WALTER'S HAVEN
While all these things were happening to Yetta, Walter was settling down
into the rut of University life easily--almost contentedly. He was
employed to be a scholar rather than a teacher. And while conducting
classes is always a dismal task, study--to one with any bent that
way--is a pleasant occupation. He was not dependent on his salary, and
so escaped from the picturesque discomfort of the quarters assigned to
him in the mediæval college building, to a "garden cottage." There was a
lodge in front and a lawn running down to the river behind. He had found
an excellent cook, who was married to an indifferent gardener. And,
although his lawn was not so smooth nor his grape crop so plentiful as
his neighbors', he was very pleasantly installed.
Sometimes, of course, he thought regretfully of the might-have-been life
in New York. But the more he studied the Haktites, the more interesting
they became. He had also revived his project of a Synthetic Philosophy.
On his return from the Christmas holidays of his second year at Oxford,
he found a book in the mail which was waiting him. It was a novel--_The
Other Solution_, by Beatrice Maynard. It had been sent to his old New
York address. On the fly-leaf she had written, "Merry Xmas." It was an
unexpected pleasure to have some one remember him at this holiday
season. He had not received a Christmas present in years.
He hurried through his supper to begin it. Beyond occasionally filling
his pipe he did not stop until the end.
It was, he decided, just such a book as he would have expected her to
write! There was the patience of real art in the way it was done. Not a
great book, but packed full of keen observation, and its finish was like
a cameo.
It was a simple story of a very rich girl in New York. One hardly
realized that it was about the Smart Set. Beatrice knew her people too
well to have any illusion about their nobility or their special
depravity. The men changed their clothes rather too often, but were on
the whole a kindly meaning lot. The women were a bit burdened with their
jewellery, but very human, nevertheless. They were all bored by their
uselessness. There was a cynical old bachelor uncle, who gave the Girl
epigrammatical advice about the virtue of frivolity and the danger of
taking things seriously. There was a maiden aunt--the romance of whose
life had been shot to pieces at Gettysburg--who had sought solace in a
morbid religious intensity. She was always warning the Girl, in the
phraseology of Lamentations, against light-mindedness and the Wrath to
Come. The "Other Solution" proved to be a very modern kind of nerve
specialist, whose own nerves were going to pieces because of overwork
and the cooking of an absinthe-drinking Frenchwoman. He was just on the
point of beginning to take cocaine, when Beatrice persuaded him to take
the Girl, instead.
"Good work," Walter said as he closed it.
For some moments he sat there wondering what sort of an anchorage
Beatrice had found. Such a book could not have been written in a hurry
nor in unpleasant surroundings. He had never heard from her. At first he
had been too heavy of heart to care. But as the months, growing into
years, had somewhat healed his hurts, he had often thought of her. But
not knowing exactly what sort of memories she held of him, he had felt
that if the long silence was to be broken, it should be done by her.
He was glad she had cared enough to do it. He swung his chair around to
the table and wrote to her. There was praise of the book and thanks for
the remembrance. In a few paragraphs he gave a whimsical description of
his bachelor establishment and of his work, and asked news of her. He
addressed it in care of her publishers, a London house.
A few days later her answer came to him at breakfast-time. His letter
had caught her in London, where she had come over from Normandy to
arrange about her new novel. Could he not come up to town during the few
days she would be there? If he wired, she would let everything else slip
to keep the appointment.
He sent the gardener out with a telegram and went up on an afternoon
train. It was tea time when he found her in the parlor of her hotel.
"I hope I haven't begun to show my age, as you have," she greeted him.
"You haven't."
She had both hands busy with the tea things, so he could find no
opportunity to be more gallant.
"I see by your note," she said,--"is it two lumps and cream or three and
lemon?--that you did not follow my advice."
"No, not exactly. Two lumps, please. I tried to. I've often wondered if
you realized what irresponsible and dangerous advice it was."
So he told her about Yetta.
"I never thought she'd be such an idealistic idiot," Beatrice commented.
"Of such are the Kingdom of Heaven."
"Walter, I believe you were in love with her and did not have the sense
to say so."
He waved his hands as a Spaniard does when saying, "_Quien sabe?_"
"What's your news?" he asked.
She told him of the charming little village she had discovered in
Normandy, of her roses and poppies and of her big writing-room, which
overlooked three separate backyards and gave her endless
opportunity--when the ink did not flow smoothly--to study the domestic
life of her neighbors. What fun it was to write! How happy she was to
get back to it again! Altogether she was going to write ten novels, each
one was to be an improvement, and the last one really good. And then the
Sweet Chariot was going to swing low and carry her home.
