fellows at the club, "that you 
 never can tell by outward appearances what 
 is going on inside of a man." 
 
 "I always knew that Fred wasn t a snob 
 at heart," said another, "but I suppose he 
 was worrying a good deal and that affected 
 his manner." This explained it all. 
 
 Every one agreed that Fred and Molly 
 were showing a beautiful spirit. They ut- 
 596 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 tered not one word of complaint. To be 
 sure, they disliked giving up their house in 
 the country, but they hoped some day to 
 get it back again. Meanwhile the children 
 were old enough to thrive in town and the 
 family must follow the job. They liked 
 their bright, airy duplex apartment far more 
 than the house they had resigned. Even 
 Molly s made-over Paris clothes did not 
 sanctify her spirit, for she had intended to 
 make them over all along. Paris styles are 
 always a season ahead of New York s. But 
 the women said she was taking it all so 
 bravely. Even those who hadn t liked her 
 now said so. 
 
 "Well, I told you he d lose his money," 
 said Carlton Stillman to his wife, with a smile 
 of regret. "Now he ll settle down and work. 
 He s got to." 
 
 And sure enough he had another exhibi 
 tion, quite early in the fall! This showed 
 how industrious he had been since he lost his 
 fortune. And when Fred s selections from 
 his early work which he had been touching 
 up during the summer were exhibited ai 
 597 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 McPherson s, Carlton Stillman was the first 
 to sound the praise of Frederic Carroll s 
 "new" manner. "This more recent work 
 sounds a deeper note," announced that well- 
 known authority, "showing a more matured 
 understanding of the inherent pathos and 
 yet the inherent beauty of nature." 
 
 "It must be fine to be a critic," said 
 Molly to Fred. 
 
 "But I always told you he was a sincere 
 sort of chap," said Fred to Molly. 
 
 Perhaps the other critics felt the same 
 psychic influence, or else like the other 
 painters they all agreed to stand by good 
 old Fred Carroll in his time of trouble. 
 
 "That s the way to make these lazy 
 artists work," thought Mr. Sterling, looking 
 on. And perhaps that was the way the 
 rest of the buying public looked at it, for 
 McPherson sold all of these pictures in the 
 new manner and most of those left over 
 from the heyday of Carroll s affluence. Not 
 only that, but he asked for more. Fred re 
 fused. Not only because he knew better 
 than to overstock his market, but because 
 598 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 he had promised Mr. Sterling to take on a 
 big decorative scheme for the foyer of the 
 magnificent museum which that great and 
 good man was building in a Western city. 
 " Carry out your own idea/ said Sterling. 
 "You re the doctor. Only I d advise you to 
 let me invest the commission for you. You re 
 not fit to handle money, Fred, my boy." 
 
 And yet, strangely enough, it was this 
 very loss of his money that had been the 
 making of him, as every one knew, includ 
 ing Mrs. Langham, who expressed the same 
 idea in a more subtle way in her searching 
 psychological story called "Redemption." 
 
 To be sure, Fred had originally planned 
 to be a portrait painter. This worthy am 
 bition was never to be carried out. But 
 what of it ? No one ever constructs his 
 career according to plans and specifications. 
 But now the Carroll children would at least 
 have a chance to make the attempt. 
 
 "Well, it s not such a bad world after all," 
 said Fred on the day of his election to a cer 
 tain office in the Academy. 
 
 599 
 
THE MARRIED LIFE OF 
 
 "There are good people in it," said Mol 
 ly. They were walking home together in 
 the twilight from a reception "to meet 
 Mr. and Mrs. Frederic Carroll." 
 
 "It s a good world," repeated Fred in the 
 kindly, authoritative manner of good hus 
 bands, and he seemed so convinced of it 
 that he gave a half-dollar to a shabbily 
 dressed fellow-man shivering at the corner. 
 The latter, too, was an authoritative hus 
 band, but he had been out of work for three 
 months owing to what Roger called "artifi 
 cial over-production" in the steel industry, 
 in order to create real earnings for honest 
 stockholders like Fred who did not believe 
 in buying on margins. It was too much 
 like gambling. 
 
 "The fit always survive!" said Molly with 
 a sigh as they turned away toward the cheer 
 ing lights of home and those waiting to 
 welcome them there. "True merit thrives 
 upon adversity, as your Aunt Bella used to 
 say." 
 
 "All the same, Molly, there s an occa 
 sional grain of truth in those old copy-book 
 600 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 maxims," said her husband who was now 
 successful. Being a man he took a less 
 personal view of life, for he went on, "If I 
 have won out, it seems to me more despite 
 bad luck, than because of good luck. Aunt 
 Bella s will, for example." 
 
 "Yes, dear," said Molly proudly, "you ve 
 won all alone." 
 
 "That s where you re wrong," said her 
 natural leader with his nicest look. "If it 
 hadn t been for you and the kids why, 
 I d have had no incentive to do my best! 
 Don t you see?" 
 
 Doubtless Molly saw, but she only smiled 
 oddly. "Genius always triumphs in the 
 end," she said teasingly, and they turned 
 in at their happy home. 
 
 " I don t know about that," Fred remarked 
 opening the door. " But there is one thing 
 I can honestly say," he added with the be 
 coming modesty of a man of achievement, 
 "what little I have accomplished in my life 
 has been without bluffing any one not even 
 myself." 
 
 "I know, dear," said Molly. And such 
 601 
 
THE FREDERIC CARROLLS 
 
 was her approval of him, it seems, that tears 
 came to her soft eyes as, laughing, she looked 
 up at him and passed through the open 
 door, where they were met by the insistent 
 rising generation too young to understand 
 this strange mingling of tears and laughter 
 
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