procession; he watched them bringing gifts to the corner table at
Raoul’s, feeling warm and grateful and safe; too content to risk
his joy by so much as stirring a finger. By and by he would speak
to her, of course; in some easy, simple way he would step across
the threshold of her life, and their hands would touch, never to
fall apart again. She would drop her brief case, perhaps, and he
would give it back to her, and she would smile; she would come into
some drawing room where he was standing waiting patiently and the
hostess would say, “You know Mr. Benedick, don’t you? He’s going
to take you in to dinner.” He would go to more dinners--surely she
must dine somewhere, and dances--surely she danced! Or the gray
kitten might capture that wisp of a handkerchief, and bring it to
him as booty--he would rescue it and carry it back to her--and she
would smile her thanks--she would smile---- It would all be as
simple as that--simpler, perhaps; for the time, he asked no more
than to let the days slip by while he sat watching her across the
table; that was enough.
Ah, those days! There was the one when she brought out a great
volume of Schopenhauer, and laughed all the time she read it; twice
she laughed aloud, and so gay and clear was her derision that
Jules joined in, too. It was probably the essay on Woman, Benedick
decided--the part where he said that ladies were little animals
with long hair and limited intelligence. There was the day when
she read out of a slim book of vellum about that small, enchanting
mischief, Marjorie Fleming, and when Jules put the iced melon down
before her she did not see it for almost a minute--her eyes were
too full of tears. There was the day when she read “War and Peace”
with her hands over her ears and such a look of terror on her face
that Benedick had all that he could do to keep from crossing over
and putting his arms about her, to close out all the dangers that
she feared--even the ones she read about in books.
And suddenly March was over, and it was April, and there was the
day when she took a new volume out of the brief case--so new that
it still had its paper cover with large black letters announcing
that it contained desirable information about Small Country Houses
for Limited Incomes, Colonial Style. She read it with tremendous
intensity and a look wavering between rapture and despair; once she
sighed forlornly, and once she made a small, defiant face at some
invisible adversary--and once she patted a picture lingeringly.
After she had gone, Benedick took his sister-in-law’s automobile,
and drove out to Connecticut, and bought a house--a little old
white house with many-paned windows, that sat on a hill with lilac
bushes around it, and looked at the silver waters of the Sound. It
was perfectly preposterous that she shouldn’t have a house if she
wanted it, and he was glad that she wanted a small country house,
Colonial style, even though it didn’t necessarily imply a moderate
income. For the first time in his life he was glad that his income
was not moderate. When he got back to town he bought a gray
roadster--not too heavy, so that she could drive it. She might want
to be in and out of town a lot; you never could tell.
He told his sister-in-law that he was going to raise Airedales,
because it was impossible to buy a decent puppy these days, and he
discoursed lucidly and affably about a highly respectable Scotch
couple that he was going to get to look after the white house
and supervise the Airedales. After that he devoted most of his
leisure hours to antique shops and auctions, where he purchased any
amount of Sheraton furniture and Lowestoft china and Bristol glass
and hooked rugs and old English chintzes for the benefit of the
Airedale puppies and the Scotch couple. He hadn’t as much time as
formerly, because he had been growing steadily more uncomfortable
at the thought of explaining to those gray eyes and gay lips the
undeniable fact that he had twenty-four hours of leisure to dispose
of every day of his life; so he had wandered over to the dark
office one morning and remarked casually to the gray gentleman at
the desk that he might blow in every now and then and see if there
was anything around for him to do. It appeared that there was
plenty around--so much that he took to blowing in at about nine
and blowing out at about five--and he did it not so badly, though
a good clerk might have done it better. He continued to spend a
generous hour over lunch, however, proving a total loss to the firm
for a considerable time after he returned, sometimes in such an
abandoned mood that there was a flower in his buttonhole.
