The Convert (Boyce)

by Neith Boyce

 

The Convert

by NEITH BOYCE

THE two newspapers in Arden were equally divided on the suffrage question. The Sentinel, conservative and respectable, warmly advocated the franchise for women. Its editor was a brilliant young man named Hector Frye, supposed to be betrothed to Arden's leading female suffragist, Miss Millicent James. Gossip said that Millicent would marry Mr. Frye when the women's bill should pass the legislature. At any rate, she was given credit for securing Mr. Frye's aid in the battle for equal rights. And it was he personally who had carried over the Sentinel, which had previously wavered on the fence, and had made Votes for Women a dignified public issue in Arden. Obviously the value of such a champion was hardly to be overestimated.

The opposition was led by the Times, temperamental and disreputable. The Times was owned by a local sport named Colonel Banford—proprietor, also, of the race track and several saloons—and was supposed tu be edited by the office boy. It was an amusing paper. It printed everything, especially things rejected as improper and scan- dalous by the Sentinel. The Times was often referred to by the Sentinel as “the wastebasket,” and its pet name for the Sentinel was “'the mausoleum.”

Colonel Banford did not care if his paper shocked Arden; Arden read it and that was all he cared about. He did not mind being sued for libel because he could not be convicted, politics being what they were. He did not mind being ostracized by the respectable ladies of Arden, for he did not want to associate with those ladies. He was a salted bachelor of sixty-odd. He had, however, his sentimental side; and it was this side of him that was offended by the idea of woman suffrage. The colonel clung to the old-fashioned idea of the home. He had a chivalric ideal of woman, as representing everything soft and seducing and glamoursome. The spectacle of the sex preparing to leave its shrine in the heart of man for the sordid arena of politics shocked him to the depths of his manly soul.

Therefore, from the beginning of the suffrage agitation in Arden, the Times had violently opposed the movement. The colonel wielded what used to be called a trenchant pen. His style of rhetoric depended largely upon vigorous epithet; his sarcasm was clumsy and crude; but it had to be confessed that his editorial attacks on the Cause had steadily gained effectiveness. Instead of the heavy artillery of objurgation with which he had begun, there was now incessant sharpshooting—short paragraphs, flippant and barbed, embodying all the sneers and jeers that could be flung at the ladies of Arden, and at the Sentinel, their defender.

The ladies not only contemned, but hated the colonel, and looked forward, when they should vote, to the pleasing duty of driving him out of politics and business. Some of the sisterhood, who had interviewed and attempted to convert him, and had in return been favored with an especially blunt expression of his opinions, considered that the only proper answer to him was a horsewhip. Possibly some husband or brother might have been incited to apply this retort if it had not been for Millicent James.

“We must fight our own battles,” said she firmly. “To get some man to do it for us would be a weak reversion.”

This was all very well, but Millicent herself had been trying for nearly a year to organize a men's league; and, as has been said, she was held to have inspired Hector Frye's ardor for equal suffrage. Over their teacups, the sisters permitted themselves some criticism of their young leader. It was well to be wrapped up in the Cause, as Millicent proclaimed herself to be, but her behavior to Mr. Frye really gave some color to, for example, the Times' favorite charge that feminism meant the destruction of the feminine. Not that Millicent wasn't feminine enough—but to keep that poor young man dangling, as she had done for two years, making use of him, even for the Cause—— Well, she might boast of her convert, but it was possible to try him too far. A certain slackening of the Sentinel's enthusiasm had been evident of late, together with unusually vicious attacks in the Times—and with the bill coming up, too, for its annual vote! Millicent would better look to herself.

Millicent was very busy, preparing for her visit to the State capital. She had an uncommonly dashing frock for the occasion, and she had also a smashing speech. Hector Frye had been consulted on several points in the latter, but Millicent was not yet satisfied with it. And having an appointment, on the afternoon before her departure, to walk with Hector, she proposed using that time to go over the speech. She put on the gown, and was perfectly satisfied with that. But the day was lowering, the gown was not a rainy-day gown, and when Hector Frye was shown into the study to Millicent, he embraced the situation at a glance, even to the typewritten speech on the desk.

The mild warmth of Millicent's greeting did not prevent his brow from darkening. Millicent was much given to light caresses; she liked the atmosphere of warmth as a cat likes a fire. She was maidenly elusive, but she was also clinging and cajoling; in short, something of a coquette, though she would indignantly have denied it, believing coquetry to be a weapon of the lower and more primitive order of female.

