It was not often that Stella took anything for herself, least of all
Saturday afternoons. They belonged by a kind of sacred right to
Eurydice, and what was left over from Eurydice was used on the weekly
accounts. Mrs. Waring found it easier to explain to Stella than to any
one else why one and sixpence that was really due to the butcher should
have been expended upon "The Will of God," bound in white and gold for
eighteenpence, an indisputable spiritual bargain, but a poor equivalent
to the butcher.
But this Saturday afternoon Stella hardened her heart against Eurydice
and turned her mind away from the vista of the weekly bills. She wanted
to think about Julian.
Marian had left London the day after her interview with him. She
belonged to that class of people which invariably follows a disagreeable
event by a change of address; but she had found time before she went to
write to Stella. There was something she wanted Stella to send on after
her from the Army and Navy stores. She was really too upset and rushed
to go there herself. Julian had been so extraordinary; he apparently
expected her to be fonder of him now than when he was all right. She had
really made tremendous sacrifices going to that horrid nursing home
every day for a month. Both her parents were delighted that the
engagement was at an end, and of course it was a relief in some ways,
though horribly sad and upsetting, especially as Julian behaved as if
she were to blame. Marian was afraid he wasn't as chivalrous as she had
always thought. She had idealized him. One does when one is in love with
people; but it doesn't last. One wakes up and finds everything
different.
Stella wanted to forget Marian's letter. It seemed to her as cursory and
callous as a newspaper account of a storm in China. It was all so far
off, and drowned Chinamen are so much alike; and yet she had written to
tell Stella about Julian and the end of love. "Many waters cannot quench
love"; it had not taken many waters to quench Marian's. It occurred to
Stella for the first time that the quality of love depends solely upon
the heart that holds it; not even divine fire can burn on an untended
hearth.
It was a mild December day; winter had given itself a few soft hours in
which to brood upon the spring. London, the last of places to feel the
touch of nature and the first to profit by it, had passed into a golden
mist.
Stella left the town hall at two o'clock, and walked down the busy
highway. All the little, lively shops were awake and doing their noisy
business of the week, while farther west all the big, quiet shops, with
other habits, closed on the heels of their departing customers. Stella
slipped away from the eager friendly crowd, glued together in
indissoluble groups upon the pavement. She wanted to be alone and not to
have to keep reminding herself not to think of Julian until she had
finished what she had to do.
She turned down a narrow lane with high brick walls. Silence and
solitude were at the turn of a corner. London fell away from her like a
jangling dream.
She passed an iron-scrolled gateway which led into an old garden. The
low-browed house, with its overhanging eaves, was once the home of a
famous poet. Poetry clung about it still; it was in the air, and met her
like the touch of a friend's hand. A little farther along the lane she
came to an opening in the wall, and saw before her a small, surrounded
field of grass. It was a Quaker burial-ground. This unique and quiet
people, in their enmity with form, had chosen of all forms the most
resilient. They had made in the heart of London a picture, and a place
of peace for death.
There was no sense of desolation in the silent field; only the sunshine,
the old walls, and the green emptiness. It might have been the
grass-grown citadel of Tusculum spread out at Stella's feet, it was a
spot so acquainted with the air, with solitude, and with a nameless
history.
Beyond it lay a maze of old and narrow streets, with quaint, lop-sided
houses, uneven roofs, and winding causeways.
At the end of one of these she came suddenly upon a waste of waters the
color of a moonstone. Stella had never been abroad; but she felt as if
a wall between her mind and space had broken down and shown her Venice.
Drifting slowly down the broad stream were two white swans, and across
the river a green bank stood beneath a row of shining towers.
They were a row of factory chimneys; but rising out of the mist, above
the moonstone flood, they looked like ancient towers. Stella sat upon a
wooden float; it made a luxurious seat for her opposite the drifting
swans. She felt as if all her thoughts at last were free. There was no
one in sight; old and dignified houses leaned toward the water-front:
but for all the life that inhabited them, they might have been the
ghosts of houses. Nothing stirred, but sometimes up the river a
sea-gull, on level wings, with wary eyes, wandered above the watery
highway, challenging the unaccustomed small spaces of the sky.
Stella wished for the first time that Julian were dead. She did not
believe in a capricious or an impatient God, moved by well-timed
petitions; but all her being absorbed itself into an unconscious prayer
for Julian's peace.
She could not have told how long she had been there when she heard the
sound of footsteps, strangely familiar footsteps, direct, regular, and
swift. She looked up, to meet the grave, intent gaze of Mr. Leslie
Travers.
