One evening Thane and John were sitting together in one of their
friendly silences, after supper, in the hotel lobby. Thane cleared his
throat.
“We’ve got a house, Agnes ’n me,” he said. As there was no immediate
comment he added: “I suppose you won’t be lonesome here alone. We don’t
seem to visit much anyhow.”
John said it was very nice that they had a house;--he hoped they would
be comfortable;--had they got everything they needed? He did not ask
where the house was nor when they should move; and that was all they
said about it.
No. John would not be lonesome. There was another word for it and he
couldn’t remember what it was. Although he saw her very seldom and then
only at a distance, or when he passed her by chance in the hotel and
they exchanged remote greetings, still, just living under the same roof
with her had become a fact that deeply pertained to his existence. How
much he had made of it unconsciously he did not realize until they were
gone. Thereafter as he turned in at the door he had always the desolate
thought, “She is not here.” The place was empty. The rooms in which he
had settled them were open to transients. He thought of taking them
for himself. On coming to do it he couldn’t. So he went elsewhere to
live; he moved about; all places were empty.
From time to time Thane hinted they would like to see him at the house.
For some reason it seemed hard for him to come out with a direct
invitation. However, he did at last.
“Mrs. Thane wants you up to supper,” he said, abruptly.
“Thanks,” said John. “I’m ashamed of myself, tell her. I’ll stop in
some evening.”
“You don’t know where it is,” said Thane.
“That’s so. Tell me how to find it.”
He wrote the directions down. Still, it was most indefinite. Some
evening meant nothing at all. Thane took him by the shoulders and
regarded him with an expression that John avoided.
“And _I_ want you to come,” he said, with slow emphasis on the first
pronoun. “To-morrow.”
“All right,” said John. “Meet me here at the office and I’ll go with
you.”
It was a small house in a poor street, saved only by some large old
trees. This surprised John, because Thane’s income was enough to enable
them to live in a very nice way, in moderate luxury even. He was still
more surprised at the indecorative simplicity of its furnishings.
Thane’s nature was not parsimonious. He would not have stinted her.
Then why had they set up a household more in keeping with the status
of a first rate puddler than with that of the vice-president of a
flourishing nail trust, receiving in salary and dividends more than
twenty thousand a year? Yet simple, even commonplace as everything was
there was evidence of taste beyond Thane’s. It must have been Agnes who
did it.
The first thing Thane did on entering was to remove his collar and
place it conspicuously on a table in the hallway by the foot of the
staircase. “I forget that if I don’t see it going out,” he said. He
unbuttoned the neck of his shirt, breathed and looked around with an
air of satisfaction. “Beats living at a hotel,” he said, opening the
door into a little front sitting room for John to see. “The only thing
I picked out,” he said, “was that big chair,” referring to an enormous
structure of hickory and rush that filled all one corner of the room.
“I’ll show you upstairs,” he added. Coming to his own room he said:
“This ain’t much to look at but that ain’t what it’s for. Nobody sees
it.” It was furnished with a simple cot, another hickory chair and a
plain pine table. On the table was a brass lamp ready to be lighted;
also, tobacco jar, matches, some technical books, mechanical drawings,
pencils and paper.
At the other end of the hall Thane stopped before a closed door.
“She’s downstairs,” he said, at the same time knocking. He opened it
softly, saying: “This is hers.” John got a glimpse of a little white
bed, a white dressing table, some white chairs and two tiny pictures
on the wall. A nun’s chamber could hardly have been more austere. He
turned away. At the head of the staircase he looked back. Thane had
momentarily forgotten him and was still standing on the threshold of
the little white room gazing into it. Suddenly he remembered John,
closed the door gently and joined him.
“We’ll see about supper,” he said, leading the way through the sitting
room into the next one, where the table was spread.
Just then Agnes appeared from the kitchen, bearing a tray. John had
another surprise. Her appearance made an unexpected contrast, so
striking as to be almost theatrical. She wore a dainty apron. Behind
that was an elaborate toilette. She was exquisite, lovely. His first
thought was that she had prepared this effect for him. Yet he noticed
that Thane was not in the least surprised. He looked at her calmly,
taking it all for granted, as if this had been her normal way of
appearing. And so it was.
She shook hands with John. Her manner was a little too cordial. “Supper
is quite ready,” she said. “Please sit down.” She had served a joint of
beef, mashed potatoes browned, some creamed vegetables. Thane surveyed
the food.
“Nothing fried?” he said.
“Shall I fry you something?” she asked. “It won’t take a minute.” Her
tone puzzled John. It expressed patience, readiness, even tractability,
and yet submissiveness was in a subtle sense explicitly denied.
“I was only fooling,” Thane replied. He whetted the carving knife
carefully, as for a feat of precision, ran his thumb over the edge and
applied it to the roast with an extremely deft effect.
“Did you buy the house?” John asked. “It’s very charming.”
The note failed. He felt Agnes looking at him.
“Rent it,” said Thane. “Mrs. Thane thought we’d better rent a while,
maybe as we’d want another shape of house afterward. I want her to get
a girl. She says there ain’t nothing for a girl to do.”
There was a silence. John did not know which side to take. He spoke
highly of the food.
“Mr. Thane tells me you also have left the hotel,” she said.
“You get tired of it,” John answered absently. He was wondering what to
make of the fact that they were Mr. and Mrs. to each other. Twice he
had been at the point of calling her Agnes. He wished to get one full
look at her and tried to surprise her eyes. She avoided him. Then as if
accepting a challenge she met his gaze steadily and utterly baffled his
curiosity.
This time he could not be sure. A kind of wisdom was in her eyes that
had never been there before. It might be only that she was on her
guard, knowing the secret he was after.
Conversation suffered many lapses. There seemed so little they could
talk about. All the three of them had in common was reminiscent; and
reminiscences were taboo. After supper they sat as far apart as three
persons could in the small front room,--Thane in his big chair, Agnes
in a stiff chair with some needlework over which her head was bent. Her
knees were crossed. The men were fascinated by the swift, delicate,
tantalizing, puncturing rhythm of her needle, and in the margin of
John’s vision was exactly all she meant to be seen of a small silk-clad
ankle and slippered foot.
If it was as he suspected, how could Thane endure it?
“We are very quiet,” she said, not looking up.
At that John began to talk about Thane,--of his work and the genius
showing in it, of the methods he had evolved, of the things he had
invented, of his way with his men and what a brilliant future he had.
Agnes listened attentively, even tensely, as he could see, but made
no comment; and Thane, sinking lower and lower in his chair, became
intolerably embarrassed. He stopped it by beginning of a sudden to talk
about John. He knew much less about John’s work, however, than John
knew about his. For that reason the narrative fell into generalities
and was not convincing. Agnes listened for a while and became restive.
Suddenly she put her needlework away and asked if anyone would like
refreshments. John looked at the time. It was past eleven o’clock and
he arose to go. Thane would have detained him; Agnes politely regretted
that he had to go so soon. Still, when she shook hands with him at the
door her manner was spontaneous and warm and she pressed him to come
again.
John walked about in the night without any mind at all. When his
thoughts became coherent he found himself saying: “No. They are not man
and wife. They are strangers. I wonder what goes on in that house. Why
does she do it?... Why does she do it?”
Why did she?