She looked up, finding herself alone. She did not remember when or how
he had left the room, or how long afterward she had sat there. The fire
still smouldered on the hearth, but the slant of sunlight had left the
wall.
Her first conscious thought was that she had not broken her word, that
she had fulfilled the very letter of their bargain. There had been no
crying out, no vain appeal to the past, no attempt at temporizing or
evasion. She had marched straight up to the guns.
Now that it was over, she sickened to find herself alive. She looked
about her, trying to recover her hold on reality. Her identity seemed
to be slipping from her, as it disappears in a physical swoon. "This is
my room--this is my house," she heard herself saying. Her room? Her
house? She could almost hear the walls laugh back at her.
She stood up, a dull ache in every bone. The silence of the room
frightened her. She remembered, now, having heard the front door close
a long time ago: the sound suddenly re-echoed through her brain. Her
husband must have left the house, then--her _husband?_ She no longer
knew in what terms to think: the simplest phrases had a poisoned edge.
She sank back into her chair, overcome by a strange weakness. The clock
struck ten--it was only ten o'clock! Suddenly she remembered that she
had not ordered dinner...or were they dining out that evening?
_Dinner--dining out_--the old meaningless phraseology pursued her! She
must try to think of herself as she would think of some one else, a
some one dissociated from all the familiar routine of the past, whose
wants and habits must gradually be learned, as one might spy out the
ways of a strange animal...
The clock struck another hour--eleven. She stood up again and walked to
the door: she thought she would go up stairs to her room. _Her_ room?
Again the word derided her. She opened the door, crossed the narrow
hall, and walked up the stairs. As she passed, she noticed Westall's
sticks and umbrellas: a pair of his gloves lay on the hall table. The
same stair-carpet mounted between the same walls; the same old French
print, in its narrow black frame, faced her on the landing. This visual
continuity was intolerable. Within, a gaping chasm; without, the same
untroubled and familiar surface. She must get away from it before she
could attempt to think. But, once in her room, she sat down on the
lounge, a stupor creeping over her...
Gradually her vision cleared. A great deal had happened in the
interval--a wild marching and countermarching of emotions, arguments,
ideas--a fury of insurgent impulses that fell back spent upon
themselves. She had tried, at first, to rally, to organize these
chaotic forces. There must be help somewhere, if only she could master
the inner tumult. Life could not be broken off short like this, for a
whim, a fancy; the law itself would side with her, would defend her.
The law? What claim had she upon it? She was the prisoner of her own
choice: she had been her own legislator, and she was the predestined
victim of the code she had devised. But this was grotesque,
intolerable--a mad mistake, for which she could not be held
accountable! The law she had despised was still there, might still be
invoked...invoked, but to what end? Could she ask it to chain Westall
to her side? _She_ had been allowed to go free when she claimed her
freedom--should she show less magnanimity than she had exacted?
Magnanimity? The word lashed her with its irony--one does not strike an
attitude when one is fighting for life! She would threaten, grovel,
cajole...she would yield anything to keep her hold on happiness. Ah,
but the difficulty lay deeper! The law could not help her--her own
apostasy could not help her. She was the victim of the theories she
renounced. It was as though some giant machine of her own making had
caught her up in its wheels and was grinding her to atoms...
It was afternoon when she found herself out-of-doors. She walked with
an aimless haste, fearing to meet familiar faces. The day was radiant,
metallic: one of those searching American days so calculated to reveal
the shortcomings of our street-cleaning and the excesses of our
architecture. The streets looked bare and hideous; everything stared
and glittered. She called a passing hansom, and gave Mrs. Van Sideren's
address. She did not know what had led up to the act; but she found
herself suddenly resolved to speak, to cry out a warning. It was too
late to save herself--but the girl might still be told. The hansom
rattled up Fifth Avenue; she sat with her eyes fixed, avoiding
recognition. At the Van Siderens' door she sprang out and rang the
bell. Action had cleared her brain, and she felt calm and
self-possessed. She knew now exactly what she meant to say.
The ladies were both out...the parlor-maid stood waiting for a card.
Julia, with a vague murmur, turned away from the door and lingered a
moment on the sidewalk. Then she remembered that she had not paid the
cab-driver. She drew a dollar from her purse and handed it to him. He
touched his hat and drove off, leaving her alone in the long empty
street. She wandered away westward, toward strange thoroughfares, where
she was not likely to meet acquaintances. The feeling of aimlessness
had returned. Once she found herself in the afternoon torrent of
Broadway, swept past tawdry shops and flaming theatrical posters, with
a succession of meaningless faces gliding by in the opposite
direction...
A feeling of faintness reminded her that she had not eaten since
morning. She turned into a side street of shabby houses, with rows of
ash-barrels behind bent area railings. In a basement window she saw the
sign _Ladies' Restaurant:_ a pie and a dish of doughnuts lay against
the dusty pane like petrified food in an ethnological museum. She
entered, and a young woman with a weak mouth and a brazen eye cleared a
table for her near the window. The table was covered with a red and
white cotton cloth and adorned with a bunch of celery in a thick
tumbler and a salt-cellar full of grayish lumpy salt. Julia ordered
tea, and sat a long time waiting for it. She was glad to be away from
the noise and confusion of the streets. The low-ceilinged room was
empty, and two or three waitresses with thin pert faces lounged in the
background staring at her and whispering together. At last the tea was
brought in a discolored metal teapot. Julia poured a cup and drank it
hastily. It was black and bitter, but it flowed through her veins like
an elixir. She was almost dizzy with exhilaration. Oh, how tired, how
unutterably tired she had been!