Stella rubbed her eyes as if she had been asleep. Surely in a place of
whispering silences, town clerks did not burst upon you except in
dreams?
Of course Mr. Travers might live in one of these old, quiet houses,
though it did not seem very likely to Stella. She thought he must live
in some place where the houses looked as if they knew more what they
were about, and did not brood over a deserted waterway
Seeing all their own mischance
With a glassy countenance,
like that immortal gazer, the _Lady of Shalott_.
Mr. Travers did not pass Stella with his usual air of cutting through
space like a knife. He crossed the float gingerly, and asked firmly, but
with kindness, if he might sit down.
Stella gave a helpless gesture of assent. She could not stop him, but he
was inappropriate. The row of factory chimneys ceased to disguise
themselves as towers; the float looked as if it knew suddenly how
unsuitable it was for a winter afternoon's repose. The swans,
approaching fatally near for the ideal, were very nearly black.
"Do you not find it damp here?" asked Mr. Travers.
Stella said:
"Yes, very"; and then, meeting his surprised eyes, she hastily corrected
herself. "No, not at all." Then gave a little, helpless laugh. "Forgive
me!" she said. "You surprised me so. Has anything gone wrong at the town
hall?"
Mr. Travers did not immediately answer her question. He had never sat on
a float before. Still, it was not this fact which silenced him. He had
not been sure when he approached if Stella was crying or not. There was
still something that looked suspiciously like the pathway of a tear upon
the cheek next him, and though she was laughing now, it had not the
sound of her usual laughter; it stirred in him a sense of tears.
"I think I shall confess at once," he said finally, "that I followed
you. I wanted to talk to you without interruption. I might have called
upon you at your home, of course, but I have not had the pleasure of
meeting your family, and in this instance my business was with you."
Stella gave a faint sigh of relief. She was glad it was business. She
was used to business with Mr. Travers. She was not used to pleasure with
him, and she was not in the mood for new experiences.
"I shall be glad to talk over anything with you about which I can be of
use," she said gently, "and I think this is a beautiful place to do it
in."
"The rents," said Mr. Travers, glancing critically at the silent houses,
"must be very low, necessarily low. I hope you do not often come here,"
he added after a pause. "It is the kind of place in which I should
strongly suspect drains. We might mention it to the sanitary inspector
and ask him for a report upon it."
"Oh, must we?" murmured Stella.
"Not if you would rather not," said Mr. Travers, unexpectedly. "In that
case I would waive the question."
Stella glanced at him in alarm. Was Mr. Travers going mad from
overstrain at the town hall? He must be very nearly mad to come and sit
upon a float with his secretary on Saturday afternoon, and waive a
question of drains.
"But that wouldn't be business," she said gravely.
"Yes, it would," said Mr. Travers, relentlessly. "It is my immediate
business to please you."
Stella's alarm deepened; but it became solely for Mr. Travers. She did
not mind if he was sane or not if only he refrained from saying anything
that he would ultimately regret.
"I don't know whether you realize, Miss Waring," Mr. Travers continued,
"that I am a very lonely man. I have no contemporary relatives. My
father died when I was a young child. I lost my mother two years ago. My
work has not entailed many friendships. I began office work very young,
and it has to a great extent absorbed me. I think I should be afraid to
say it to any one but you,--it would sound laughable,--but my chief
attachment of late years has been to a cat."
It was curious that, though Mr. Travers had often been nervous of his
secretary's humor, he understood that she would not laugh at him about
his cat.
"Oh," she cried, "I hope it loves you as well. They won't sometimes, I
know; you can pour devotion out on them, and they won't turn a hair. But
when they do, it's so wonderfully reassuring. Dogs will love almost any
one, but cats discriminate. I do hope your cat discriminates toward you,
Mr. Travers?"
"I think it was attached to me in its way," said Mr. Travers, clearing
his throat. "It was an old cat, and now it is dead. I merely mention it
in passing."
"Yes, yes," said Stella, quickly. "But I'm so sorry! I hate to think you
had to lose what you loved."
"You would," said Mr. Travers. "But the point I wish to make to you is
that a man whose sole dependence is upon the attachment of a cat does
not know much about human relationships. I fear I am exceedingly
ignorant upon this subject. Until lately this had not particularly
disturbed me. Now I should wish to have given it more consideration."
"But I think you have," said Stella, eagerly; "I mean I think you've
changed lately about relationships. Now I think of it, I'm quite sure
you have. I have always enjoyed my work with you, and you have never
been inconsiderate to me. But I used to think people weren't very real
to you, as if you wanted to hurry through them and stick them on a neat,
tight file, like the letters, according to their alphabetical order. But
now I know you're not like that. Even if you hadn't told me about the
cat I should have known it."
