’em friends.... I can see now, looking back, what a fool I was--about
it. But I didn’t see it--then. I don’t know now what it was about
him.... He’s old as I be--and I’ve got the money. I can give her
everything she wants--more than he can. But I know now that from the
first day she see him she was curious about him.... I’d brought him home
to dinner one night--It was just after we were married.... I always kind
of think of him that night--the way he looked at table--he’s tall--You
know him--?”
Eldridge nodded. He was seeing the tall, distinguished figure--and
beside it a humped-up one across his desk.
“We had red lamp-shades and candles and flowers--Everything shining, you
know--Cordelia likes ’em that way.... When I try to think how it started
I see ’em the way they looked that first night. I was proud of ’em both.
I felt as if Cordelia belonged to me--and as if he did, too--in a way--”
He looked at Eldridge. “I’d put him on to a good thing in business--!”
“Yes.”
“He and Cordelia laughed and talked the whole evening--kind o’ took it
up--back and forth--the way you’d play ball. I could see Cordelia liked
him. I was a fool. I’d waited about getting married till I had money
enough to give a woman--to give her everything--and when she’d got it
I never see there might be--something else she’d want.... I don’t just
know what now--” He shook his head.
“Some days, since I’ve got sure of it, I’ve felt as if it _couldn’t_ be
so--as if she couldn’t have gone on living with me and having that other
life--I didn’t know about--shut away from me--and I loving her....”
The little, clear alcove moved before Eldridge and moved away. He was
making absent marks on the edge of the pad before him.
The man sighed. “Well--It isn’t any use! That’s all, I guess--” Eldridge
looked up. “Had you thought of--winning her back?”
The man shook his head. “I couldn’t do it.” He looked at him as if
wondering whether he would understand. “There’s something about her I
don’t get at,” he said slowly.
“Isn’t there something about any woman you don’t get at?” said Eldridge.
“That’s it!” assented the man. “It isn’t just Cordelia. It’s all of
them--in back of ’em, somehow. I can’t tell you just how it is, but
I’ve thought of it a lot--I guess there isn’t anything I haven’t thought
of--since I knew--lying awake nights and thinking. Somehow, I knew, the
first day it came to me--I knew there wasn’t any use... since the day I
come on ’em at Merwin’s.”
The lawyer’s hand, making its little marks, stopped--and went on. “They
were at Merwin’s--together?” he said.
“Everybody goes to Merwin’s,” said the man. “It wasn’t their being
there; it was the way they looked when I saw ’em.... They were sitting
in one of them little alcove places, you know--”
Eldridge nodded. Yes--he knew.
“The curtains were open--wide open,” said the man. “Anybody could
’a’ looked in. There wasn’t anything wrong about it. But I saw their
faces--both of ’em--and I knew.... They were just sitting quiet--the way
people do when they’re alone.... There’s something different about
the way people sit--when they’re alone--by themselves--I don’t know as
you’ve ever noticed it?”
“I have noticed it,” said Eldridge. “Quiet and happy--” said the
man, “and not talking--and not needing to talk.” He took up his
hat. “Well--you know where to find me. I shan’t bother you like this
again----” He stood up.
Eldridge held out a hand. “I am glad you told me. It helps--to
understand--the case.”
The man’s thick face looked at him. “I don’t understand it myself,” he
said, “but I’ve got to go through with it.”
VIII
ELDRIDGE went on making little marks on the edge of the paper. He no
longer stared at the blotter; he was seeing things. Gordon Barstow’s
recital had shown things to him in perspective and his own trouble
seemed moved far away from him to a kind of clear place. He sat and
looked at it--making little marks on the paper. Rosalind was not to
blame. A woman like Rosalind had the right--she could do what she
wanted! What had _he_ ever done to win her--to keep her? Not even money.
He had kept it for himself--and built up a comfortable fortune....
He had the fortune--yes. And he had lost Rosalind.... He suddenly saw
himself in the clear light--he was not lovable like old Barstow.
The vision grew before him--all his saving closeness, his dulness--a
lifeless prig!... And then the picture of Rosalind, the vision of her in
her alcove--“the way people sit when they are alone--I don’t know as you
ever noticed--?” old Barstow had said.
