It was what he had been afraid of on and off for seven years. The wonder
was that it hadn't happened before. But, since it had not happened, he
had got out of the way of expecting it. The fear of it used to dog him
whenever he went to the theater or the opera or out to dine. There had
been minutes in Fifth Avenue, or Bond Street, or the Rue de la Paix, as
the case might be, when, at the sight of a feather or a scarf or
something familiar in a way of walking, his heart and brain seemed to
stop their function. He had known himself to stand stock-still,
searching wildly for the easy, casual phrases he had prepared--for the
purpose of carrying off such a meeting as this, if ever it occurred,
only to find that he was mistaken--that it was some one else.
There had been two or three years like that, two or three years in which
they had often been in the same city, perhaps under the same roof; but
he had never so much as caught a glimpse of her. In the earlier months
that had been a relief. He couldn't have seen her and kept his
self-control. He could follow the routine of life only by a system he
had invented--a system for shutting her out of his thought, that the
sight of her would have wrecked.
Then had come another period in which he felt he could have committed
infamies just to see her getting in or out of a carriage, or lunching in
a restaurant, or buying something in a shop. There were whole seasons
when he knew she was in New York from autumn to spring; and, though he
haunted all the places where women who keep in the movement are likely
to be found, he never saw her.
He knew he could have discovered her plans and followed her; but he
wouldn't do that. Besides, he didn't want to meet her in such a way as
to be obliged to speak to her. He wouldn't have known what to say, or by
what name to call her. Such an encounter would have annoyed her and made
him grotesque. It was more than he asked. He would have been satisfied
with a glimpse of her gloved hand or her veiled face as she drove in
the Park or the Avenue. But he never got it.
After he married, the fear of meeting her came back. It was fear as much
for her sake as for his own. He began to understand that the
embarrassment wouldn't be all on his side, nor the suffering. He picked
that up from the children, as he had picked up so many things, piecing
odds and ends of their speeches together. He saw them so rarely now that
he attached the greater value to the hints they threw out. He never
questioned them about her, but it was natural that they should take a
wider range of comment in proportion as they grew older. So he learned
that her dread of seeing him was as great as his own of seeing her. It
was astonishing that in all those seven years the hazards of New York
should not have thrown them together.
And now, at the moment when he might reasonably have felt safest, there
she was! That is, she was on the steamer. For seven or eight days they
were to be cooped up on the same boat. He could never go on deck or into
the saloon without having to pass her. Worse still, she could never go
outside her cabin door without the risk of being obliged to make him
some sign of recognition. And a sign of recognition between _them_--why,
the thing was absurd! Between them it must be all--or nothing; and it
couldn't be either.
He looked at the passenger-list again. Yes; that was her name: _Mrs.
Theodore Lacon_. It was not a name likely to be duplicated. In all human
probability it was she. As far as he could gather from the list, she was
traveling alone, without so much as the companionship of a maid. He,
too, was alone; but, fortunately, his name was inconspicuous: _Mr. C.
Walker_. It was just the sort of name to be overlooked. She might read
the list half a dozen times without really seeing it. If she were to
notice it, she might easily not reflect that the initial stood for
Chipman. It was conceivable that if she didn't actually see him she
might not know that he was on the ship at all.
The thought suggested a line of action. He was in his cabin at the time.
He could stay there. Looking through the port-hole, he saw that they had
not yet passed the Statue of Liberty. While in dock he had kept to his
room, in order to read letters and avoid the crowd that throngs the deck
of an outgoing steamer. There was every likelihood that she hadn't seen
him any more than he had seen her. If he kept himself hidden she might
never know! He could avoid the decks by day and take his exercise by
night. By night, too, he could creep into the smoking-room and get a
little change. But he would stay away from the general gathering-places
on the ship and spare her what pain he could. That they should meet as
strangers was out of the question. That they should meet as social
acquaintances was even more so. They had been all to each other--and
they had been nothing. No other relation was possible.
So the week passed, and they reached Liverpool. He was purposely among
the last to go ashore. In the great shed where the luggage was
distributed under initial letters, he was glad to remember that W was so
far from L. Nevertheless, he allowed his eye to roam toward section L,
but found no one there whom he recognized. He ran over in his mind the
various chances that she might not have come. It was no uncommon thing
to read in a list of passengers the names of people who hadn't sailed.