"Thank you," said Mr. Travers. "Thank you very much."
For a while he said nothing at all, and Stella wondered if that was all
he wanted. She hoped it was all he wanted. Then he turned and looked
down at her.
"I have formed an attachment now, Miss Waring," he said, "and I am in a
suitable position to carry it out. You have been the best secretary a
man ever had. Could you undertake to become my wife?"
Stella bowed her head. She had come here to think about Julian, but she
had not been able to think about him for very long. She did not think
about him at all now. She thought only about Mr. Travers. She was so
sorry for him that she could not look at him. What compensation was
there for what she had not got to give him, and in what mad directions
does not pity sometimes drive? For a moment she felt as if she could not
say "No" to him; but to say "Yes" would make nothing any easier, for
after she had said "Yes" she would have nothing more to give.
There is seldom any disastrous situation in which there is not something
that can be saved. Stella saw in a flash what she might still save out
of it. She could save Mr. Travers's pride at the cost of hers. She was a
very proud and a very reticent woman; she would take the deepest thing
in her heart and show it to Mr. Travers that he might not feel ashamed
at having shown her his own.
"I can't," she said quickly, slipping her small, firm hand over his;
"not because it isn't beautiful of you. It is, of course; it's one of
the most beautiful things I've ever known, because you know nothing
about me, and I'm so glad I'm not what you would really like if you did
know me. Remember that afterward."
"Excuse me," interrupted Mr. Travers, dryly; "I am the best judge of
what I like."
"I wonder if you really are," said Stella, with a little gasp, as if she
had been running. "I wonder if I really am myself. But we both think we
are, don't we? We can't help that--and the very same thing has happened
to us both: we've seen and wanted a little--something that wouldn't
do--that wouldn't do at all for either of us ever. If you _had_ to like
somebody that wouldn't do, I think I'm glad you came to me, because, you
see, I know what it feels like. I can be sorry and proud and glad you've
given it to me, and then we need never talk about it any more."
Mr. Travers looked straight in front of him. Stella had not withdrawn
her hand; but Mr. Travers pressed it, and laid it down reverentially
between them. He would never forget that he had held it, but to continue
to hold it until she had accepted him would have seemed to Mr. Travers a
false position.
"There is another point to which I should like to draw your attention,"
he said after a slight pause. "Marriage does not necessarily imply any
feeling of an intense nature by both parties. I wish to offer you
security and companionship. As I told you before, I am a lonely man; I
could be content with very little. I have noticed that when you come
into a room it makes a difference to me."
"Don't make me cry!" said Stella, suddenly, and then she did cry a
little, a nervous flurry of tears that shook her for a brief moment and
left her laughing at the consternation in his face.
"You see how silly I am!" she said. "But however silly, I'm not a cheat.
You offer me everything. I couldn't take it and not offer you everything
back. To me marriage means everything. It isn't only--is it?--a
perpetual companionship, though when you think of it, that's
tremendous,--almost all the other companionships of life are
intermittent, but it's the building up of fresh life out of a single
love."
Mr. Travers looked away. He was surprised that Stella had not shocked
him. The idea of any woman mentioning the existence of a child until she
had a child might have shocked him; but Stella failed to move his sense
of propriety. It even struck him that marriage would be less inclined
to lapse into the sordid and irregular struggles of his experience if it
was based upon so plain a foundation. He looked away because he felt
that now he could not change her.
Stella wished that they were in a house. It struck her that a room would
give more of the advantages of a retreat to Mr. Travers. She was very
anxious to make his retreat easy for him.
"Would you do me a tremendous service?" she asked gently.
He turned quickly to face her.
"That is what I should like to do you," he said. But he looked at her a
little suspiciously, for he was not sure that the service Stella asked
wouldn't, after all, be only some new way of helping him.
"You said the other day," she said, meeting his eyes with unswerving
candor, "that I might have extra help if I wanted it. I do want very
much to find some work for my sister, Eurydice. She is very clever;
cleverer than I am a great deal, only in a different way. She used to
write books, but that did not pay her very well, and when the war came,
she went into the city and worked for a secretarial diploma. I think
she would be of use to you, if you would go slowly with her and make
allowances for her different ways of being clever. Would you like to
help her?"
Mr. Travers hesitated. Then he stood up and held out his hand to her.
"The sun has begun to go," he said; "I assure you it is not healthy for
you to linger here. Of course I will engage your sister."
Stella gave a little sigh of relief. She had found a way out for Mr.
Travers.