For a week the tension between Roger and Anne lasted, pulling a little
weaker each day under the pressure of proximity, little Rogie, and the
habit of agreement. Anne did not mention Merle again and tried not to
think of the staring, embryonic eyes of what might have been Merle's
child. She knew such thought was morbid and unhealthy. As Merle had
said, one million women a year, in the United States alone, recognized
this as their right of escape. To Belle it was perhaps a very ordinary
occurrence. Anne herself would have hesitated to call it "wicked."
She called it "horrible" instead. But she was glad when Merle stopped
coming and never asked about her.
Autumn passed and the holiday season came with early rain. Hilda spoke
tentatively of another Christmas dinner, although Belle was in Europe
now with a rich patient. But Anne evaded these suggestions and did not
even mention them to Roger.
On Christmas Eve Anne bought a tiny tree and decorated it, but Rogie
was fretful and squirmed away from it, crying; so that Anne put out the
candles and did not light them again.
On Christmas morning she and Roger exchanged their presents and
immediately after the late breakfast Roger began work on a complicated
case that was to come up right after the New Year.
Just before noon it began to rain again, a thin, icy drizzle that
soaked all the cheer and hope from life. Anne tried to read or sew, but
the thin, cold, inexhaustible rain washed away all interest. She could
not even make up her mind to go to Hilda, although it was Christmas day
and she had not been for a week. No decision could crystallize in that
icy drip, never condensing to a real downpour, never ceasing, trickling
into one's courage until it washed away desire.
They had planned to go to a theater in the evening, but a little after
five the woman whom Anne had hired to stay with Rogie phoned that she
could not come, and the tickets were cancelled. Roger had worked all
afternoon in order to have the evening free, and now that the evening
was to be his he decided to take a nap. He slept until Anne waked him
for dinner at half past six.
After dinner he helped Anne with the dishes and they smoked an extra
cigarette in honor of the day. But he was so plainly anxious to get
back to the work he had not quite finished that at last Anne's taut
nerves could no longer stand his generosity and she urged him to finish.
"Otherwise you'll want to sit up all night, and you've been up late for
days."
"I would like to get it through to-night," he conceded. "But what will
you do? I'm afraid I've been pretty absorbed all day."
"That's all right. I may go 'round to mom's for a little. I haven't
even phoned and I sent the presents by post."
"Has it stopped raining?"
"I don't know. It doesn't matter." Anne went to the door and the sweet
dampness of the garden flooded the warm room. "Yes, it's stopped;
thickened to a heavy mist. I won't be long."
"Then I'll try and finish by the time you get back."
Almost before the door closed Roger was at the typewriter. As Anne went
down the stairs she heard it click, click, as fast as Katya's.
She found Hilda and James alone, Hilda crocheting and James reading
in the silence that always lay over their evenings. For a few moments
her entrance shattered it, and they came together in interest of her
news, the health of Rogie, the presents Anne had sent. Then James went
back to his paper and Hilda rummaged in her disordered work-basket for
Belle's last letter.
Would she and Roger some day meet like this for a moment on the coming
of Rogie, a grown man?
Anne scarcely heard the letter Hilda had found, not in the work-basket
at all, but in the pocket of her kitchen apron. It was only the
postscript that drew Anne's attention in time to comment intelligently:
"We're leaving Marseilles to-morrow," Belle wrote, "and may go on to
the Far East."
"Now, if that isn't just like Belle's luck," Hilda smiled and folded
the letter. "Traipsing 'round like a millionaire with nothing to do.
The lady has her own maid, and Belle only has to see that she takes her
drops and things and doesn't get too tired. I'll bet Belle has a high
old time."
Hilda looked like an excited child, prematurely gray-headed, as she
nodded her assurance of Belle's ability to have a good time in any
circumstance.
"I don't doubt that, but, personally, I can't imagine anything worse
than trotting about with an invalid, looking after her pills and
sandwiching all the lovely things in Europe into the spaces between her
patient's rests."
Hilda laughed. "If I know Belle, by this time she's got that maid
trained."
"She's tried, anyhow," Anne agreed, and they smiled together in
appreciation of Belle's "efficiency."
Just as Anne was leaving Charlotte Welles came in, and Anne stayed on
a few moments. Charlotte Welles was a slight woman with great dark
eyes under cloudy brown hair, a pale skin, and pale, sweet lips. She
had a soft voice, but her manner annoyed Anne. Her gentleness was so
insistent, and although she never mentioned her belief in Christian
Science, Anne was sure she never forgot it for a moment. She seemed
always to measure one's remarks up against eternity, to discount any
opposition as the meanderings of a clouded mind; to be quite sure that,
in time, one would see Truth. To-night she was particularly annoying,
although as Anne walked home she could not repeat a single annoying
thing Mrs. Welles had said.
