Skinny Island by Louis Auchincloss Read Free Book Online

better than they do. But the real point, Grissy, is this. Atalanta is just as willing as I am to leave things as they are. She respects me, I believe, without in the least liking me. I feel the same way about her. Why can't you accept a modus vivendi that she and I have worked out and that is satisfactory to both?"
    "Because, sir, if you will forgive me, I cannot believe that it is, at least to her. I believe that Atalanta considers herself deeply wronged by my aunts and by Mother. I believe she has welcomed my visits and my offer of friendship. I consider her a remarkable woman. I want to show before all the world that I take my grandfather's wife by the hand."
    "You'll reap the whirlwind, my son," Lewis Norrie muttered with a grunt. "You don't know the power you will be challenging. If you ask Atalanta to your wedding you may have nobody else there. Including your bride!"
    "Oh, lone is with me on this!" Griswold exclaimed, "lone feels just as I do."
    "Has she talked to her mother?"
    "Not yet. That's why we decided to appeal to you. We thought Mrs. Carruthers would be more apt to come around if you spoke to her."
    "Oh, so
I
am chosen to walk into the dragon's lair? Thank you very much, but I think I shall leave the pleasure of that particular form of suicide to those who propose it. I am delighted, dear boy, at the prospect of your union with the enchanting and amiable lone, but I do not consider it one of the duties of her prospective father-in-law to take on the formidable Elsa."
    "Oh, Father, come, Mrs. Carruthers isn't that bad."
    "My dear son, you're simply talking through your hat. I can see that chapeau in front of your mouth just as clearly as if you hadn't checked it in the cloakroom. Elsa Carruthers has been sweet-mouthing you because you're one of the most eligible bachelors in New York. No, don't frown and shrug your shoulders: you
are,
my boy. Have you ever stopped to consider how mothers like Elsa dread the sleazy fortune hunters who inhabit this town? And then along comes Griswold Norrie, clean, intelligent, without vices or degrading attachments, handsome to behold and damn near as rich as her daughter. By God, of course she has to have you! But even so, don't kid yourself. Once she has you, or once you cross her on a real issue, that sweet smile will vanish, and the true Elsa will spring like the armed Athena from the brain of Zeus!"
    "And will poor Atalanta really present such an issue?"
    "'Poor' Atalanta! How your aunts wish she were that. But certainly, she would present it. The women of your mother's and Elsa's world can never forgive her her past. According to them, she's no better than a prostitute."
    "Father! You surely don't believe she was that."
    "I don't know what she was, my boy. I admit I find it hard to believe that she ever sold herself. However, it seems indisputable that she had love affairs. After all, she advocated free unions."
    "But not after she married Grandpa?"
    "So far as I know she has been utterly respectable ever since she married your grandfather."
    "Well, why should we care what happened before? If
he
didn't?"
    "Of course, we don't know that he knew. He was not the man he had been when he married her. But who are 'we'? The men? What do we count for? The women are down on her, no matter how pure she was after her marriage. And do you know why? Because a woman who gives her body to a man without making a husband of him is considered a traitor to her sex. The only way they can cope with our power is through marriage. And a woman who is unchaste is exposing her sex to the enemy!"
    Griswold sighed. He knew that when his father took refuge in theorizing it was to avoid the principal issue. And when he avoided that it was because he had decided not to grant what had been requested. And his mind, once made up, was unchangeable.
    "I see that I shall have to speak to Mrs. Carruthers myself. Do you think I might use the French analogy? She's very keen on things European."
    "What do you mean