He had done so before.
Later he scanned, as discreetly as he could, the occupants of the
special train that was to take them to London. He couldn't see that she
was anywhere among them. He sighed, but whether from relief or
disappointment he was not sure.
As it was one o'clock, he took his seat in the luncheon-car, making sure
in advance that she wasn't there. He had come to the conclusion by this
time that she was not on the train at all--that she hadn't been on the
steamer. He did not, however, regret his precautions, because--well,
because the sense of her proximity had made him feel as he had felt in
the days--fourteen years ago now--when the very streets of the city in
which she lived were hallowed ground. He had supposed that emotion dead.
Probably it was dead. It must be dead. It was merely that, owing to the
constraint of the voyage, his nerves were unstrung, inducing the frame
of mind in which people see ghosts. Yes, that was it; he had been seeing
ghosts. It was not a living thing, this renewed yearning for a sight of
her. It was only the reflex of something past. It could be explained
psychologically. It was the sort of evanescent sentiment inspired by old
songs, or by the scent of faded flowers, reviving old joys tenderly,
perhaps poignantly, but fleetingly, insubstantially, and only as the
wraiths of what they were. Yes, that was it, he repeated to himself as
he lunched. It was nothing to be afraid of, nothing incongruous with the
fact that he had left a wife and child in New York. It was not an
emotion; it was only the echo, the shadow, the memory of an emotion,
gone before it could be seized.
And then, suddenly, they were face to face. He was on his way from the
luncheon-car to the compartment he shared with two or three men at the
other end of the train. She was standing in the corridor, looking out at
the vaporous English landscape. Through the mists overlying the flat
fields and distant parks trees loomed weirdly, the elms and beeches in
full leaf, the oaks just tinged with green. Cottony white clouds drifted
overhead; the sun was dimly visible. Now and then a line of hedge was
white, or pink and white, with the bursting may.
He didn't recognize the lady who barred his way along the narrow
passage. As she stood with one arm on the brass rail that crossed the
window he could see an ungloved hand; but it might have been any hand.
She wore a long brown coat, rather shapeless, reaching to the hem of her
dress, while a large hat, about which a green veil looped and drooped
irregularly, entirely concealing the head, helped to make her, as he
stood waiting for her to move, a mere feminine figure without
personality.
It was the sense that some one desired to pass that caused her to turn
slightly, glancing up at him sidewise. Even so, he couldn't see all of
her face--not much more than the forehead and the eyes. But the eyes
seemed to come alive as he looked down into them, like sapphires under
slowly growing light. When she turned, her movements had the
deliberation of bewilderment. She might have been just wakened in a
place she didn't know.
"Chip!" There was another half-minute of incredulous gazing before she
said anything more. "What are you doing here?"
He felt the necessity of explaining his presence. "I was on the boat. I
didn't know--"
"That I was on it, too?"
"I--I did know that," he stammered, "after we sailed. Not before. It was
the name in the list--"
"But I never saw you. There weren't many passengers. I was always on
deck."
Her distress betrayed itself in the trembling of her voice, in the
shifting of her color, and in the beating of the ungloved hand upon the
gloved one.
He felt his own confusion passing. It was so natural to be with her, so
right. His voice grew steadier as he said:
"I didn't go about very much. I was afraid--"
She nodded, speaking hastily. "I understand. It was kind of you. And
you're--alone?"
He cursed himself for coloring, but he couldn't help it. He had a wife
and child in New York! He saw that she wanted to recognize that fact
from the first. She wanted to put that boy and his mother between them.
Her husband and child stood between them, too. He took that cue in
answering.
"Yes; I've run over hurriedly on business. And are you alone, too?"
She glanced toward the empty compartment where her bags were stowed in
the overhead racks, and her books and illustrated papers lay on the
cushions. "I'm on my way to join my--" It was her turn to color.
He nodded quickly, to show that he understood.
"He's in Biarritz," she hurried on, for the sake of saying something.
"I'm to meet him in Paris. I wasn't coming over at all this spring. I
wanted to stay with the children at Towers--"