"She affects me as the sight of a limousine or a fur-lined overcoat
affects the man with a dinner pail trudging in the street, I suppose.
She's a kind of spiritual 'capitalist' with an unfair advantage
over the rest of the world. Because she started with an illogical
mind she's been able to accumulate this 'peace,' and never earned
it through a real trouble in her life. I can't imagine what she and
moms have in common, but she seems to be always dropping in. Perhaps
she hopes to convert mamma to Science." But at the picture of Hilda
converted to Science and moving thereafter in calm assurance through
the perversities of James Mitchell, Anne laughed aloud. "Dear old moms,
she'd never keep her mind on one thing long enough to demonstrate it
into existence, even if she could decide what it was she wanted most."
But the calm face of Charlotte Welles continued beside Anne until
she reached her own door. After all, the "capitalist" did enjoy his
viciously accumulated millions, and Charlotte Welles' peace was real to
herself.
The typewriter was covered now, and Roger was reading before the fire.
As Anne came in he laid his book aside and looked up.
"Well, what's the news?"
"Nothing special. Belle's going on from France to the Far East. She
seems to be having a wonderful time."
"Trust Belle."
"Oh, I don't know. Belle works hard for her money. You wouldn't like to
trot a nervous millionaire around the world, would you?"
"Not on your life." Roger was about to add that neither would he like,
if he were a nervous millionaire, being trotted about the world by
Belle. But he never, if he could avoid it, referred in any way to the
Mitchells. He always asked after them when Anne had been there, but he
never went himself. He felt at times that Anne understood his feeling,
and he wished he could have been more honest with her about it. But at
the first hint of criticism Anne flared to their defense; and often,
when the Mitchells themselves had been far from his intention, Anne had
interpreted his scorn of intellectual narrowness as direct criticism of
her people.
The subject of Belle dropped, but Roger did not take his book again. He
felt Anne beside him, aloof in some interest acquired at the Mitchell
flat, something she would guard from him if he tried to share it. Roger
felt a little sentimental and lonely, too, as he searched about among
the topics of common interest for a meeting ground with Anne. But this
meeting ground had grown narrower and narrower and what remained had
dangerous spots, slippery places from which they were sure to slide
from generalities to personal recrimination--if Anne let it get that
far. Usually, just as they were about to plunge into an anger that
Roger often felt would clear the atmosphere, Anne would retreat behind
the patient calm that closed him from her as effectually as a barred
door.
The silence grew until Roger felt that he must break it at any price,
when unexpectedly Anne sighed. She had been wandering through the
lovely places of Europe.
"Tired?"
"No, not very. But this rain is getting on my nerves I think. I can't
get out much with Rogie, and I feel all cooped up."
"Couldn't we make some arrangement? Couldn't you get Mrs. Horton to
come round for so many hours a day? That would leave you free. It's not
right to drop all your interests, even for His Highness."
His voice was so concerned, his eyes so gentle that Anne forced back
the statement that His Highness was now the only real interest she had.
"I suppose we could. But I really don't know what I would do. I thought
the other day of taking some extension lectures again, afternoon ones.
I got the prospectus for French literature and history--but I don't
know. It seems finicky and dilettantish somehow."
French literature, when Roger was always talking about the drama and
tragedy of life about them! History, when the people round her were
engaged in making it!
For a moment Roger thought of suggesting that Anne come for a few hours
a day and help out in the loft. They were deluged in work. Merle was
getting more and more careless. Some days she never appeared at all.
She had been away a week now, no one knew where, unless it was Tom, and
he had offered no explanation. Katya had done Merle's work in addition
to her own, but even Katya was not so good a stenographer as Anne.
While he turned the suggestion about, making sure it hid no pitfall of
antagonism, Anne went on:
"I guess that the real reason is I'm too lazy."
"You're certainly not that. You keep Rogie like a prince and this house
is a regular jewel-box."
And yet, less than two years ago, he had planned to do high things
with Anne. One planned, and something, faint as breath, impalpable as
a mist, crept in, and one did not do those things. The burned log fell
apart. The rain beat again on the roof as if striving to reach within.
In the rising wind the acacia lashed at them. Anne came from her
thoughts with a little shrug.
"Perhaps I will. I don't know. In the meantime, let's go to bed. The
jewel-box has to be thoroughly overhauled this week and I want to get
up early to-morrow."
In the darkness they listened for a while to the rain. Then gradually
Roger ceased to hear it. His breath came in long, steady sighs, even
and assured. Anne rose quietly on her elbow until she could see his
face faintly in the blackness. He looked very young in his sleep and
remarkably like Rogie.