Melissa’s fever, however, ran a stubborn course. It sank for a
deceptive while very nearly to normal and the night nurse was
dismissed, Miss Kenning began to talk of leaving ... then, apparently
without explanation, a relapse ... and all to do over again.
The Marchesa, in this trying time, became as a rock in a weary land,
a pillar of cloud by day and of fire by night, if that be not too
exuberant a description of her unfaltering attendance at Melissa’s
bedside. Only the most skeptic of observers could have had the heart to
suggest that Melissa’s illness was climactic, so to speak, and afforded
to a romantic comedy of the Marchesa’s staging and directing, the most
poignant of all possible third acts.
In the Marchesa’s pocket, while she sat holding Melissa’s hand and
listening to those husky and one-sided conversations which took up so
much of Melissa’s time, reposed a cable ... signed Roderick.
It had arrived in very nearly instant response to the one the Marchesa
had sent and it said without agitation--“Sailing next month in any
case.”
How like Roderick the Marchesa thought, to put in those last three
words--as if cable tolls had no terrors for him--as if, frankly, he had
quite overlooked them. He was in a position to do so, of course.
The Marchesa had tried to tell Melissa that her nephew was returning.
But, in her hazier moments, Melissa didn’t understand--and in her lucid
ones, didn’t seem to want to talk about him.
The Marchesa decided then that his arrival might just as well come
in the form of a surprise--surprises being always interesting to
observers, innocent and otherwise, whether or no the victim shares the
pleasure.
“I had rather,” said the Marchesa to Miss Kenning, with whom by
that time, she was on the friendliest footing, Miss Kenning being a
facile narrator of the human comedy, in terms chiefly physiological
and obstetric ... being, as a matter of fact an absolute gold-mine
of professional experience, readily shared.... “I had rather we said
nothing more to Miss Wayne about--Mister Roderick.”
“I think you are quite right,” said Miss Kenning. “She’s got an
obsession on the subject already--and a complex, besides.”
“After all,” said the Marchesa, polishing her sharp rosy nails with her
wisp of a handkerchief--“What is love but an obsession--and a complex?”
“It’s a flop, if you want my opinion,” replied Miss Kenning frankly.
Her last young man had engendered that belief in her, having failed at
the crucial moment to make anything like proportionate return for the
time and encouragement she had lavished upon him.
“It may be, as you say, a flop,” returned the Marchesa amiably, “but
I fancy it will always be the most amusing feature of a badly arranged
universe. Have you saved the cards from those flowers for Miss Wayne?”
“There’s a flock of cards on the desk,” said Miss Kenning. “That Mr.
Fleming has kept the place looking like a flower-shop.”
“Poor boy!” sighed the Marchesa tenderly. She had by that time
definitely decided that Murdock would have to go overboard.
* * * * *
Melissa came slowly back to herself from a region of dolor and doubt.
A month from the day she went to bed, she arose again weakly, feeling
as if her bones had melted and her sinews frayed within her, pitifully
shaky about the knees, heavy-headed, hollow-eyed. Weighed to earth
moreover by that indescribable sense of depression which influenza
leaves behind it. Twice in her first day she shed hopeless, ineffectual
tears. Once because the waiter forgot the salt upon her breakfast tray
and again because Kathleen in dusting the desk in the living-room had
somehow swept out of sight the snap-shot of Mister Roderick, safely
hidden--as Melissa supposed--in the drawer it had primarily occupied.
Melissa could not or would not ask about the picture in any but the
most roundabout way ... and Kathleen, sympathetic as she was, seemed
yet stupidly unable to understand for what Miss Wayne was searching.
“I gave the desk a good clanein’--last week,” insisted Kathleen
anxiously. “Was it letters you left there?”
“Not letters, Kathleen--a--clipping--that is--some old kodaks and
things....”
Melissa’s pride would allow her no nearer the truth than that.
“I threw out some torn-up theayter programs,” admitted Kathleen humbly.
“Cud it have been among ’em?”
Melissa didn’t think so. She realized the impossibility, however,
without absolute frankness and a detailed description of the object of
her search of any help from Kathleen.
So Melissa merely cried, weakly, her head on a green brocade cushion on
the couch. Cried for a long time--till Miss Kenning came back from her
walk, in fact, and put her patient to bed with a hearty scolding.
“It’s nothing,” said Miss Kenning in conclusion--“but nerves. You’ll be
like this for some time, I dare say--and you _must_ not give way to it!
If you want to get well in a hurry.”
Without Mister Roderick’s picture, Melissa didn’t know that she
cared--one way or the other. Nothing to hold to, now. No raft---on a
sailless sea. She had been happier in her fever-distorted dreams. Then,
for days, and nights unnumbered, Mister Roderick had moved through his
rooms at her call. Had stood in the doorway, smiling at her, had sat
on the side of her bed and talked to her ... endlessly. She hadn’t had
to conjure him up--he had been there. As real as the pillow under
her head. Realler than the Doctor or the nurse. Realler than life.