“Aren't you going out?” Hector asked.

“I thought,” said Millicent swiftly, “that, as it's so dark, we might stay in here. There are one or two things that I want to talk to you about.” Seeing that the gloom deepened on her admirer's brow, she added instinctively: “You must tell me how you like my dress.”

“Very pretty,” said Hector shortly, as she turned her tall figure and light draperies about before him, smiling.

“But do you like it, really?”

“Oh, yes. If I were a legislator, I'm sure it would influence my vote—especially if a smile went with it.”

“You are displeased about something,” said Millicent, with dignity. “What is it?”

“Oh, nothing—nothing that matters. What was it you wanted to talk to me about?”

“Nothing, while you are in this mood. I don't want to bore you. Sit down and let me make you a cup of tea.”

“Thank you,” said Hector darkly. “I don't want any tea.”

“Well, have some whisky and soda, then.”

“Nor whisky, either. If you don't want to walk with me or talk with me, Millicent, I'll go back to the office. I have a lot of work to do.”

“Oh, Hector, don't be so unreasonable!” remonstrated Millicent, putting her hand on his shoulder and her fair, cool cheek against his. “It's unkind of you, when I have so much on my mind. If you'll wait a minute, I'll change my dress and we'll go out.”

“I don't want to drag you out,” said Hector sulkily, averting his face from Millicent's.

“I don't know what you do want, then,” said Millicent, dropping her hand, and moving away.

The young man looked rebelliously at her graceful figure, which now expressed in every line a sense of unmerited rebuff.

“Yes, you do know,” he said bitterly. “You know, but you can't or won't understand. You can't or won't realize what it means to me, the sort of thing that you've just done, that you're always doing—putting me off, postponing me, to second or third place in your thoughts and interest—always!”

“Again!” said Millicent.

“Yes, again and again! So long as you do it, I must complain—unless I do what I ought to have done long ago, as soon as I saw the situation clearly—give you up and go away.”

“I really don't know what this is all about,” declared Millicent with amazement. “Nor why you blaze out at me as you do, when you know——”

“Oh, yes, I know! When you want to devote all your time and attention to something much more important than my insignificant self. Your speech is——”

“I was about to say,” interrupted Millicent, “when you know my affection for you, and my dream of our working together——”

“Well, how can we, if we're not together? If we were, I could work then, do anything. As it is, I'm losing interest in my work, and even”—the young man laughed hollowly—“even in your work!”

“I know it!” cried Millicent. “Your enthusiasm is waning, and you are letting your personal feelings interfere with your sense of justice and right. Don't think I haven't noticed it. You are failing in the thick of the fight. I am hurt, deeply disappointed. I thought I could rely——”

“You thought my love for you would continue to blind me to your lack of love for me,” said the young man with trembling lips. “But on the contrary, love is cruelly clear-sighted. I won't say that I think you could have loved me if your mind hadn't been preoccupied with politics. No, that needn't have interfered. I don't think you ever would have loved me. I am going.”

He took up his hat and moved to the door. There he paused, waiting dully for one of those apparently impulsive advances with which Millicent was wont to silence his plaints, to appease him for the moment, to coax him by protestations and pretty kisses into the semblance of content. But this time she made no motion toward him. So he said huskily, “Good-by,” and went.

And Millicent stood by the window in her pretty dress, and looked at the dismal sky outside—and unhappy tears rolled down her smooth cheeks. She was very fond of Hector, and a quarrel with him cast the hues of mourning over the whole world—and he knew it—well he knew it! And how very unkind, how cruel and inconsiderate of him, to quarrel with her at this moment, when he was perfectly aware what an important day was before her, and how their disagreements upset her! How absurd to talk of women being personal and too much swayed by their emotions, when men were a thousand times more egotistic and irrational! Now she would have to wrestle with that speech alone, and—— What a bore the speech was, anyway! What a bore everything was! In a passion, she flung her manuscript into a drawer, tied up the telephone, left word that she had a headache, and was not to be disturbed, and retired from the world with a volume of Balzac.

The book was entertaining, but she was aggrievedly conscious that it would have been far pleasanter for her to dine and spend the evening with Hector, as she had intended—and assuredly it would have been pleasanter for Hector. Once more his impatience had spoiled their hours together. How stupid of him not to enjoy these hours of courtship, when they would certainly be married some time; and marriage was problematical, whereas courtship was undeniably agreeable, at least for Millicent. As for his leaving her, as he often threatened, that was nonsense. She meant to marry him, but not just at present. Vaguely Millicent felt that marriage was a serious matter, even for a capable, intelligent, and advanced young person of twenty-seven—perhaps especially for such a person. It would have been different, too, if Hector had been different—less emotional, temperamental, violent. Still, what a charming, lovable creature he was, and how his very unreason endeared him to her! She fell asleep, smiling fondly at the thought of him.

