Arnaud Hallet stirred, sharply closing his book. He had changed--except
for a palpable settling down of grayness--as little as Linda. For a
while she had tried to bring about an improvement in his appearance, and
he had met her expressed wish whenever he remembered it; but this was
not often. In the morning a servant polished his shoes, brushed and
ironed his suits; yet by evening, somehow, he managed to look as though
he hadn't been attended to for days. She would have liked him to change
for dinner; other men of his connection did, it was a part of his
inheritance. Arnaud, however, in his slight scoffing disparagement,
declined individually to annoy himself. He was, she learned, enormously
absorbed in his historical studies and papers.
“Did you enjoy it?” she asked politely of his reading. “Extremely,” he
replied. “The American Impressions of Tyrone Power, the English actor,
through eighteen thirty-three and four. His account of a European packet
with its handbells and Saratoga water and breakfast of spitch-cock
is inimitable. I'd like to have sat at Cato's then, with a julep or
hail-storm, and watched the trotting races.”
Elouise Lowrie rose unsteadily, confused with dozing; but almost
immediately she gathered herself into a relentless propriety and a
formal goodnight.
“What has been running through that mysterious mind of yours?”
“I had a letter from Dodge,” she told him simply; “and I was thinking a
little about the past.” He exhibited the nice unstrained interest of
his admirable personality. “Is he still in France?” he queried. “Pleydon
should be a strong man; I am sure we are both conscious of a little
disappointment in him.” She said: “I'll read you his letter, it's on the
table.
“'You will see, my dear Linda, that I have not moved from the Rue de
Penthièvre, although I have given up the place at Etretat, and I am not
going to renew the lease here. Rodin insists, and I coming to agree with
him, that I ought to be in America. But the serious attitude here toward
art, how impossible that word has been made, is charming. And you will
be glad to know that I have had some success in the French good opinion.
A marble, Cotton Mather, that I cut from the stone, has been bought for
the Luxembourg.
“'I can hear you both exclaim at the subject, but it is very
representative of me now. I am tired of mythological naiads in a
constant state of pursuit. Get Hallet to tell you something about
Mather. What a somber flame! I have a part Puritan ancestry, as any
Lowrie will inform you. Well, I shall be back in a few months, very
serious, and a politician--a sculptor has to be that if he means to land
any public monuments in America.
“'I hope to see you.'”
The letter ended abruptly, with the signature, “Pleydon.”
“Are you happy, Linda?” Arnaud Hallet asked unexpectedly after a short
silence. So abruptly interrogated she was unable to respond. “What
I mean is,” he explained, “do you think you would have been happier
married to him? I knew, certainly, that it was the closest possible
thing between us.” Now, however, she was able to satisfy him:
“I couldn't marry Dodge.”
“Is it possible to tell me why?”
“He hurt me very much once. I tried to marry him, I tried to forget it,
but it was useless. I was dreadfully unhappy, in a great many ways--”
“So you sent for me,” he put in as she paused reflectively. “I didn't
hurt you, at any rate.” It seemed to her that his tone was shadowed.
“You have never hurt me, Arnaud,” she assured him, conscious of the
inadequacy of her words. “You were everything I wanted.”
“Except for my hats,” he said in a brief flash of his saving humor. “It
would be better for me, perhaps, if I could hurt you. That ability
comes dangerously close to a constant of love. You mustn't think I
am complaining. I haven't the slightest reason in the face of your
devastating honesty. I didn't distress you and I had the necessary
minimum--the fifty thousand.” His manner was so even, so devoid of
sting, that she could smile at the expression of her material ambitions.
“I realize exactly your feeling for myself, but what puzzles me is your
attitude toward the children.”
“I don't understand it either,” she admitted, “except that I am quite
afraid of them. They are so different from all my own childhood; often
they are too much for me. Then I dread the time when they will discover
how stupid and uneducated I am at bottom. I'm sure you already ask
questions before them to amuse yourself at my doubt. What shall I do,
Arnaud, when they are really at school and bring home their books?”
“Retreat behind your dignity as a parent,” he advised. “They are certain
to display their knowledge and ask you to bound things or name the
capital of Louisiana.” She cried, “Oh, but I know that, it's New
Orleans!” She saw at once, from his entertained expression, that she
was wrong again, and became conscious of a faint flush of annoyance. “It
will be even worse,” she continued, “when Vigné looks to me for advice;
I mean when she is older and has lovers.”
“She won't seriously; they never do. She'll tell you when it's all over.
Lowrie will depend more on you. I may have my fun about the capital of
Louisiana, Linda, but I have the greatest confidence in your wisdom. God
knows what an unhappy experience your childhood was, but it has given
you a superb worldly balance.”
“I suppose you're saying that I am cold,” she told him. “It must be
true, because it is repeated by every one. Yet, at times, I used to be
very different--you'd never imagine what a romantic thrill or strange
ideas were inside of me. Like a memory of a deep woods, and--and the
loveliest adventure. Often I would hear music as clearly as possible,
and it made me want I don't know what terrifically.”
“An early experience,” he replied. Suddenly she saw that he was tired,
his face was lined and dejected. “You read too much,” Linda declared.
He said: “But only out of the printed book.” She wondered vainly what he
meant. As he stood before the glimmering coals, in the room saturated
in repose, she wished that she might give him more; she wanted to
spend herself in a riot of feeling on Arnaud and their children. What a
detestable character she had! Her desire, her efforts, were wasted.
He went about putting up the windows and closing the outside shutters, a
confirmed habit. Linda rose with her invariable sense of separation, the
feeling that, bound on a journey with a hidden destination, she was only
temporarily in a place of little importance. It was like being always in
her hat and jacket. Arnaud shook down the grate; then he gazed over
the room; it was all, she was sure, as it had been a century ago, as it
should be--all except herself.