Three weeks later the _Star of Troy_ slipped in. She never arrived with
any fanfare—that was not her way.
It was agreed that Stella should go home alone, and, with such fortitude
as she could summon, convey to her family the tragic aspect of this
return. She preferred it that way. A cable had gone out to them from
India; but nothing had been said about King, and she faced a task which
brought its shudder. Better, almost better, she thought at times, to have
them carry home her dead body, than to come back with things as they
stood. But in her stronger moments she grimly welcomed the ordeal.
First there was just a moment of overwhelming happiness, with her
father’s arms about her, and Maud stretching out her dear formless lips
for a kiss, and Ted with his near-sighted eyes full of welcome behind
their bright-looking glasses, and the incorrigible voice of Aunt Alice
rushing pell-mell down the stairs. Stella felt as though she could not
endure the almost terrible happiness, while it lasted. And then—
Well, she slumped down into a chair and told them about her husband. She
spoke of him tensely, yet her voice was not clouded with blame. She cried
a little. And then she was in her father’s arms again, and all he could
say was: “Stella—Stella....”
After that life settled down in the house. Stella gradually took up her
old duties, quietly and gratefully; yet she could not quite believe,
sometimes, that the long, long horror was forever still. Her nights at
first were troubled, even terrible; and by day, she never smiled.
Jerome fell easily into the way of dropping in to spend an evening. He
held them all breathless with his multiple adventures, though the darker
phases were not touched upon.
At first he and Stella were but little alone together. He had become,
it would seem, just a good comfortable friend of the family, and his
tongue was always gayest when they were all assembled in the cosy back
parlour. She felt his aloofness, as she had felt it first on that
far-off night in the temple, though it was warmer now, and somehow less
oppressively personal. Yet this way, to Stella, it seemed an even harder
thing to face. His unfailing cheerfulness and that most amazing worldly
nonchalance seemed thrusting their destinies ever farther and farther
apart. Her tragedy seemed indeed complete. Had he really fallen in
love with Elsa? she asked herself. And the answer was always the same,
patiently, inevitably: “It would be like that. It would have to be.”
One evening, however, a curious change came. Jerome and Stella were
sitting out together on the front steps. He had been gay as usual an
hour ago in the back parlour; but now, here in the thoughtful dark,
seemed sunk in a deep realm of reverie. As a matter of fact, Jerome was
busy with far-flung conjecture. There was a good deal to plan—his whole
life, for that matter, which, at his age, represented a contract of no
mean proportions. The Mediterranean project was definitely on, and in
two weeks Jerome would depart for Tripoli—and the Lord knew what! It was
immensely exciting. It seemed the dawn of a real career for him.
He had been perhaps a little more worldly than usual tonight; but now
his mood seemed to warm and soften. “Stella,” he began, then hesitated,
and ended by reaching out and taking her hand. He held it a long time in
silence.
At last he began to speak, his voice a little husky with new emotion.
Stella felt her heart respond in a dumb, incredulous way. But he had said
only a few words when an unexpected interruption occurred.
A smart little car darted up and stopped, and out of it came Elsa
with a boyish bound, which had about it, however, a certain trim and
self-sufficient grace. Stella drew her hand gently out of Jerome’s warm
clasp, and they rose to welcome the newcomer.
There was a very faint and echoy trace of the old romantic flutter in
Stella’s voice as she suggested they go into the parlour. But Elsa, in
her cool, blunt, even subtly tactless way, would not hear of it. “I like
it much better outside, and anyway I can only stop a minute. I’m picking
up dad at the club.”
She gazed at Jerome, just an instant, somewhat queerly; and then she
gazed at them both without any expression at all. Her heart was not
without its emotion—but emotion so jealously guarded that no one on earth
could possibly hope to obtain the slightest clue to it.
She sat down with them on the steps and talked of trivial things. Jerome
was unexpectedly silent. Finally she turned to him, drawling:
“You’re getting to be an awful stranger over our way. I suppose the
journey scares you out.”
And before he could make any reply at all, she had turned calmly back to
Stella with unrelated matters, her tone just a shade too eager, perhaps,
to be _quite_ worthy of the established Utterbourne imperturbability.
