John like all the others signed steel trust certificates until his
hand became an automaton. If he noticed what it was doing it faltered
and forgot. He sat in the big room at the long table, a clerk standing
by to remove the engraved sheets one by one and blot the signature.
Suddenly he saw it all as for the first time, in an original,
unfamiliar manner.
“What are we doing?” he asked the clerk.
“Signing the certificates, sir. They want this lot before 2 o’clock.”
“Yes, but what does it mean?”
“What does it mean?” the clerk repeated. “I don’t know, sir. What do
you mean?”
“I don’t know either,” said John. He threw the pen away, got up,
reached for his hat.
“You’re not going now, sir? They are waiting for these certificates.”
“Let them wait.”
“What shall I say when they call for them?”
“Anything you like. Ask them what it means.”
Up and down the money canyon people moved with absent gestures, some in
haste, some running, some loitering, all with one look in their eyes.
Bulls were bellowing on the Stock Exchange. Steel shares were rising.
Sabath was in his highest form. To the strumming of his lyre men of
all shapes and conditions turned from their ways and came hither and
wildly importuned brokers to exchange their money for bits of paper
believed to represent steel mills they had never seen, would never see,
had never heard of before. What did it mean?
As John gazed at the scene it became unreal and detached. He was alone,
as one is in some dreams, there and not there, somehow concerned in the
action but invisible to the actors and to oneself. It was like a dream
of anxiety, full of confusion and grotesque matter.
He was lonely and very wretched and accused Agnes. He would accuse her
to her face. That was what he was on his way to do, perhaps because
there was no other excuse for seeing her in the middle of the day. He
would tell her how selfish and unreasonable she was. They were two
solitary beings in one world together. Their hours were running away.
He loved her. He had always loved her. And at least she loved nobody
else. Then why should they not join their lives?
Three times he had asked her that question. Each time she had said:
“Let’s go on being friends. That’s very nice, isn’t it?”
A year had passed since the last time. He had watched for some sign
of change. But she was always the same, except that after having been
gently though firmly unwilling to say either yes or no she seemed to
come nearer in friendship and baffled him all the more. If she had
any feeling for him whatever beyond friendship he had been unable to
detect or surprise it, and fate would bear witness that the possibility
was one he had stalked with all patience and subtlety. In fact, he
really believed that if he pressed her to the point she would say
no,--that she had not said it already only because she hated to hurt
him. This notion tormented him exceedingly. It would be a relief to
know.
She had been for some weeks in town, at the Savoy, where he detained
her on the pretext that her presence was necessary in her own interest.
It was only a little past twelve when he arrived there and called her
on the telephone, from the desk, asking her down to lunch. She was
surprised and pleased and answered him in a voice that had a ring of
youth.
The sound of it echoing in his ears evoked memories and caused the
years to fall away. He waited, not there in the hotel lobby, but in a
boxwood hedge, surreptitiously, and saw her as a girl again, plucking
flowers, pretending not to know he was there, yet coming nearer, always
nearer, with a thoughtful air; and for a moment he forgot that anything
had happened since.
“Business or pleasure at this time of day?” she asked, coming up behind
him.
Instantly, at the provocation of her voice, an impish, youth-time
impulse took possession of him. It provided its own idea complete and
he did not stop to examine it. His mood seized it.
“Personal,” he said.
“But you look so serious.”
“It is serious--for me.”
They sat at a table in the far corner of the dining room.
“Out with it. Lucky it isn’t murder. You’d be suspected at first
glance.”
“What shall we eat? Pompano. That ought to be good.... Don’t look at me
like that. I’m so happy I can’t stand it. That’s all that’s the matter
with me.... Filet of sole. How about that?”
“Anything to cure such happiness. Sole, salad and iced tea for me,
please. Now then.”
“A sweet? Or shall we decide about that later?”
“Later. I may be too much surprised by that time to want a sweet.”
She was regarding him intently, with a very curious expression. He
avoided her eyes.
“Yes, it may surprise you,” he said. “_Here, waiter!..._ Of course you
know--(_Sole, hearts of lettuce and tomato salad, French dressing, iced
tea for one, large coffee, sweets later_)--what an emotional animal I
am.--(_Two salads, yes._)--Or romantic. Whatever you like to call it.
(_Sole for two._) After all, I don’t know why--(_No, hot coffee for
one._)--Why I should be so self-conscious about it. The fact is simple
enough. I’m going to be married.”
“Oh! How exciting. When?”
“When? When, did you say? Why, right away. This evening perhaps.”
“Who is the lady?”
“I’d rather not tell you yet.”
“Yet? But it’s to be this evening, you say.”
“You would know her name at once and you might be prejudiced in spite
of yourself. I can’t very well explain it. But I want you to meet her
first.”
“This afternoon?”
