HE stood with bowed shoulders, twisting lips; and, after a momentary
pause, she fled from the room. Cold waves of self-hatred flowed over
him--he had taken a despicable advantage of her grief. The pleasant
fabric of the past, unthinking days, the new materialism with its
comfortable freedom from restraint, crumbled from an old, old skeleton
whose moldering lines spelled the death of all--his heart knew--that was
high, desirable, immaculate. He wondered if, like Rufus Hardinge, his
understanding had come too late. But, in the re-surge of his adoration
for Eliza, infinitely more beautiful and serene from the pit out of
which he sped his vision, he was possessed by the conviction that
nothing created nor void should extinguish the bright flame of his
passion, hold them separate.
In the midst of his turmoil he recalled Eliza with relief, with delight,
with tumultuous longing. He soared on the wings of his ecstasy; but
descended abruptly to the practical necessities which confronted him. He
must leave the Hardinges immediately; with a swift touch of the humorous
spirit native to him, he realized that again he would be without money.
Then more seriously he considered his coming interview with Annot.
The house was charged with the vague unrest, the strange aspect of
familiar things, wrought by serious illness. Luncheon was disorganized,
Annot was late. She was pale, but, under an obvious concern, she
radiated a suppressed content. She laid a letter before Anthony.
“Registered,” she told him. “I signed.” It was, he saw, from his father,
and he slipped it into his pocket, intent upon the explanation which
lay before him. It would be more difficult even than he had anticipated:
Annot spoke of the near prospect of a Mediterranean trip, if Rufus
Hardinge rallied sufficiently. “He is as contented and gentle as a nice
old lady,” she reported; then, with a subtle expansion of manner, “it
will be such fun--I shall take you by the hand, 'This, my good infant,
is one of Virgil's final resting places....'”
“That would be splendid,” he acknowledged, “but I'm afraid that I
sha'n't be able to go. The fact is that--that I had better leave you. I
can't take your money for... for....”
She glanced at him swiftly, under the shadow of a frown, then shook her
head at him. “That tiresome money again! It's a strange thing for you
to insist on; material considerations are ordinarily as far as possible
from your thoughts. I forbid you absolutely to mention it again; every
time you do I shall punish you--I shall present you with a humiliating
gold piece in person.”
“I should be all kinds of a trimmer to take advantage of your goodness.
No, I must go--” The gay warmth evaporated from her countenance as
abruptly as though it had been congealed in a sudden icy breath; she
sat motionless, upright, enveloping him in the bright resentment of her
gaze.
“And I must ask you to forgive me for... for this morning,” he stumbled
hastily on.
The resentment burned into a clear flame of angry contempt. “'For this
morning!' because I kissed you?”
He made a vehement gesture of denial. “Oh, no!” But she would not allow
him to finish. “But I did,” she announced in a hard, determined voice.
“It isn't necessary for you to be polite; I don't care a damn for
that sickening sort of thing. I did, and you are properly and modestly
retreating. I believe that you think I am--'designing,' isn't that
the word? that you might have to marry me. A kiss, I am to realize, is
something sacred. Bah! you make me ill, like almost everything else in
life.
“If you think for a minute that it was anything more than the expression
of a passing impulse you are beyond words. And, if it had been more,
you--you violet, I wouldn't marry you; I wouldn't marry any man, ever!
ever! ever! I might have gone to Italy with you, but probably come home
with some one else--will that get into your pretty prejudices?”
“If you had gone to Italy with me,” he declared sullenly, “you would
never have come home with anybody else.”
“That sort of thing has been dismissed to the smaller rural towns and
the cheap melodramas; it's no longer considered elevated to talk like
that, but only pitiful. You will start next on 'God's noblest creation,'
and purity, and the females of your family. Don't you know, haven't you
been told, that the primitive religious rubbish about marriage has been
laughed out of existence? Did you dream that I wanted to _keep_ you?
or that I would allow you to keep me after the thing had got stale?
It makes me cold all over to be so frightfully misunderstood. Oh, its
unthinkable! Fi, to kiss you! wasn't it loose of me?”