Well, then--what was to be done? His shoulders squared a little. No man
was going to win Rosalind--without a fight! The man who would win her
should reckon with him.... He had never known Rosalind. Perhaps Rosalind
had never known him.... What had he given her--to know him by? She had
had the right to work for him, to sweep his floors and make his bed
and take care of the children... She should have money now. She should
become a partner--in all his plans--and suddenly El-dridge Walcott saw
that money would not win her--money would not buy the gracious presence
in the alcove; she did not need money.... He must give his soul--to
win her--Then he took out his soul and looked at it--the shrunken, dry,
rattling thing--and flicked it from him with a finger-nail.
The office boy put his head in cautiously.
“What do you want?” said Eldridge harshly.
“It’s Mr. Dutton,” said the boy.
“Well, show him in.”
And while Mr. Dutton talked of real estate, Eldridge’s soul peeped out
at the man. He wanted to stop the flow of facts and figures and put
a straight question to him. “How do you get on with your wife, Mr.
Dutton?” he wanted to say to him. He could see the man’s startled face
checked in its flow of fact.... It would not do; of course it would not
do to ask him how he got on with his wife. Probably he got on with her
as Eldridge Walcott had done--sewing, sweeping, eating, saving--“So I
have decided,” the man was saying, “to take the entire block--if the
title is good.”
Eldridge Walcott bowed him out and turned back from the door. But he did
not sit down. He would go to Merwin’s. Perhaps she was there--she had
said she might come in to town.... But, with his hand on the door, he
paused----Suppose he found her--What then?--and the man with her? What
then?--Suppose he found her! There was nothing he could do--not yet! He
would win her back.... But the man he had to reckon with was not the man
sitting with her now, perhaps, in the alcove. The man he had to reckon
with was Eldridge Walcott--the little, shrunken, undersized Eldridge
Walcott.
He saw it--standing with his hand on the door, looking down--and he
looked at it a long minute.
Then he opened the door.
The office boy wheeled about from the window-shade that was stuck
halfway up.
“I am ready to see anybody that comes, Burton,” he said.
“All right,” said the boy. “This old thing gets stuck every other day!”
He jerked at it.
Eldridge came across and looked at the cord and straightened it and went
back to his room. The little incident strengthened him subtly. He had
never yet failed in anything he undertook, big or little--he had always
succeeded in what he undertook--And suddenly he saw that Eldridge
Walcott had never in his life undertaken anything that was not small....
He had done small, safe things. He had straightened window-shades all
his life--and he had never failed!
He had always had a half-veiled contempt for men who ran risks. Find
a safe thing and hold on to it had been his policy. It had brought him
through smugly. He had never made a mistake.... The nearest he had ever
come to a risk was before he asked Rosalind to marry him. There had
been something about her that he could not fathom, something that drew
him--and made him afraid--a kind of sweet mystery... that would not
let him be safe. Then it had seemed so safe afterward; they had lived
together quietly without a break. The young Rosalind who had taught him
to be afraid he had forgotten--and now young Rosalind had come back...
she had come back to him and with deeper mystery.... This was the real
Rosalind, the other was only a shadowy promise.... The young Rosalind
would try him for his soul--and he had--no soul!
Who was that other man in the alcove with her--the man who had won her?
Who was it she had found to understand the mystery--to look up to her
and worship her--as he had worshipped Rosalind, the girl; as he had
worshipped Rosalind--and let her go!
And he had been thinking about divorce! Thinking of the grounds for it
and how he should get grounds of divorce--as Gordon Barstow had done. He
glanced at the two letters on his desk and at the little, jotted notes
of the Barstow case and a smile flitted to them--grounds for divorce
from Rosalind! He saw her, in her freedom, moving from him.... His teeth
set a little. She should never leave him! She should stay with him. She
should stay because he wanted her--and because she wanted him!
And through the rest of the day, as clients came and went, he saw
something new. He saw cases differently. Men were accustomed to come
to him because he was a “safe” man.... Well, he was not quite safe
to-day--But he knew underneath, as he worked, that his advice had never
been so worth while.
IX
HE had left the office early and had caught a car that was passing the
corner as he came out. As soon as he entered he knew that Rosalind was
in the car, three seats ahead. He gave a little start, a quick flash--he
did not want to catch Rosalind off guard--Then he smiled; it was not
Rosalind of the alcove--it was the plain, every-day Rosalind, her lap
heaped with bundles, and bundles on the seat beside her. Rosalind’s
flannels, he thought, probably.
He moved down the aisle and stood beside the seat, lifting his hat and
looking down at her.
“Why, Eldridge!” She looked up with the little peering smile and made a
place for him among the bundles, trying to gather them up into her lap.