“Or this evening. I’m coming to that. I very much need your help. It’s
an extraordinary thing to ask. I’m anxious to keep it very quiet, both
on her account and my own. Not the fact afterward. That must come out.
But its taking place, when and where. Then of course we can go away,
for a year, two years; live permanently abroad perhaps.”
“Yes?”
“I say I can’t explain it very clearly. You’ll just have to take a good
deal of it for granted. The newspapers are so curious and impertinent.
I’d like this to happen without anyone knowing it until the notice is
published and we are gone. She has no home. I mean, she lives at a
hotel. I have no home either. At a church or any public place like that
we’d be noticed at once.”
“Will you ask the waiter to bring some more butter, please. Yes, go on.
What can I do to help?”
“Take mine. I hoped you’d guess by this time. There’s no one else I can
ask.”
“Thanks. No, I can’t guess.”
“Well, if you would let the ceremony take place in your apartment here
and sort of manage the fussy part I’d never know how much to thank you.”
“Yes, indeed. I’d love to do it. Why did you make such a bother of
asking? I’ll have some decorations sent in. What will she wear? What
colors does she like?”
“I’ll have to find out.”
“And the time?”
“I’ll let you know.”
“As soon as you can. And that’s what you were so glum about? Now cheer
up. Men are such lumps when they are happy.”
“You are very sweet about it.”
“Don’t mind me. Only go as fast as you can and get the details. You
don’t know how important they are. I’ll expect to hear from you within
an hour. You will call me up?”
“Yes.”
The next he knew he was in the Central Park Zoo looking at the monkeys
and wondering why they were so mystified. What had they to be puzzled
about? Then there was a little brown bear that precisely expressed the
absurdity he felt in himself. He did not mind feeling absurd. No, that
was even comforting. A pain in the ego counteracting one in the heart.
Clumsy as the device was it had served his purpose. He had found out.
But it was no relief whatever. In the way he hoped she might she cared
less than not at all--less than a foster sister or an old maid aunt.
He could not be mistaken. He had watched her closely. She had betrayed
not the slightest sign of self-concern. He had that same diminished,
ignominious feeling with which he retired from the boxwood hedge on the
evening of their first youth-time encounter.
What an asinine thing to have done!
When he called her on the telephone two hours later, as he had
promised to do, this conversation occurred:
“This is John.”
“Yes. Now tell me all about it. You’ve been a long time.”
“Hello.”
“Yes. What time?”
“Hello.”
“Yes, I’m here.”
“Agnes, it’s too much of an imposition altogether. I can’t imagine how
I could have asked you to do it. Thanks all the same, but we’ll call it
off.”
“Nonsense. You’re not telling me the truth. Something has happened.”
“Maybe so. Anyhow, I withdraw the request.”
“Where are you?”
“Near by. Not very far.”
“Meet me in the tea room downstairs. I’ll be there in ten minutes.”
Not waiting for him to answer she closed the wire. She was there
waiting when he arrived.
“I’m sorry if anything has happened,” she said, most sympathetically.
“Can you tell me about it?”
“It’s off,” he said, feeling secretly and utterly ludicrous. “That’s
all.”
“Oh, that can’t be,” she said. “Suppose I talk to her. I shan’t be
modest about you. I’ll not promise to be even truthful.”
“No use,” he said. “I’ve said everything there is to say for myself.
She knows me well enough--too well, perhaps. That may be it.”
“Tell me about her. What is she like?”
“Cold. You wouldn’t think so, but she is. The fact that a man loves her
means nothing--not a thing.”
“Is she so used to it?”
“I don’t know. No. That isn’t it....”
“What?”
“I was going to say selfish. I ought not to say that. I’m selfish to
want her. She wants to keep her life to herself. It’s her own life.”
“But it’s only postponed. She doesn’t say no, does she?”
“Worse than that. She says--”
“Yes. What does she say?”
“She says it’s nicer as it is. We shall go on being friends. Friendship
is all right. It blooms in the next world.”
“Let me talk to her, please.”
“No. It’s hopeless.”
“I’d not urge you if I weren’t so sure I could change her mind. The
fact is, I think I know her.”
John started and became rigid with astonishment. He regarded her
fixedly with a groping, incredulous expression. She stirred her tea
very thoughtfully and kept her eyes down.
“If she’s the person I think she is,” Agnes continued, still looking
down, “what you say about her is probably true. And yet--”
“Agnes! Be careful what you say.”
“I’ll be as careful as I know how to be. Trust me.”
“How long have you known her?”
“In one way, of course, you deserve to be wretched. It isn’t all on one
side. Do you think it’s nice--?”
“How long have you known her, I ask?”
“A long time. Longer than you have,” she said.
* * * * *
Note from the society column of the New York _Times_, November 6, 1901:
Mr. and Mrs. Breakspeare are passing their honeymoon in Mediterranean
waters on Mr. Breakspeare’s yacht, the “Damascene.”