And then it was May, and the sapphire feather was gone, and she
would come in through the brown door with flowers on her drooping
hat and pale frocks tinted like flowers, cool and crisp as dresses
in a dream. She still had the brief case, but it was absurd to
think that a stenographer would wear such hats; anything so
ravishing would cost a year’s salary. When he wasn’t too busy
watching the way her hair rippled back, showing just the tips of
her ears, he would wonder whether she were a great heiress with an
aversion to jewellery or a successful novelist who had to choose
between pearls and Raoul’s. He had never seen even the smallest
glint of jewels about her; never a gleam of beads at her throat
or a brooch at her waist or a ring on her fingers--sometimes he
thought that it would be pleasant to slip a long string of pearls
about her neck and a band of frosted diamonds about her wrist,
to see her eyes widen at their whiteness. Still, this way she
was dearer, with flowers for her jewels--better leave the pearls
alone--pearls were for tears.
It was incredible how radiant she looked those days; when she came
through the door with her flying step and her flying smile the
very kitten would purr at the sight of her; her eyes said that the
secret that they knew was more delightful and amusing than ever,
and her hands were always full of flowers.
And then there was the day that she came in looking so exultant
that she frightened him; it wasn’t fair that she should look so
happy when she didn’t know about the house on the hill, or the gray
roadster, or the lucky person who was going to give them to her--it
wasn’t fair and it was rather terrifying. Perhaps it would be
better not to wait any longer to tell her about them; she couldn’t
be disdainful and unkind through all that happiness. Of course he
would lead up to it skilfully. He wasn’t a blundering schoolboy; he
was a man of the world, rather more than sophisticated, with all
his wits about him and a light touch. He would catch her eye and
smile, deferential and whimsical, and try some casual opening--“Our
friend the kitten” or “good old Jules slower than usual--spring
turns the best of us to idlers!” and the rest would follow as the
night the day--or better still, as the day the night. It mightn’t
be a bad idea to upset something--his wine glass, for instance; he
raised a reckless hand, with a swift glance at the next table--and
then he dropped it. She was reading a letter, an incredibly long
letter, page after page of someone’s office paper covered with
thick black words that marched triumphantly across the sheets,
and her face was flooded with such eloquent light that he jerked
back his head swiftly, as though he had been reading over her
shoulder. He could not speak to her with that light on her face;
he sat watching her read it through twice, feeling cold and sick
and lonely. He was afraid--he was afraid--he would speak to her
to-morrow----
To-morrow came, and with it his lady in a green muslin frock, and
a shadowy hat wreathed with lilacs; he noted with a slow breath of
relief that she had no brief case, no book, no letters. His coast
was clear then at least; this day she had no better comrade to
share her table--he would go to her, and ask her to understand. He
had risen to his feet before he saw that she had not taken off her
hat; she was sitting with her head a little bent, as though she
was looking at something on the table, her face shadowed by the
drooping hat, her hands clasped before her--and then Benedick saw
what she was looking at. There was a ring on her finger, a small,
trivial, inconsequential diamond, sparkling in its little golden
claw like a frivolous dewdrop; and suddenly she bent her head, and
kissed it. He sat down, slowly and stiffly--he felt old. He did not
even see her go; it was Jules’ voice that made him lift his head.
“_Ah, le printemps, le printemps! V’là la jolie demoiselle qui
s’est fiancée._”
“Yes,” said Benedick. “Spring--in spring it is agreeable to have a
fiancé.”
“Monsieur, perhaps, knows who she is?”
“No,” replied Monsieur amiably. “But she is, as you say, a pretty
girl.”
“She is more than that, if Monsieur pardons. The man whose bride
she will be has a little treasure straight from the good God. What
a nature--what a nature! Generous as a queen with her silver, but
she turns it to gold with her smile. Monsieur has perhaps noted her
smile?”
“No,” replied Monsieur, still amiably. “Bring me a bottle of the
Widow Clicquot, however, and I will drink to her smile. Bring a
large bottle so that I can drink often. It might be better to bring
two.”
He drank both of them under the eyes of the horrified Jules; it
took him all of the afternoon and part of the evening to accomplish
it, but he won out. All during the hours that he sat sipping the
yellow stuff he was driving his mind in circles, round and round
over the same unyielding ground, round and round again. It was a
hideous mistake, of course; there was nothing irretrievable in an
engagement. He could make her see how impossible it was in just
a few minutes; it might be a little hard on this other fellow at
first, but that couldn’t be helped. He hadn’t been looking for her,
starving for her, longing for her all the days of his life, this
other fellow, had he? Probably he had told half-a-dozen girls he
loved them--well, let him find another to tell. But Benedick--whom
else had Benedick loved? No one, no one, all the days of his life.