Real ... between Melissa and death! But as Melissa came out into
daylight--Mister Roderick receded into the shadows. And Melissa was too
tired to hold him. Too tired to call him back. With the little picture
to touch and to look at, for proof of his existence--somewhere--Melissa
must have tried.... Without the picture it began to seem as if in her
fever she had dreamed it all. As if with the going of the fever the
whole dear delusion sank away from her.
No wonder Melissa cried. The bottom had fallen out of her world ...
and the sky had fallen in ... or was that too merely the aftermath of
sickness? She lay on her couch long hours, staring into the fire--for
which by this time it was almost too warm, with late spring whistling
outside the windows--but a fire Melissa would have. She didn’t want
food, though she took it rather than be argued with.... She didn’t want
sleep--especially--she would have read all night rather than not ...
but she did want a fire.
So Kathleen kept the windows open and humored “the poor lamb” no matter
how radiant the day.
“Ye’ll be feelin’ better once ye see yer friends again,” was Kathleen’s
comfortable prophecy--but Melissa, tired to the center of her soul,
twice-tired with the thought of having to speak and smile and pretend
that all was once more well with her ... wanted that least of all.
She wouldn’t see Murdock--though his flowers blossomed in every corner
of her sitting-room. She sent him word that she loved them--but that he
must wait till she could thank him properly.
She wouldn’t see Beall, who tried once or twice then drifted on, as
might have been expected, after another flame. Beall had never really
mattered and Melissa neither knew nor cared that he was drifting. She
might have had him ... but she let him go without further effort.
She couldn’t, in any case, have appealed to him, in a state of
convalescence. Beall hated sick people. He was at once impatient--and
secretly terrified of--disease.
Nelly Rivers telephoned and telephoned again. Even that friendly
contact, Melissa refused. Nelly’s eyes were too keen--her speech too
trenchant. “Tell her as soon as I’m seeing any one--I’ll let her know,”
said Melissa and burrowed deeper among her cushions--alone.
Alone--except for the Marchesa. The Marchesa came and went, as usual,
like a shower of sparks, like a witch popping out of a chimney. She
took Melissa to drive--in spite of herself--upon a heavenly afternoon
toward the end of May when the skies were translucent azure, the wind a
mocking caress.
“It may or may not do you good,” said the Marchesa. “In any
case--you’ve mooned long enough. Make an effort, my good girl! You’ll
never get your looks back at this rate. It’s all very well to be
pale--sallow’s another story.”
Pale, Melissa had been--up to that moment.
“Good--you can still blush!” exclaimed the Marchesa shrilly and pinched
Melissa’s arm. “How much have you lost?”
“I don’t know,” said Melissa wearily.
“Your bones will be showing if you lose another ounce,” the Marchesa
assured her--“your face looks a trifle drawn as it is. Do you put sour
cream on it before going to bed--as I told you?”
“No,” said Melissa and shuddered uncontrollably.
The Marchesa was annoyed. “Very well!” she retorted. “Just look in
the glass when you get home. You’ve got to do something--and that’s
all there is to it!” Something further she said--having the grace to
mumble--about a sick cat. She was captious and more than a little
cruel to Melissa that day. But after all there was Mister Roderick on
his way back from Japan with the Marchesa’s cable somewhere about him
... and there was the Marchesa with her Proposition going limp on her
hands. Losing its looks and whatnot. “I shall send you my own masseuse,
to-morrow,” said the Marchesa crisply in parting. “You will please do
exactly as she tells you--if you’re not a complete fool! You haven’t
got all the time in the world, you know.”
Melissa was still rather weak. She set her teeth and shut her eyes for
a moment going up in the elevator, to keep back the tears.
Lonelier than the loneliest soul in hell--that was Melissa.
“It’s been a nice afternoon,” said Henry, the boy who took her up.
“Has it?--Yes, it has, of course,” said Melissa.
She let herself into the apartment with shaking hands. Dusk was coming
on. The lights beside her couch were lit. Some one got up from the
farthest corner of that couch and came toward her quietly. A man--tall
and slim and dark-haired. He put out both hands.... “Lissa--I waited
for you ... you don’t mind?”
It was Luke.
Melissa said his name with almost a sob in her voice.
Luke--his smile and his eyes and his warm quick comforting hands!
Luke--who cared what became of one!
“Child!” he said very gently--“how white you are!” and drew her over to
the couch and put her down with a hand on each slender shoulder, among
the cushions. “You want,” he said--“a fire and something else. Sit
still and let me take care of you.”
Melissa sat still while he lit the fire--while he brought her something
in a glass and made her drink it. While he sat down at length beside
her and took both her chilly hands in his and looked into her eyes.
“I didn’t know you’d been ill,” he said, “till I walked in here this
afternoon--and Kathleen told me about it. She said you weren’t seeing
any one--so I stayed. Aren’t you going to smile--for me?”
“I’m too tired,” said Melissa unsteadily.
