Jack and Susan in 1933 by Michael McDowell Page B

I could get Harmon to ask me, because if he did, then I’d accept.”
    â€œAnd Harmon did ask…” said Marcellus Rhinelander.
    â€œAnd I accepted,” said Susan. “I told you it was simple.”
    Marcellus Rhinelander leaned forward out of the shadows of the wing chair, reaching for the humidor. “Do you mind if I smoke?”
    â€œCertainly not,” said Susan.
    She was silent as he did his business with picking the cigar, cutting the end, igniting the long wooden match, twirling the cigar so that it lighted evenly. He leaned back into the shadows.
    â€œWhy are you telling me this?” he said at last.
    â€œYou asked me,” Susan replied. “I assumed, perhaps wrongly, that you wanted the truth.”
    â€œI’m not certain I got the truth,” said Marcellus Rhinelander.
    â€œYou got what you thought you’d hear if I did tell the truth,” said Susan. “You think I’m a gold digger. You think I seduced the man you wanted for a son-in law. Though I think it only just to point out that Barbara spoiled that little plan first, by marrying Mr. Beaumont of the interminable legs. You think that I have connived, and subterfuged—is there such a word?—and played wanton, played virgin, played coquette, played whatever role was necessary to marry a man who hasn’t seen a sober sunset or a sober sunrise in ten years.”
    Marcellus Rhinelander didn’t answer. Obviously, it was what he thought.
    â€œIt’s what your daughter thinks of me, too,” said Susan.
    â€œBut it’s not all the truth, is it?” said Marcellus Rhinelander. Susan liked him for that. A little, anyway.
    â€œNo, of course it isn’t all the truth. I’m very fond of Harmon. How could anyone not be? Harmon is very fond of me. I’m already a good wife to him, insofar as I’m the kind of wife that least disturbs his peace of mind. I don’t try to stop his drinking. I don’t tell him to work harder or to bring home more money. I don’t try to make him take me out more—if anything, there are many evenings I’d rather stay home. I don’t ask where he’s been, what he’s been doing, or who he’s been doing it with. I try to appear as beautiful, and as happy, and as in love with him as I can. Certainly, if you’re afraid that I’m spending all his money, you needn’t concern yourself. I don’t accept half what he tries to give me. I didn’t want to be rich— I’ve been that. I just didn’t want my entire life to revolve around that damned two dollars a week. I think Harmon loves me as much as he could love any woman who hangs around more than six weeks or so, and I think I love Harmon as much as I could love any man I married for his money.” Susan swallowed off the last of the port in her glass. “That’s still not all the truth,” she concluded, “but it’s most of it, I think.”
    â€œI believe you,” said Marcellus Rhinelander. “Now the question is, why are you telling it to me?”
    â€œBecause I want you to believe the worst of me, that is, what you’ve believed all along, so that I’ll never be invited back to another of these dreadful dinners.”
    â€œNot a chance,” returned Marcellus Rhinelander, blowing out a blue cloud of smoke from his cigar. “We’re having dinner again tomorrow night. Now that I’ve heard the truth, or most of it, I’ve come to the conclusion that you are the best possible wife for Harmon Dodge. And beyond that, I’ve decided I like you.”
    â€œI don’t like you,” returned Susan. “Not one little bit.”
    â€œQuite beside the point, really.”

    He called the next day and Susan said that she didn’t want to return to the Cliffs for dinner.
    The Bolshie will pick you up at seven.
    â€œHe might not be a Bolshie if you treated him decently,”