“Please, Jim,” begged Rose Hubbell, “you will come with me today?”
She was proposing a walk in the country and Jim was demurring. It was
Sunday in May and a beautiful day of golden greens which he had longed
to share with Horatia. But Horatia had gone to a family dinner party at
Aunt Caroline’s and refused to include him, because it was such a very
family party “with antique aunts and uncles who’d watch us and speculate
with the most indecent curiosity.” He was bored but disinclined to see
Rose Hubbell. If he could not be with Horatia, he could get pleasure out
of the thought of her anyway. But Mrs. Hubbell insisted.
“Please, Jim, don’t leave me alone today. It’s a bad anniversary for me.
Let’s go for a long country walk and get all this sunshine. Will you?”
He remembered with a shock that it must be a bad anniversary for her.
Just three years ago on just such a day, Jack Hubbell had shot the
bottom out of his world. And hers too--and Jim’s own, for a while. The
bitter reminiscence awakened a keen pity in him for her. Yes, he would
go. He promised, and half an hour later was on his way to meet her at
the station. They were to ride to the country and then start walking
along the lake shore.
She was dressed simply and suitably in a short skirt and jacket and he
saw at a glance that she had been weeping. Jim’s gallantry was always
greater than his cynicism, and though he had had ample proof that Rose
had not let her husband’s suicide blight her life, still this evidence
of feeling on her part touched him and made him sorry for her and very
kind. They rode along silently--she thoughtful and unwontedly sweet. He
saw again in her the mood that had seemed such sweet spirituality and
that had seemed to him to be her dominating mood when he had first known
her. She was frail and her profile, turned to the light, was very
wistful and drooped a little as it contemplated her past sorrows.
“Dear Jim,” she said softly, “I was a wretch to make you share my
depression today. But when this time comes around all the gayety with
which I can surround myself at other times falls flat. I have all I can
do to keep from----” her voice trailed into silence and she stretched
her hands forward on her lap, clasping them tightly. Jim said nothing.
He had had previous dealings with hysterical women and had learned not
to add either the fuel of comfort or of contradiction to their
self-musings. And she said nothing more.
They dismounted at their little station. It was only a station house
with a country road leading away into light woods, and the road was one
which they knew led to a high bluff overlooking miles on miles of lake.
Jim had often thought that he would like to bring Horatia here, but the
place was too overclouded by certain memories.
“Do you remember the last time we were here?” she asked.
“Look here, Rose, I don’t think this is a wise place to come today.
Let’s go back to town and go to supper some place. Or to a concert. This
will only work you all up.”
She refused by a gesture and then, seeming to realize a misstep, quickly
changed her mood or at least her manner. She was gay. She saw all sorts
of interesting things along the path. Her feet almost danced along and
when they came into full sight of the lake, she stepped and flung out
her arms with a gesture of joyous abandon, which even in its slight
theatricalness was lovely to see. Langley adapted himself to her mood.
They sat on a rock and flung stones into the water, and, being entirely
human, Langley found himself appreciative of the way the wind could
rumple her soft yellow hair without making it ugly or disorderly. An
hour passed. It had been late afternoon when they reached the lake and
the water was no longer dancing in the sunlight but grey and moving as
if turned to severer purposes. Rose lay stretched on a rock, a slim
delicate figure, exaggerated against its bareness.
“Are you in love with Horatia Grant?” she asked suddenly.
The question came unpleasantly to Jim. He hesitated, unwilling to drag
Horatia’s name into a tête-à-tête with Rose and then answered,
briefly--almost brusquely,
“Yes.”
“Is she going to marry you?”
Mrs. Hubbell did not seem to be aware of his hesitation. She put the
second question as directly as the first.
“Yes--we are going to be married. Come, Rose, it is late.”
“She is lovely looking,” contributed Mrs. Hubbell, contemplatively.
“I don’t want to discuss her, Rose. It’s--impossible.”
She continued to lie there very quietly, non-resistant.
“Of course you don’t want to discuss her. But you see it matters so much
to me that I couldn’t help asking.”
How could one tread upon such meekness?
“Oh, nonsense, Rose. There’s no reason on earth why you should feel that
way. We decided long ago that there was no possible--emotion--between
us. We continue to be good friends just as we always have been.”
“I wish we could, Jim.”
“Why can’t we?”
“Because Horatia probably wouldn’t want it.”
“Of course Horatia would. Of course she would.” But he repeated it as if
not quite sure of himself.
And still Rose lay there, immobile, her delicate arms outstretched, a
perfect picture of resignation.
“The last link is snapping which binds me to the things which I loved. A
wasted life--and yet not altogether my fault, was it? Just because we
were friends--you and I--before that horrible thing happened. And
then--you go--and I am alone--with nothing at all except a future that
is as empty as--that hand.” She lifted her lovely open hand to the wind.
“Don’t be morbid, Rose.”
“Oh, I’m not--not a bit,” she assured him. “Of course I’ve always known
you’d marry some time. I perhaps might have wished--indelicacies.”
Langley was pacing up and down with embarrassment and his face showed
mingled pity and anger, but she did not seem to see him.
“But you don’t love me. There was a day when you thought you did. Do you
remember that day when you had tea with me--a winter afternoon and the
snow was coming down outside and it was so warm in the little yellow
living-room--do you remember my little yellow living-room?--and you
leaned down over me at the tea-table and kissed me--because you said you
couldn’t help it--just once?”
“Oh, damn it all, Rose--what’s the sense in this? That nonsense was long
ago. It was so damned foolish.”
“It was nonsense,” she answered quietly, “nonsense, I suppose, to you.
Just a whim to you--just as Jack’s suicide was an impulse to him--and
so for whims and impulses, I’ve wasted all my life.”