“Then don’t!” said Luke and put her fingers to his lips. He might
never have been away. Warmth came back about Melissa’s heart like buds
to a cold black bough. She tightened her hands in his. She asked almost
shyly:
“Luke--when did you get back? And--have things been--very hard--?
_I’ve_ only been _ill_. Tell me--about _you_!”
Luke told her, sitting there beside her, uncommonly quiet, his eyes on
their gently linked hands, his voice curiously even.
“Well,” he said, “it’s a bit unusual--don’t be startled--or
shocked--will you? God knows I’d no right to be! I wrote you Iwalani
was in Honolulu when it happened--not on the ranch, at all.”
“Yes--” said Melissa, “why was that, Luke?”
“She’d gone down there,” said Luke, “to visit some people she knew.
But the evening she was drowned--at Nanakuli it was; that’s rather a
lonely beach about an hour or so out of town--well--the evening she was
drowned--she wasn’t with those people. She was with a man who’d been
staying up at the ranch on a house-party a week or so before ... and
nobody knows how it happened or why because....”
“Oh, Luke,” said Melissa faintly.
“Because he was drowned _with_ her--d’y’ see?” said Luke. “And that’s
all there was to it. The bodies were recovered. She may have called
for help--a cramp or something--she was a strong swimmer--but there’s
a terribly heavy surf on that beach.... I don’t know--when he tried to
help her she may have lost her head and pulled him under--struggling.
That’s been done, of course. As I say--_nobody_ knows. Although
everybody obviously conjectured--one thing and another. I had to
wait--till things were settled up. I got away from there as soon as I
could. I have a blind persistent feeling that she didn’t mind going
like that--I told you, once--our marriage was a mistake--and I have
a feeling she cared for this man. I found a picture of him--he must
have been rather a decent sort--and a package of letters--one of his
initialed handkerchiefs--among her things.”
“You didn’t read the letters, Luke?”
“No--” said Luke, “they were hers--not mine. I told you, too, if you
remember, that she was very religious. She wouldn’t have listened
to divorce. Yet she was a queer passionate soul--I’m not so sure
she wouldn’t rather have had--some one she wanted--like that--in
death--than not at all. I’m not so sure ... she minded going ... poor
old Iwalani!”
“Did people--say unpleasant things?” Melissa asked him, hesitant.
“They did,” Luke told her grimly. “Both definite and inferential. The
consensus of opinion, I fancy, was that if I had stayed in the islands,
where I belonged--if I had been taking care of my wife, instead of
writing silly rot for New York magazines ... the thing wouldn’t have
happened. I was not exactly an heroic nor a sympathetic figure in the
eyes of Iwalani’s friends--and they made no bones about it. The fact
that we might have been together--any time she cared to come here to
live--made nothing. The other fact that we never particularly wanted to
be together--made even less. The fact that our marriage was a boner of
the worst sort was never for one moment allowed to be our own affair
... we couldn’t even make the best of it, living decently apart,
without comment. Oh, the Tribe flayed me--and threw me out!” said Luke.
“I am a Modern Tendency and a Hideous Instance....”
“Have you been horribly unhappy?” asked Melissa wistfully. The
bitterness in his eyes hurt her.
“No--” said Luke. And was all at once not bitter at all--only rather
quiet and infinitely tender.
He added as if it were not in the least a strange thing to be
saying.... “I couldn’t be too unhappy--with you in the world ... and
knowing I was coming back here where you were.”
“Luke--don’t!”
“Why not? I dare say Iwalani died without a thought of me in her
heart ... we’d been--barely friends--for five years. I can wait a
conventional time if you’d rather--but, Lissa--aren’t you too tired to
pretend? _Let_ me tell you the truth--_now_! There must be one woman
in the world a man doesn’t have to lie to!” Two tears slipped down
Melissa’s cheeks. She shut her eyes. Luke put his arms around her and
she turned her cheek against his shoulder ... she felt his lips upon
her hair. She heard him say very low and not very steadily--“Love me,
Lissa?”
She moved her head in answer--wordless.
She hadn’t known how sweet it would be to be quiet in Luke’s arms. Not
to be lonely any more. To feel the heavenly warmth of human contact and
at the same moment to be intimately understood ... flesh and something
not flesh satisfied together.... “Luke--” she whispered--“I’ve _wanted_
you so....”
Luke kissed her then, holding her close, and in that moment, through
the passionate gentleness of his lips upon hers, Melissa was aware of
doubt belying her own soft whisper....
Could there be comfort in contact, intimacy in understanding--and
yet--not all?
Something still wanting ... something unanswered ... in the very moment
of surrender, something that winced and withheld itself ... or was
it--not Luke--that she wanted? After all?
“Lissa--” said Luke, while she desperately questioned.... “Lissa
darling!...” His voice was the tenderest Melissa had ever heard. It
shamed her.
She let him kiss her again--but lifting up her face, she shut her
eyes and shut her hands hard, and said in her soul to something that
pitifully protested....
“Hush ... hush ... hush!”