The next day, fresh and resolute, Millicent headed the delegation going to assault the embattled legislators. The Women's League, with banners and the town band, escorted them to the train. Cheers and salutations, both friendly and ironical, greeted the progress of the ladies down the main street of Arden. Three men, respectable, middle-aged husbands, marched in the ranks, smiling palely at the remarks leveled at them from the curb. The Sentinel had strung a banner across the street, on which appeared the words:

OUR MOTHERS, WIVES, AND SISTERS!
HAIL! VICTORY!

The Times, likewise, had its banner, crudely hung out at the last moment over the head of the advancing column:

OUR MOTHERS-IN-LAW AND MAIDEN AUNTS!
HAIL! RAIN! SNOW! FOUL WEATHER!

Millicent marched, head erect, and eyes full of fire, carrying a purple, green, and white flag. Carrying, also, in her wounded bosom the knowledge that not only was Hector Frye absent from the firing line—he had nearly promised to march with the three brave husbands—but that his defection was marked by the omission of the Sentinel's usual editorial on this important day to the women of Arden. Not a word. Everybody in Arden was, of course, aware of it. In comparison with this flagrant desertion, it was nothing that Hector was not at the station to bid her good-by, that he had not sent her the customary bunch of violets tied with green and white ribbons. It was nothing, Millicent repeated to herself, smiling fixedly as the train pulled out amid cheers and brays from the band.

And still another blow was in store for her. It was, to be sure, only an article in the despicable Times, but a shaft tipped with venom and aimed at Millicent's personal bosom. Already read by all her fellow delegates, this article, together with Mr. Frye's defection, formed the subject of excited comment, low-toned not to reach Millicent's ear, but going on all about her, as she would have been aware if she had not been absorbed in painful reverie. After a time, rousing herself, but still disinclined to talk, she took up the newspaper folded on the seat beside her, and, glancing absently over the Times, found on the editorial page the following:

PARABLE.

Some say it was the devil who made this fair model of a woman and sent her on earth for the torment of men. Others, that certain people, by mechanical skill, succeeded in constructing an automaton so wonderfully ingenious that to look at it you would never suspect that it had not a heart and a brain. For this automaton had the shape of a woman, with cheeks blushing as if with real blood, and eyes as soft as if a real feminine soul dwelt behind them. And she possessed also all those little feminine arts and wiles that are so entirely without significance that they can easily be performed mechanically. Where the brain of a real woman would have been, the automaton had a sort of clockwork that responded to certain stimuli and produced speech closely resembling at times rational argument. In place of the heart, there was an electric battery, which naturally was not susceptible either to pain or to love.

The creators of this ingenious imitation named it “The New Woman,” and proclaimed that in sufficient numbers it would do away with many of the emotional ills and disorders incident to the old régime; as much of the work of the world, and particularly the advancement of women, could be performed by such contrivances much better than by ordinary women subject to low human affections. And, in fact, this automaton demonstrated satisfactorily that a great reform in human institutions can be carried on without either a heart or a brain; and so clearly proved her superiority as a worker for the cause of Woman's rights that she was speedily promoted to leadership.

But a melancholy thing happened, owing to the lack of comprehension at first of this wonderful new type. It will hardly be believed that a man of ordinary mental powers could be long deceived into thinking this automaton a real human being of flesh and blood. But so it happened, and such a man actually fell in love with the beautiful shell of this creature, and became so maddened that he devoted his life to prove that, far from being incapable of the feelings of even the meanest woman, she was in reality able to understand and reciprocate the loftiest and most delicate emotion.

It would have touched a heart of stone to see this poor Pygmalion, dealing with a substance more incapable of response than any marble, day by day offering up his heart on an empty shrine. In vain were his ardent protestations of love interrupted by the mechanical speech of the pseudo-woman, which would exclaim, “Votes for Women!” even in the midst of the most impassioned appeals of the lover. Indeed, so deluded was the latter that he would even echo these words of his idol, hoping, perhaps, to touch her by his sympathy.

