Flaming Youth

CHAPTER XIV

Semicircles of weariness hollowed Robert Osterhout's eyes as he opened the door and entered Mona's room. It had been a hard night for him. Memory had been delicately dissecting his nerves. Striving in vain to lose himself in his experiments he had turned, early in the morning, to his communion with the dead woman. The letter, that pitiful solace for the unremitting pain of loss and loneliness, was in his hand now as he closed the door behind him.

" ... As for Pat," he had written, "she is one of those born to trouble the hearts of men and to take fire from their trouble. Of the tribe of Helen! If I could see her safely married—— Safely! As if there were any safety in marriage! Not under our present system. Look at Connie. Though, for that matter, my misgivings about her and Cary Scott seem to have been misplaced. That flame has flickered out. She will perhaps settle down from sheer inertia. But hers is hardly what one would call a safe or successful marriage. Dee's may be better. Not that she is specially in love with James. But her training at sports will stand her in good stead. She will go through with it. Dee is first and last a good sport. Nevertheless, I sometimes wish she had waited for the really right man, if there be any such for her.

"Mona, there are times when I could believe in trial marriage, with suitable safeguards, of course, against children. If I were a philosopher instead of a medical man I should certainly favour the system. But my technical training prejudices my judgment. Of course, we do[Pg 151] have trial marriages, and commonly; or trial alliances, which is the same thing without the same name. If the truth were known I suppose that most men who marry the second time, marry their mistresses. How many other experiments may previously have gone into the discard as having proved unsuitable, is another question. Selection of the fittest. The notion that men never marry the women who give themselves is fictional cant, one of those many falsities which society propagates under the silly delusion that they are safeguards of virtue.

"What an experiment it would be to bring up a young girl in an atmosphere clear of all the common lies and illusions! You had begun to do it with Pat, I think. I wish that I could carry on. But it is too blind a venture for a worn and uncertain bachelor like myself. Nevertheless, when Pat does put questions to me I give her the truth. And she has a flair for truth. An enquiring and pioneering sort of mind, too, which would be a fine equipment if only it were trained and disciplined. As it is, it is a danger. She will explore, and exploration, with her temperament—Pat ought to marry some man much older than herself; a man of thirty at least, clever enough to understand her, patient enough to bear with her caprices, and strong enough to compel her respect. He could make something real of her, for there is essential character in Pat. Or is it only the charm of her personality that makes one think so? I could wish that Cary Scott were not married. Though, of course, he is too old for her. He takes a great deal of interest in her and has much influence over her mind; but his interest is not that kind of interest, naturally. He has been talking to me about her; very shrewdly, too. He thinks her of the dangerously inflammable type. I fancy that she has been making a confidant of him. He thinks that I should talk[Pg 152] to her plainly. I feel rather alarmed at the prospect; the modern flapper knows so formidably much!"

Opening the safe to add this letter to the accumulating pile in the centre compartment, Osterhout was conscious of a subtle and troubling impression. He felt that some alien hand had intruded there, some alien eye had seen those words, so sacredly confidential, sealed in the inviolable silences of death. Yet that, he knew, was impossible. No one in the world except himself had the combination of the safe. Could Mona herself, Mona's spirit, returning to the room she had so loved and so permeated with her personality, have entered there to absorb the essence of the confidences which she had demanded of him? But if that were so, why should he feel that sense of invasion, since the letters belonged more to Mona than to him? Nevertheless, the thought was a blessed appeasement to the thirst of his heart. He clasped it to him. But presently his underlying materialistic hard sense reasserted its ascendancy. He set it all down to imagination; smiled tolerantly at himself for a sentimental self-deluder.