"I'm getting into the stride," she said. "_The Other Solution_ came
hard. I'm so glad you liked it. I'd go stale on it. Have to lay it
aside, so I've three coming out close together, now. I'm just finishing
the proof of number two, _Babel_. It's about those crazy
_Transatlantiques_ we played with in Paris. And the next one strikes a
deeper note. I think I'll call it _The Mess of Pottage_. It's almost
finished--a couple of months' polishing. I've been working on all three
of these at the same time. But from now on it's one a year--regularly."
The conversation rambled back and forth. It jumped from the criminal
code of the Haktites to Strauss' _Electra_, and that brought them to
Mrs. Van Cleave, whom Beatrice had encountered in the foyer of the Paris
Opera at _Pelleas et Melisande_. Mrs. Van Cleave reminded them of a
thousand things. The two years since they had seen each other fell away,
the old intimacy returned. Beatrice suddenly reverted to Yetta.
"Don't blame me if you muddled things up. I advised you to marry
her--not to get into a metaphysical discussion with her. I'm not sure
but you're the bigger fool of the two. '_De l'audace et encore de
l'audace et toujours de l'audace._' They say that Danton was a
successful man with the ladies."
"The answer to that is," Walter said, "that you write your next novel in
Oxford."
"Oxford! Why, a university town is no place for audacity!"
"It's the place for you," he said decisively. "To-morrow I'll rent the
cottage next to mine--it's bigger. I noticed a 'To Let' sign on it this
morning. It's a love of a place. And quiet! There isn't a corner of
Philadelphia that's as quiet Sunday morning as Oxford is."
But Beatrice refused to consider his suggestion.
"I'm doing very well as I am, thank you. Having just got on my feet at
last--no more entanglements for me!"
But two days after the summer recess began, Walter dropped off the train
in her little Norman village.
"It's no use struggling, Beatrice," he said, before she had recovered
from her surprise at his invasion. "You're going to write your next
novel in Oxford. I've rented the larger house, and as soon as the French
law allows we'll get married."
"Nonsense!" she said.
He came over and stood in front of her chair and talked to her in a
quiet third personal tone--as if he were the family lawyer.
"B., here we are, two unattached and lonely individuals of the opposite
sexes. You said that morning in Paris that we were a sorry couple who
had messed things up frightfully and wanted to cry. Well, we've got a
bit more used to the mess, don't want to cry as much as we
did--but--well, we want to live.
"I was a fool to ask Yetta to marry me, and she was very wise to run
away. After all, she and I were strangers. She did not understand me any
more than I did her. She was in love with a very nebulous sort of a
dream--which I didn't resemble at all.
"It's different with us. At least we've 'the mess' in common. I don't
know whether you've tried to forget our--escapade. I haven't. It seems
to me, when I think of it, an immensely solemn thing--a memory I want to
treasure. Somehow out of our misery a sudden understanding and sympathy
was born. I'm inclined to think it was the most fundamental, the most
spontaneous and real thing that ever happened to me. I'd chatted with
you half a dozen times, had had only one real talk with you back in New
York. There in Paris, in two minutes--no, it was a matter of seconds--we
knew each other better than--well--it's hard to say what I mean, because
I'm not much of a mystic. But never before or since have I experienced a
deeper feeling of nearness. Two years pass without a word exchanged,
and, in a tawdry hotel parlor in London, with a string of people walking
past the open doors, I find the same sudden understanding.
"I don't need to tell you that there in London I wished the people were
not walking past the door, that right now I wish your _bonne_ would
disappear, so I could--
"But I don't want to talk about that. I'd like to get over something a
lot deeper. It's this fundamental and immensely worth-while agreement
and sympathy.
"And just because I have this conviction of understanding, I'm sure
you're lonely, too--just as lonely as I am. We both of us have a desire
for 'the accustomed'--for Lares and Penates. Even an escapade as
delightful as the last one wouldn't quite satisfy either of us any more.
'The Other Solution' is the big house in Oxford--with a work-room for
you, a study for me, and the other rooms for us."
He shook his shoulders as though to shrug off his seriousness.
"You say you don't want to get married again. That's idiotic. Haven't
you lived long enough to escape from fear of this 'marriage bond'
bugaboo? With all your talk of emancipation, you're still as
conventional as Mrs. Grundy. Marriage will save us from tiresome
ructions with the neighbors, but as far as being afraid of the
ceremony--why--I'd just as lief marry a person as lend her ten dollars.
"Where does the _Maire_ live? I'll go down and tell him to dust his
tricolor sash."
"No."
"B., _il faut de l'audace_."
"It would be foolish after Paris."
"_Et encore de l'audace_--"
"Besides I've leased this cottage for two years."
"_Et toujours de l'audace._"
"Well," she said, "if you're as flippant about it as all that, I don't
suppose it matters much."