Surely she would see that; surely when he told her about the white
house and the gray roadster she would understand that he couldn’t
let her go. He had been lonely too long--he had been hard and
bitter and reckless too long--he would tell her how black and empty
a thing was loneliness; when she saw how desperately he needed her,
she would stay. When he told her about the two corner cupboards in
the low-ceilinged dining room, full of lilac lustre and sprigged
Lowestoft, and the painted red chairs in the kitchen, and the
little stool for her feet with the fat white poodle embroidered in
cross-stitch, she would see all the other things that he had never
told her! There was the tarnished mirror with the painted clipper
spreading all its sails--he had hung it so that it would catch her
smile when she first crossed the threshold; there was the little
room at the head of the stairs that the sun always shone into--he
had built shelves there himself, and put in all his Jules Verne and
R. L. S. and Oliver Optic and Robin Hood and the Three Musketeers
and some unspeakably bad ones of Henty; he had been waiting for her
to tell him what kind of books little girls read, and then he was
going to put them in, too. Of course she couldn’t understand those
things unless he told her--to-morrow when she came he would tell
her everything and she would understand, and be sorry that she had
hurt him; she would never go away again.
At eleven o’clock Jules once more despairingly suggested that
Monsieur must be indeed fatigued, and that it would perhaps be
better if Monsieur retired. Monsieur, however, explained with great
determination and considerable difficulty that he had an extremely
important engagement to keep, and that all things considered,
he would wait there until he kept it. True, it was not until
to-morrow, but he was not going to take any chances; he would wait
where he was. Raoul was called in, and expostulated fervently,
“_Mais enfin, Monsieur! Ce n’est pas convenable, Monsieur!_”
Monsieur smiled at him, vague and obstinate, and Raoul finally
departed with a Gallic shrug, leaving poor Jules in charge, who sat
nodding reproachfully in a far corner, with an occasional harrowed
glance at the other occupant of the room. The other occupant sat
very stiff and straight far into the night; it was toward morning
that he made a curious sound, between defeat and despair, and
dropped his dark head on his arms, and slept. Once he stirred, and
cried desperately: “Don’t go--don’t go, don’t go!”
Jules was at his side in a moment, forgiving and solicitous.
“_Monsieur désire?_”
And Monsieur started up and stared at him strangely--only to shake
his head, and once more bury it deep in his arms. It was not Jules
who could get what Monsieur desired....
It was late the next morning when he waked and he consumed a huge
amount of black coffee, and sat back in his corner, haggard and
unshaven, with a withered flower in his buttonhole, waiting for her
to come through the door--but she did not come. Not that day, nor
the next, nor the next; he sat in his corner from twelve to two,
waiting, with a carefully mocking smile on his lips and a curious
expression in his eyes, wary and incredulous. He had worked himself
into an extremely reasonable state of mind; a state of mind in
which he was acidly amused at himself and tepidly interested in
watching the curtain fall on the comedy--he blamed a good deal on
the spring and a taste for ridiculously unbalanced literature; the
whole performance was at once diverting and distasteful. This kind
of mania came from turning his back on pleasant flirtations and
normal _affaires de cœur_; it was a neatly ironical punishment that
the God of Comedy was meting out to pay him for his overweening
sense of superiority. Well, it was merited--and it was over! But
he still sat in the corner, watching, and the fourth day the door
opened, and she came in.
She had on a gray dress, with a trail of yellow roses across her
hat and a knot of them at her waist, and a breeze came in with her.
She stood hesitating for a moment in the sunlight, and then she
went quickly to where Geneviève sat at her high desk, and stretched
out her hands, with a pretty gesture, shy and proud. The sunlight
fell across them, catching at a circle above the diamond ring--a
little golden circle, very new and bright. Benedick rose to his
feet, pushing back his chair--he brushed by her so close that he
could smell the roses; he closed the brown door behind him gently
and leaned against it, staring down the shining street, where the
green leaves danced, joyous and sedate, upon the stunted trees.