He was suddenly kinder. Perhaps the appeal of that inert figure made him
sorry for her just as anger on her part would have aroused every inch of
him to masculine resentment. He sat down beside her.
“You mustn’t talk like that, Rose. You’re young, lovely. Of course you
had a rotten deal, but you’ve everything in the world ahead of you yet
and if you’re brave you’ll have it all coming to you.”
“With a woman when love is gone or has become hopeless, everything is
gone.”
Subtle playing on the chords of man’s vanity! Rose Hubbell had not
developed her technique for nothing. Langley’s softening and his
discomfort showed in every line of his restless figure. And Rose sat up,
to advantage, a little more tense.
“Jim, I want you to be happy above everything. And Horatia is wonderful
and beautiful. Only don’t let her absorb you. She is so strong--so much
stronger than most women or men that she tends to absorb people. I feel
myself shrinking into nothing beside her. I am only warning you as an
old friend and a wise woman. A woman’s greatest attraction to a man is a
man’s strength and she likes to be dominated--not to dominate.”
Strange that Jim, who had avowed to Horatia that Mrs. Hubbell was
possibly dangerous and who had himself so few illusions, should have
been listening to her so seriously and so intently. She did not press
the point but began to talk of Horatia--of her beauty, her grace, her
mind, and Langley drank it all in. And the lake grew a darker grey as he
bathed in the thoughts of the woman he loved and the woman who watched
him saw that he was so far away from her that she grew heedless about
her own expressions and let them grow a little more hard and bitter and
angry. At last she jumped to her feet.
“Getting dark, Jimmy. We must go.”
Jim rose. He had been having a delightful time for that last half hour
and was ready to go--go back to Horatia.
“I’m glad you like her so much, Rose,” he said gratefully and awkwardly.
“I admire her more than I can tell you,” said Rose, “and if she would
let me love her I would be happy indeed.”
Langley did not answer that. He gave her his hand to help her over the
rocks and they went down the deserted country road. In the last stretch
before they came in sight of the station he felt her hand suddenly hot
in his and as he turned she put her hands on his shoulders.
“Let me kiss you once, Jimmy boy,” she asked, “just for good luck.”
The name woke a host of memories in him which he would not have
willingly called forth. He bent his head a little to her swift caress
and then they went on, his mind back, uncontrollably back, in the past.
He walked in reverie, and she helped him a little in it. What they
talked of now was those early days of her married life when Jim and Jack
Hubbell had spent long evenings with her, the three of them in ardent
conversation--or so it had seemed then to them. Skillfully Mrs. Hubbell
recreated those past days, playing now on chords of sentiment, now on
humorous notes, and Jim slid back into the past with her. On the train
and on the way to her home she held up the conversation constantly,
always maintaining the effect that she wanted of reviving a happy memory
about to be relegated to the past forever. It was at her own door, when,
after vainly urging him to come in, she gave him her hand in farewell
and said:
“I wonder if I dare ask you something.”
It may have been because he was so pleased at the happy turn she had
given her melancholy, but in any case his smile was friendly and
promising.
“I should almost think so.”
“Don’t just drop me cold, Jim. Let me see you sometimes. I don’t think
you have ever guessed how I need you. There’s a black mood comes over me
sometimes and you are the only person who can dispel it. I don’t want to
meddle--to interfere--to be anything--but don’t hurt me by just dropping
me cold. Come to see me now and then--once in a long while--only when
Horatia doesn’t want you--promise.”
“Why--of course I will--of course, Rose--don’t be so silly. You know
that without a promise.”
“No--promise--it will make me feel so much happier just to have the
words to comfort me when I feel awfully outside and alone.”
He hesitated, being a man and naturally reluctant to bind himself too
tightly, and then, being a gentleman, he laughed and promised. She asked
nothing more and took no advantage of his feeling but bent to open her
door and then, waving to him from the dark threshold, was gone.
At his rooms, Jim found a note under his door. It was a little note
written on a page out of a familiar notebook. “Where do you run to when
I can not find you? I have disposed of the stupidest party in the world
because I can not bear my Sunday without the sight of you. I have
brazenly rung your door-bell and there came no answer. If you get back,
call me at Maud’s to say good night and if it is early enough, come to
see me and say it properly.”
He looked at his watch. It was eleven o’clock--too late for a call. He
sat down at his telephone and almost lovingly called the number of
Maud’s house.
“What were you doing?” asked Horatia. “All this heavenly afternoon?”
Langley did not make any attempt to evade the question.
“Oh, I went out in the country with Rose Hubbell. She was a bit down and
needed to be cheered up, she thought.”
“Oh.”
A kind of blankness checked the warmth in Horatia’s voice.
“Well, you must have had a nice time,” she said. “It must have been
lovely in the country. But I thought Rose didn’t care for that sort of
thing.”
“Oh, once in a while she seems to. I’m sorry you had a dull dinner. And
so awfully sorry that I missed you when you called. If I had dreamed
that there was a chance that you might come in I wouldn’t have stirred
from the place.”
“Oh, I’m glad you did,” answered Horatia, resolutely trying to hide her
hurt that he had been happy without her when she had longed so for him.
“Please talk to me a while, dear. You don’t have to go to bed just yet.”
“What did you do in the country?”
“Why, just walked and talked and longed for you.”
“You’re flattering me.”
“Please don’t say that, darling.”
“I’m glad you missed me and I’m sorry I missed you. I’m so silly, Jim. I
want you to have a good time and yet I want it to be had with me. Isn’t
that silly and disgustingly feminine?”
“It’s most beautiful.”
“Good night, Jim, dear.”
The telephone clicked on the hook. Horatia turned to go up the
stairs--but the smile on her lips did not match the look in her eyes,
that was not quite one of satisfaction.