In truth there was something very absurd and laughable in this self-deception of a previously sane man. But pity for him overcame the general derision when he was seen to be really mad and removed to seclusion, a wreck.

The automaton, naturally unmoved by this occurrence, still pursues a successful career. And it is believed that if enough of such disinterested workers can be secured, the triumph of the cause will not be long delayed.

Millicent read and reread this article. She had sufficient self-control not to betray its effect on her. She continued to turn over the pages of the Times; then chatted with various delegates for half an hour or so; and finally took out the manuscript of her speech and apparently devoted herself to reading and penciling this important document.

In reality she was quite otherwise occupied. She was searching bewilderedly, among those who knew her well, for the person who could have aimed that blow at her. It was not Colonel Banford's hand; he could not have written that article. Some personal enemy stood behind him. And some one who bore malice to Hector as well as to her. That was the worst of Millicent felt that she could endure the pains of publicity for herself, as martyrdom in a just cause, but to drag in Hector and their personal relation! To make Hector appear ridiculous in the eyes of all Arden!

Tears of exasperation rose to her own eyes, but she quickly suppressed all show of emotion. Perhaps even now that secret enemy was watching her!

 

Millicent's speech was a failure. She went through it mechanically, with none of her usual spirit and energy. She received with equal indifference the defeat of her bill and the gain of four votes over the preceding year.

The event of the day was, of course, telegraphed to Arden, but, being expected, it did not interfere with the reception of the home-coming delegates. The gain of the four votes was celebrated as a victory, and Millicent, as she stepped from the train, was loudly cheered. But she looked pale and tired, and escaped as quickly as possible from the crowd of welcomers, among whom Hector Frye did not appear. There was no message from him at her house. She called up the Sentinel office, and was informed that Mr. Frye had been at home, ill, for two days. At his lodgings a hoarse voice answered her call.

“Hector, is that you? Are you ill? What is the matter?” she cried.

“Oh, nothing—just a cold—nothing serious. Very kind of you to ask,” said the voice heavily.

“I am coming round to see you,” announced Millicent.

“No, no, don't bother—I'll just get a cab and come round to you.”

“No, you won't. They told me at the office that you'd been ill for two days and——”

“Oh, well—I've resigned, that's why. But——”

“Resigned! What do you mean?”

“Why, I've left the paper. I'm going away. I'll be right over, Millicent.”

Millicent hung up the receiver, feeling suddenly numb. Resigned—going away! She sat at her desk, staring at the heap of papers before her, till Hector came in. Then she rose and faced him proudly. But at sight of his pale, haggard face, she ran toward him and put her hands on his shoulders.

“You are ill! You didn't let me know! What does it mean?” she cried.

Hector's eyes fell before hers. He took her hands in his, held them a moment gently, and let them go.

“I'm not ill, Millicent.”

“But resigning—going away! What do you——”

“Yes, I'm going. Sit down, Millicent—don't be disturbed, dear.”

But Millicent remained standing, looking at him painfully.

“I don't understand,” she said.

“No, dear—you don't understand,” said Hector, with a kind of hopeless patience. “I know it. You don't know how hard it's been for me—that I can't stand it—that I must go.”

“Do you mean,” she asked abruptly, “my not being ready to marry you?”

“Oh, it isn't so much that—though if you had loved me, you would have married me a year ago. It's because—I have loved you so entirely and have so hoped you would love me—and hope deferred maketh the heart sick—and I am heartsick. I can't work or think of anything but you—and you think of anything but me. I want to get free.”

Millicent's face hardened.

“I see,” she said, in a low voice. “Well—go, then.”

“But not in anger. Don't be angry with me, dearest. It isn't your fault that you can't love me—nor mine that I can't bear it any longer. Sit down, won't you, and let me talk—for the last time.”

Millicent dropped into the nearest chair.

“I can't believe,” she said, “that you would act in this way unless there's something I don't know.”

Hector stood near her with his hands on the back of a chair, moving it nervously.

“There is something you don't know and that I want to tell you before I go,” he said. “But it hasn't anything to do with my going.”

Millicent absently took off her big hat.

“I was going out,” she said. “I was going down to see Colonel Banford—Hector!” and she looked up at him sharply. “It isn't—hurt vanity that has done this, is it? No, that would be too absurd, and yet, you know, there was something written about me—about us—— Of course, you saw that thing in the Times. It was written to cut both of us—and I intend to find out who did it!' The color was coming back to Millicent's cheeks, and her eyes flashed angrily. 'I mean to go and ask that man who wrote it——”

“Millicent,” said Hector, standing straight and squaring his shoulders. “I'll save you the trouble. I wrote it. That's what I had to tell you.”