She drank a second cup, blacker and bitterer, and now her mind was once
more working clearly. She felt as vigorous, as decisive, as when she
had stood on the Van Siderens' door-step--but the wish to return there
had subsided. She saw now the futility of such an attempt--the
humiliation to which it might have exposed her... The pity of it was
that she did not know what to do next. The short winter day was fading,
and she realized that she could not remain much longer in the
restaurant without attracting notice. She paid for her tea and went out
into the street. The lamps were alight, and here and there a basement
shop cast an oblong of gas-light across the fissured pavement. In the
dusk there was something sinister about the aspect of the street, and
she hastened back toward Fifth Avenue. She was not used to being out
alone at that hour.
At the corner of Fifth Avenue she paused and stood watching the stream
of carriages. At last a policeman caught sight of her and signed to her
that he would take her across. She had not meant to cross the street,
but she obeyed automatically, and presently found herself on the
farther corner. There she paused again for a moment; but she fancied
the policeman was watching her, and this sent her hastening down the
nearest side street... After that she walked a long time, vaguely...
Night had fallen, and now and then, through the windows of a passing
carriage, she caught the expanse of an evening waistcoat or the shimmer
of an opera cloak...
Suddenly she found herself in a familiar street. She stood still a
moment, breathing quickly. She had turned the corner without noticing
whither it led; but now, a few yards ahead of her, she saw the house in
which she had once lived--her first husband's house. The blinds were
drawn, and only a faint translucence marked the windows and the transom
above the door. As she stood there she heard a step behind her, and a
man walked by in the direction of the house. He walked slowly, with a
heavy middle-aged gait, his head sunk a little between the shoulders,
the red crease of his neck visible above the fur collar of his
overcoat. He crossed the street, went up the steps of the house, drew
forth a latch-key, and let himself in...
There was no one else in sight. Julia leaned for a long time against
the area-rail at the corner, her eyes fixed on the front of the house.
The feeling of physical weariness had returned, but the strong tea
still throbbed in her veins and lit her brain with an unnatural
clearness. Presently she heard another step draw near, and moving
quickly away, she too crossed the street and mounted the steps of the
house. The impulse which had carried her there prolonged itself in a
quick pressure of the electric bell--then she felt suddenly weak and
tremulous, and grasped the balustrade for support. The door opened and
a young footman with a fresh inexperienced face stood on the threshold.
Julia knew in an instant that he would admit her.
"I saw Mr. Arment going in just now," she said. "Will you ask him to
see me for a moment?"
The footman hesitated. "I think Mr. Arment has gone up to dress for
dinner, madam."
Julia advanced into the hall. "I am sure he will see me--I will not
detain him long," she said. She spoke quietly, authoritatively, in the
tone which a good servant does not mistake. The footman had his hand on
the drawing-room door.
"I will tell him, madam. What name, please?"
Julia trembled: she had not thought of that. "Merely say a lady," she
returned carelessly.
The footman wavered and she fancied herself lost; but at that instant
the door opened from within and John Arment stepped into the hall. He
drew back sharply as he saw her, his florid face turning sallow with
the shock; then the blood poured back to it, swelling the veins on his
temples and reddening the lobes of his thick ears.
It was long since Julia had seen him, and she was startled at the
change in his appearance. He had thickened, coarsened, settled down
into the enclosing flesh. But she noted this insensibly: her one
conscious thought was that, now she was face to face with him, she must
not let him escape till he had heard her. Every pulse in her body
throbbed with the urgency of her message.
She went up to him as he drew back. "I must speak to you," she said.
Arment hesitated, red and stammering. Julia glanced at the footman, and
her look acted as a warning. The instinctive shrinking from a "scene"
predominated over every other impulse, and Arment said slowly: "Will
you come this way?"
He followed her into the drawing-room and closed the door. Julia, as
she advanced, was vaguely aware that the room at least was unchanged:
time had not mitigated its horrors. The contadina still lurched from
the chimney-breast, and the Greek slave obstructed the threshold of the
inner room. The place was alive with memories: they started out from
every fold of the yellow satin curtains and glided between the angles
of the rosewood furniture. But while some subordinate agency was
carrying these impressions to her brain, her whole conscious effort was
centred in the act of dominating Arment's will. The fear that he would
refuse to hear her mounted like fever to her brain. She felt her
purpose melt before it, words and arguments running into each other in
the heat of her longing. For a moment her voice failed her, and she
imagined herself thrust out before she could speak; but as she was
struggling for a word, Arment pushed a chair forward, and said quietly:
"You are not well."
The sound of his voice steadied her. It was neither kind nor unkind--a
voice that suspended judgment, rather, awaiting unforeseen
developments. She supported herself against the back of the chair and
drew a deep breath. "Shall I send for something?" he continued, with a
cold embarrassed politeness.