When I awoke my disquieting,retrospective mood had disappeared,and yet there clung to me,minus the sanction of fear or reward or revealed truth,a certain determination to behave,on this day at least,more like a father and a husband:to make an effort to enter into the spirit of the festival,and see what happened.I dressed in cheerful haste,took the sapphire pendant from its velvet box,tiptoed into the still silent schoolroom and hung it on the tree,flooding on the electric light that set the tinsel and globes ablaze.No sooner had I done this than I heard the patter of feet in the hallway,and a high-pitched voice--Biddy's--crying out:--"It's Santa Claus!"Three small,flannel-wrappered figures stood in the doorway.
"Why,it's father!"exclaimed Moreton.
"And he's all dressed!"said Matthew.
"Oh-h-h!"cried Biddy,staring at the blazing tree,"isn't it beautiful!"Maude was close behind them.She gave an exclamation of delighted surprise when she saw me,and then stood gazing with shining eyes at the children,especially at Biddy,who stood dazzled by the glory of the constellation confronting her....Matthew,too,wished to prolong the moment of mystery.It was the practical Moreton who cried:--"Let's see what we've got!"The assault and the sacking began.I couldn't help thinking as I watched them of my own wildly riotous,Christmas-morning sensations,when all the gifts had worn the aura of the supernatural;but the arrival of these toys was looked upon by my children as a part of the natural order of the universe.At Maude's suggestion the night before we had placed my presents,pieces de resistance,at a distance from the tree,in the hope that they would not be spied at once,that they would be in some sort a climax.It was Matthew who first perceived the ship,and identified it,by the card,as his property.To him it was clearly wonderful,but no miracle.He did not cry out,or call the attention of the others to it,but stood with his feet apart,examining it,his first remark being a query as to why it didn't fly the American flag.It's ensign was British.Then Moreton saw the locomotive,was told that it was his,and took possession of it violently.Why wasn't there more track?Wouldn't I get more track?I explained that it would go by steam,and he began unscrewing the cap on the little boiler until he was distracted by the man-of-war,and with natural acquisitiveness started to take possession of that.Biddy was bewildered by the doll,which Maude had taken up and was holding in her lap.She had had talking dolls before,and dolls that closed their eyes;she recognized this one,indeed,as a sort of super-doll,but her little mind was modern,too,and set no limits on what might be accomplished.She patted it,but was more impressed by the raptures of Miss Allsop,who had come in and was admiring it with some extravagance.Suddenly the child caught sight of her stocking,until now forgotten,and darted for the fireplace.
I turned to Maude,who stood beside me,watching them.
"But you haven't looked on the tree yourself,"I reminded her.
She gave me an odd,questioning glance,and got up and set down the doll.
As she stood for a moment gazing at the lights,she seemed very girlish in her dressing-gown,with her hair in two long plaits down her back.
"Oh,Hugh!"She lifted the pendant from the branch and held it up.Her gratitude,her joy at receiving a present was deeper than the children's!
"You chose it for me?"
I felt something like a pang when I thought how little trouble it had been.
"If you don't like it,"I said,"or wish to have it changed--""Changed!"she exclaimed reproachfully."Do you think I'd change it?
Only--it's much too valuable--"
I smiled....Miss Allsop deftly undid the clasp and hung it around Maude's neck.
"How it suits you,Mrs.Paret!"she cried....
This pendant was by no means the only present I had given Maude in recent years,and though she cared as little for jewels as for dress she seemed to attach to it a peculiar value and significance that disturbed and smote me,for the incident had revealed a love unchanged and unchangeable.Had she taken my gift as a sign that my indifference was melting?
As I went downstairs and into the library to read the financial page of the morning newspaper I asked myself,with a certain disquiet,whether,in the formal,complicated,and luxurious conditions in which we now lived it might be possible to build up new ties and common interests.Ireflected that this would involve confessions and confidences on my part,since there was a whole side of my life of which Maude knew nothing.Ihad convinced myself long ago that a man's business career was no affair of his wife's:I had justified that career to myself:yet I had always had a vague feeling that Maude,had she known the details,would not have approved of it.Impossible,indeed,for a woman to grasp these problems.
They were outside of her experience.
Nevertheless,something might be done to improve our relationship,something which would relieve me of that uneasy lack of unity I felt when at home,of the lassitude and ennui I was wont to feel creeping over me on Sundays and holidays....
XX.
I find in relating those parts of my experience that seem to be of most significance I have neglected to tell of my mother's death,which occurred the year before we moved to Grant Avenue.She had clung the rest of her days to the house in which I had been born.Of late years she had lived in my children,and Maude's devotion to her had been unflagging.Truth compels me to say that she had long ceased to be a factor in my life.I have thought of her in later years.