Seeing that Millicent was speechless, her hands hanging limp by her sides and her eyes fixed, Hector went on:

“I wrote that, and I've been writing for the Times for a year. I wrote all the anti-suffrage squibs—every one of them since a year ago. It's a miracle to me that you never suspected me, for often they were written in the very words I've used to you. You've always known that I was half a rebel.”

As Millicent still did not speak, but only stared at the floor, Hector continued calmly:

“Of course, I know how it will strike you and that you never will understand it. You will consider me a double-faced impostor and a criminal. You've never wanted to understand any more of me than just what went your way. And yet you must have known that, while I agreed with you logically, I didn't temperamentally, and all the temperamental side of me you have starved, and it takes its revenge, that's all. You can consider this an infidelity—unsatisfied emotion is apt to be unfaithful. I have often felt like smashing everything you were working for, and it was a perfectly legitimate feeling. I often felt like a solemn ass when I wrote the kind of thing you liked, and it was a great pleasure to me to show myself up publicly as such.

“Yes, I thoroughly enjoyed writing those things for the Times. It's a wonder to me that I haven't been found out, but I believe no one knows it except Banford, and he is a good old sport and has a sense of humor, and he's had a lot of fun out of this, and so have I. And you haven't given me much amusement otherwise, Millicent. Of course, you are furious that I should have dared make fun of your ideas—of you—it's lèse majesté—but a lover may see the ridiculous side of his mistress and love her none the less. I know you would have preferred me to be a doormat pure and simple, and honestly I tried to be, but I couldn't quite.

“If you want to tell the story of my treason to the sisterhood, you may, of course—they'll sympathize with you. Nobody will sympathize with me—unless it's old Banford. Of course, I didn't take any money from him, you know. He's the only person that will really miss me, I think. Do you mean to say, Millicent, that you could read that 'Parable' and not know I wrote it? Heavens, how blind you are! Didn't the bitterness of disappointment speak to you in every line? Who else could or would have written it? Who else cared enough? Who else loves you, and hates you for your insensibility, and would like to wound you, to beat you—anything to make you feel?”

Hector snatched up his hat, looking at her with flaming eyes. Millicent twisted her hands together.

“I know,” he said, “that I have hurt you, and that you will never forgive me. You won't think of the thousand times you have hurt me, and without meaning to—that's the sting. Well—it's over now. Don't make another man love you, Millicent—you're a natural celibate. You'll get over my going very soon, especially as old Banford won't be able to bother you as much without me. You only lose a lover that you don't want, but the Cause loses an enemy!”

With this parting gibe, the young man abruptly left the room; and in a daze she heard his cab drive away.

What went on in Millicent's consciousness during the hours of twilight in which she sat motionless where Hector had left her, perhaps remained inexplicable even to herself. What happened afterward, however, speedily became public property. Arden knew next day that Miss James and Mr. Frye had departed together for a neighboring city, where they were quietly married; and that, after a short absence, Mr. Frye would return to his editorial duties on the Sentinel. History might record that after this event the journalistic suffrage war in Arden lost in interest; for as the Sentinel gained weight and ardor on the affirmative side, the Times became distinctly enfeebled, and though still with a will to bite, might be seen to have lost its teeth.

The Jekyll-and-Hyde part played by Mr. Frye never became known; nor did the influence of his crime on Millicent's imagination. It was certainly not merely the fear of losing him that took her to his lodgings on that night when he had said farewell to her.

The blow that he had dealt her was perhaps the crystallizing force that shook all her vague feeling into definite form. Before that she had been fond of him as a thoroughly known person, good, frank, and honest. But who can gauge the effect of a suddenly discovered chasm in what has seemed firm earth, leading to unknown depths?

Was it a determination on Millicent's part to reclaim her convert, and once for all to assure his shaken loyalty? No, it was a purely personal matter.

She did not want to lose her lover—and not till it came to the point of losing him, perhaps, did she perfectly realize that she wanted him. But this was not all.

There remains the question of his infidelity. And until the effect of such an infidelity—the result, illogical, but certain, of her own coldness, and thus a perverse proof of his love for her—until this problem can be studied out, it will be impossible to know why Millicent, flinging herself into Hector's arms and passionately responsive to him at last, sobbed out, for all explanation of her surrender:

“Hector! I never can trust you again!”