When she was gone, Stella mused: “Elsa never changes. She’s always just
the same.” And then, on an undercurrent of dark brooding: “It must be
wonderful to be able to go through life that way,” the woman tensely
murmured.
“I suppose so,” replied Jerome, not quite at his ease still, but behaving
more normally now the other girl had departed.
Stella almost surrendered, right on the spot, to a throbbing impulse to
ask him: “What is Elsa to you, and what are you to her?” But she merely
sat silent; and in a way perhaps more convincing than any words, the
unformed query was answered, after a moment or two, by Jerome’s gently
seeking her hand again.
“Jerome....” she faltered, but her look was growing almost radiant.
“Stella, dear....” His voice was husky once more. “I love you.”
And then everything seemed altered, and she said, because she simply
couldn’t help it: “Jerome—I thought it was—I thought you loved Elsa....”
He smiled, reminiscent and a little grave. “If things had turned out
differently with you, there might have come a time.... You see we met
just when I felt—well, when I felt, or thought I did, about everything a
good deal the way she did. I don’t know....” But after a tiny silence he
ended, very simply: “As it is, I only want you, Stella.”
And then—oh, well, it was a wonderful night. Love seemed to rush back and
overwhelm them. It was far more thrilling than anything in the old days,
yet it was all very quiet and simple.
Bracing himself just a little, and in secret glad of the dark, Jerome
told her the rest about Lili, while she turned wide eyes upon him and
listened. He kept nothing back, because—well, because it _was_ such a
wonderful night; and besides, he had a feeling that the foundations of
their whole future happiness were, in a sense, being laid now, and there
must be no false masonry. At first it seemed so strange to her that she
couldn’t speak.
He wondered, a little darkly, what was passing in her mind. There were
misgivings; but at length she gave his hand a pressure, and she said:
“I see, Jerome. I’m glad you told me.”
Naturally, after that, he breathed more easily. And then he went on
talking about all the things that had gone to make up the fabric of his
life since it was sundered from hers. He poured out to her the love that
had been in his heart for the little son they had had to leave at sea,
and felt her sympathy, warm and intimate. A glow seemed to envelop them
both.
Here they were, on the steps, holding hands—just as in the old days,
only of course now it was all more wonderful. Strange, they thought—so
strange: somehow as though the tiny seed of return had been present even
in that dark and groping lovers’ quarrel up Market street....
She snuggled against him softly. Thoughts of the new life just setting
in flooded her heart with solemn happiness. She watched the dim trees
stirring in the night wind. Stella was quite as far from Irmengarde
as before. Alas, she would never be like Irmengarde, after all. But
she didn’t care. And when it came to life and the serious facts of
living—good heavens! she had had experiences that would make Irmengarde
faint right away and never come to again.
She leaned against Jerome’s shoulder in a happy, tired way. Life had
snatched them up and set them down again. Yes, life had played pranks
with them both, as life will sometimes—incredibly or not, it makes no
difference; tragically or absurdly, there remains nothing to be said. And
Jerome grasped his happiness, too.
“Somehow,” she said, her voice all warmth and tenderness, with a touch
of humour also, at last, “I wish you weren’t going away, but were going
to get back your old job at Oaks-Ferguson’s!” And for the first time,
almost, since that night the little dinner wasn’t eaten—Stella smiled.
“But I know,” she went on humorously, “you’d never be happy _there_
again, and—well, as soon as you can come back to marry me, I’ll be ready
to go away with you.”
“Back to Tripoli?” he murmured, his eyes full of love, but touched also
with ambitious, worldly dreams.
“Wherever the work takes you,” she said.
Then there came a subtle twinkle in his eye, and, though with great
tenderness, he couldn’t resist reminding her: “You used to talk so much
about visiting Paris. Some day—well, some day, you know, it might be even
that—you never can tell, Stella. Wouldn’t it be funny,” he laughed, “to
think of us living in Paris!”
They kissed, like children, without embracing.
And just as he went away, he pressed a ring into her hand. “I know you
don’t want to wear it now,” he said, “but just keep it where you can look
at it sometimes. It will help you to remember. And later on,” he added,
“we’ll trade it in at Ascher’s for a bigger stone. But the man told me
that it’s a good little diamond, at that, for its size.”