Well, the curtain had fallen on the comedy; that was over. After
a minute, he shrugged his shoulders, and strolled leisurely down
to the real-estate agent and sold him the little white house,
lock, stock, and barrel, including some rather good china and
a lot of old junk that he had picked up here and there. It was
fortunate that the young couple from Gramercy Square wanted it; he
was willing to let it go for a song. Yes, there was a view of the
Sound, and he’d done quite a lot of planting; oh, yes, there was
a room that could be used as a nursery--lots of sun. There was his
signature, and there was the end of it--the papers could be sent
to his lawyers. He then sauntered over to his sister-in-law’s and
presented her with the gray roadster; he was about fed up with
motoring, and he’d changed his mind about Airedales. Dogs were
a nuisance. After a little pleasant banter he dropped in at the
club and played three extremely brilliant rubbers of auction, and
signed up for a stag theatre party to see a rather nasty little
French farce. He didn’t touch any of the numerous cocktails--he
wasn’t going to pay her the compliment of getting drunk again--but
he laughed harder than any one at the farce, and made a good many
comments that were more amusing than the play, and his best friend
and his worst enemy agreed that they had never seen him in such
high spirits.
He went back to the apartment humming to himself, and yawned
ostentatiously for Harishidi’s benefit, and left word not to wake
him in the morning--and yawned again, and went to bed. He lay
there in the blackness for what seemed hours, listening to his
heart beat; there was a tune that kept going round in his head,
some idiotic thing by an Elizabethan--“Fair and kind”--he must go
lighter on the coffee. “Was never face so pleased my mind----”
Coffee played the deuce with your nerves. “Passing by----” Oh, to
hell with it! He stumbled painfully out of bed, groping his way to
the living room, jerking on the light with a violence that nearly
broke the cord. One o’clock; the damned clock must have stopped.
No, it was still ticking away, relentless and competent. He stood
staring about him irresolutely for a moment, and then moved slowly
to the Florentine chest, fumbling at the drawer. Yes, there it
was--“An Elizabethan Song, Sung by Mr. Roger Grahame”--“There
was a lady, fair and kind”--There was a lady---- He flung up the
window with a gesture of passionate haste, and leaning far out,
hurled the little black disk into deeper blackness. Far off he
heard a tinkling splinter from the area; he closed the window, and
pulled the cord on the wrought-iron lamp, and stumbled back to the
Renaissance bed.
He was shaking uncontrollably, like someone in a chill, and he had
a sickening desire to weep--to lay his hot cheek against some kind
hand, and weep away the hardness and the bitterness and despair.
Loathsome, brain-sick fool! He clenched his hands and glared
defiance to the darkness, he who had not wept since a voice had
ceased to read him fairy tales a long time ago. After eternities
of staring the hands relaxed, and he turned his head, and slept.
He woke with a start--there was something salt and bitter on his
lips; he brushed it away fiercely, and the clock in the living
room struck four. After that he did not sleep again; he set his
teeth and stared wide-eyed into the shadows--he would not twice be
trapped to shame. He was still lying there when the sun drifted
through the window; he turned his face to the wall, so that he
would not see it, but he did not unclench his teeth....
It was June, and he took a passage for Norway, and tore it up the
day that the boat sailed. There was a chance in a thousand that she
might need him, and it would be like that grim cat Fate to drop him
off in Norway when he might serve her. For two or three days she
had been looking pale; the triumphant happiness that for so long
she had flaunted in his face, joyous and unheeding, was wavering
like the rose-red in her lips. It was probably nothing but the
heat; why couldn’t that fool she had married see that she couldn’t
stand heat? She should be sitting somewhere against green pines,
with the sea in her eyes and a breeze lifting the bright hair from
her forehead.
She never read any more. She sat idle with her hands linked before
her; it must be something worse than heat that was painting those
shadows under her eyes, that look of heart-breaking patience about
her lips. And Benedick, who had flinched from her happiness,
suddenly desired it more passionately than he had ever desired
anything else in his life. Let the cur who had touched that gay
courage to this piteous submission give it back--let him give it
back--he would ask nothing more. How could a man live black enough
to make her suffer? She hardly touched the food that was placed
before her; Jules hovered about her in distress, and she tried to
smile at him--and Benedick turned his eyes from that smile. She
would sit very quiet, staring at her linked hands with their two
circles, as though she were afraid to breathe--she, to whom the air
had seemed flowers and wine and music. Once he saw her lips shake,
terribly, though a moment later she lifted her head with the old,
valiant gesture, and went out smiling.