Her contemptuous periods stung him in a thousand minute places. “I told
you,” he retorted hotly, “that I wanted to make money; I don't want it
given to me; it's for my wedding.”
“Of course, how stupid of me not to have guessed--the lips sacred to
her,” her own trembled ever so slightly, but her scornful attitude, her
direct, bright gaze, were maintained, “A knight errant adventuring for
a village queen with her handkerchief in his sleeve and tempted by the
inevitable Kundry.”
He settled himself to weathering this feminine storm; he owed her all
the relief to be found in words. “I wanted the money to go West,” he
particularized further. “There's a position waiting for me--”
“It's all very chaste,” she told him, “but terribly commonplace. I think
that I don't care to hear the details.” She addressed herself to what
remained of the luncheon. “Have some more sauce,” she advised coolly,
then rang. “The pudding, Jane,” she directed.
“You have been wonderfully kind--” he began. But she halted him
abruptly. “We'll drop all that,” she pronounced, and deliberately lit a
cigarette.
A genuine admiration for her possessed Anthony; he recognized that she
was extraordinarily good to look at; he had had no idea that so vigorous
a spirit could have burned behind a becoming dress by Paret. He realized
with a faint regret, eminently masculine, that other men, men of moment,
would find her irresistibly attractive. Already it seemed incredible
that she had ever been familiar, intimate, tender, with him.
“You will be wanting to leave,” she said, rising; “--whenever you
like. I have written for a--a chauffeur. I think you should have, it's
twenty-five dollars, isn't it?”
“Not twenty-five cents,” he returned.
“I shouldn't like to force your delicate sensibilities.” She left the
room. He caught a last glimpse of her firm, young profile; her shining,
coppery hair; her supple, upright carriage.
L
IN his room he assembled the battered clothing in which Rufus Hardinge
had discovered him, preparatory to changing from his present more
elaborate garb, but a sudden realization of the triviality of that
course, born of the memory of Annot's broad disposition, halted him
midway. Making a hasty bundle of his personal belongings he descended
from the tower room. Through an open door he could see the still, white
face of the biologist looming from a pillow, and the trim form of a
nurse.
Thomas Huxley lay somnolently on the porch, beside Annot's
coffee-colored wicker chair and a yellow paper book which bore a title
in French. He paused on the street, gazing back, and recalled his first
view of the four-square, ugly house in its coat of mustard-colored
paint, the grey, dripping cupids of the fountain, the unknown girl with
yellow silk stockings. Already he seemed to have crossed the gulf which
divided it all from the present: its significance faded, its solidity
dissolved, dropped behind, like a scene viewed from a car window. He
turned, obsessed by the old, familiar impatience to hurry forward, the
feeling that all time, all energy, all plans and thoughts, were vain
that did not lead directly to----
A sudden and unaccountable sensation of cold swept over him, a profound
emotion stirring in response to an obscure, a hidden cause. Then, with
a rush, returned the feeling of Eliza's nearness: he _heard_ her, the
little, indefinable noises of her moving; he felt the unmistakable
thrill which she alone brought. There was a vivid sense of her hand
hovering above his shoulder; her fingers _must_ descend, rest warmly....
God! how did she get here. He whirled about... nothing against the
low stone-wall that bounded a sleepy garden, nothing in the paved
perspective of the sunny street! He stood shaken, half terrified,
miserable. He had never felt her nearness so poignantly; her distant
potency had never before so mocked his hungering nerves.
Then, with the cold chilling him like a breath from an icy vault, he
heard her, beyond all question, beyond all doubt:
“Anthony!” she called. “Anthony!” From somewhere ahead of him her tones
sounded thin and clear; they seemed to reach him dropping from a window,
lingering, neither grave nor gay, but tenderly secure, upon his hearing.
He broke into a clattering run over the bricks of the unremarkable
street, but soon slowed awkwardly into a walk, jeering at his fancy,
his laboring heart, his mad credulity. And then, drifting across his
bewildered senses, came the illusive, the penetrating, the remembered
odor of lilacs, like a whisper, a promise, a magic caress.