Then for a day she did not come--for another day--for another--and
when once more she stood in the door, Benedick felt his heart give
a great leap, and stand still. She was in black, black from head
to foot, with a strange little veil that hid her eyes. She crossed
the room to her table, and sat down quietly, and ordered food, and
ate, and drank a little wine. After Jules had taken the things away
she still sat there, pressing her hands together, her lips quite
steady--only when she unlinked them, he saw the faint red crescents
where the nails had cut.
So that was why she had had shadows painted beneath her eyes; he
had been ill, the man who had given her the rings; he had died.
It would be cruel to break the hushed silence that hung about her
with his clumsy pity, but soon he would go to her and say, “Do not
be sad. Sadness is an ugly thing, believe me. I cannot give you
what he gave you, perhaps, but here is the heart from my body. It
is cold and hard and empty; take it in your hands, and warm it. My
need of you is greater than your need of him--you can not leave
me.” He would say that to her, after a little while.
The gray kitten touched her black skirt with its paw, and she
caught it up swiftly, and laid her cheek against its fur. It was
no longer the round puff that she had first smiled on, but it was
still soft--it still purred. She put it down very gently, and rose,
looking about her as on that first day; at the place where the fire
had burned in the corner, at the pansies, jaded and drooping in
their green pots; once again her eyes swept by Benedick as though
he were not there. They lingered on Geneviève for a moment, and
when they met Jules’ anxious, faithful gaze she parted her lips as
though to speak, and gave it up with a little shake of her head,
and smiled instead--a piteous and a lovely smile--and she was
gone....
He never saw her again. That was not a hundred years ago--no, and
it was not yesterday; the steel has come into his hair and his eyes
since then, but sometimes he still goes to Raoul’s to lunch, and
sits at the corner table, where he can see the brown door. Who can
tell when it might open and let in the spring--who can tell what
day might find her standing there once more, with her gay eyes and
her tilted lips and the sunlight dancing in her hair?
Benedick’s best friend and his worst enemy and the world and his
pretty sister-in-law are very wise, no doubt, but once--once there
was a lady---- He never touched the tip of her fingers, but she was
the only lady that Benedick ever loved.
LONG DISTANCE
Devon snapped the stub of his cigarette into the fire with a
movement of amused impatience, his fingers more eloquent than his
thin, impassive countenance.
“Nothing, was it?”
“No, nothing--that unspeakable wind.” Anne Carver gave a last
reluctant glance over her shoulder into the shadowed hall, and
pulled the door to behind her, turning her face to the warm, bright
room with a rueful smile. “I’m sorry, Hal; it’s outrageous of
me--right in the middle of that thrilling story, too.”
In spite of her slim height and the sophisticated skill with which
she had wound her velvety black hair about her small head--in spite
of the length of filmy train that swept behind her, she looked like
some charming and contrite child as she came slowly across the room
to the deep chintz chair and the dancing warmth of the fire.
“But it’s nonsense, my dear girl; sheer, unmitigated nonsense!
Here you are spoiling what might have been a delightful evening
by working yourself up into a magnificent state of nerves, and
over what, I ask you? Over nothing, over less than nothing! Poor
old Derry telephones that he won’t be able to get out to-night
because he’s been dragged in on some fool party, and you apparently
interpret it into meaning that you’re never going to lay eyes
on him again in this world. You’ve been restless as a witch all
evening--every time a door’s slammed or a latch has rattled you’ve
fairly leapt out of your skin; and permit me to inform you that
you’re getting me so that I’m about to start leaping, too. Nice,
cheerful atmosphere for the stranger within your gates, my child.”
“I’m awfully sorry, Hal. I’ll be good, truly. It’s only that----”
“Only what, for the love of Heaven? You aren’t expecting him back
to-night, are you?”