But he swept them away. “I’ll take these,” he said.
The little distressed look came between her eyes. Eldridge couldn’t
bear bundles. “I thought I wouldn’t wait to have them sent,” she
apologized. “It’s so cold--and they need them--right off.”
“Yes--” He looked at her jacket; it was thin, with the shabby lining
showing at the edge. “Did you get yourself a warm wrap?” he asked.
She was looking out of the window, and the line of her cheek flushed
swiftly. “No--I--”
“I want you to do it--at once.”
She glanced at him--a little questioning look in her face.
“I--have--seen something I like--” she said.
“Get it to-morrow. I will order it for you when I go in.”
Her hands made a gesture above the bundles. “Please don’t, Eldridge. I
would rather--do it--myself.”
“Very well. But remember to get it.”
“Yes--I will get it.” She sighed softly.
Deceitful Rosalind! If he had not seen for himself the box in the attic
with its overflowing soft colors and the grey fur, he would not have
believed the deceit of her face....
Not that he was blaming anybody. He was not blaming Rosalind. The
picture of Mr. Eldridge Walcott remained with him.... He was not likely
to forget how Mr. Eldridge Walcott had looked to him--in the flash of
light.
Perhaps he looked like that to Rosalind--to both Rosalinds! He turned
a little in the seat and glanced down at her--Yes, they were both
there--the plain little figure in its shabby jacket and the reticent,
beautiful woman of the alcove.
The fingers in cheap gloves were fussing at a parcel. “I got
fleece-lined shirts for Tommie--his skin is so sensitive--I thought I
would try fleece-lined ones for him.”
Damn fleece-lined ones! Would she never talk to him except of
undershirts--and coal-hods? He took the paper from his pocket and
glanced casually at it.
“Has coal gone up?” she asked. “They said it would go up--if it stayed
cold.” The anxious, lines were in her face.
He put down the paper and leaned toward her. He felt nearer to her, in a
street car, than in his own home. “Don’t you worry about coal, Rosalind!
We shall not freeze--nor starve.”
She stared a little. “Of course, we shall not freeze, Eldridge!”
“I mean there is plenty--to be comfortable with. You are not to worry
and pinch.”
A quick look flooded out at him--a look of the Rosalind within. “You
mean we can _afford_ not to worry?”
He saw the prig Eldridge Walcott, walking in serene knowledge of a
comfortable income while the little lines had gathered in her face. He
longed to kick the respectable Mr. Eldridge Walcott from behind.
“There is quite enough money,” he said. “I am doing better than I
have--and I shall do better yet.”
She looked down at the bundles. “I might have got a better quality,” she
said.
“Take them all back,” said Eldridge. “I’ll take them--”
But she shook her head. “No, they need them to-morrow--and these will
do--” She smiled at them. “It’s really more the feeling that you _can_
get better ones, isn’t it? You don’t mind wearing old things--if you
know you could have better ones--if you wanted to--” She broke off
vaguely.
He saw the box in the attic--all the filmy softness--and he saw the
ill-fitting, cheap gloves resting in her lap--That was what had saved
her--the real Rosalind. Some one had seen that her soul should be in its
own clothes, now and then, and happy and free. You could not quite be
jealous of a man who had done that for you--who had clothed Rosalind’s
soul, could you?
He could not think of the man who had clothed Rosalind’s soul--who had
kept alive something that was precious. He could not hate the man. But
there was no place in his thoughts for him.
Suppose, after all, Rosalind belonged to the man who saw her soul and
clothed it? Suppose Rosalind belonged to him!... Very well--_he should
not have her!_
He helped her from the car with her bundles, and as he fitted the key in
the door the wind struck them fiercely; they were almost blown in with
the force of it as the door opened. They stood in the hall, laughing,
safe--the wind shut out----There was a quick color in her face, and it
lifted to him, laughing freshly, like a girl’s.
They were together. She had not looked at him like that for years.
He pondered on the look as she went about getting supper. He watched her
come and go and wondered awkwardly whether he might not offer to go out
and help. He went at last into the kitchen; she was putting coal on the
fire and he took the hod from her, throwing on the coal.
She looked at him, puzzled. “Are you in a hurry for supper, Eldridge?”
“Oh--No.” He went back to the living-room, and talked a little with the
children, amusing them quietly. He had a home sense, a feeling that the
room was a kind of presence; the wind howling outside could not touch
them..
And when Rosalind came in and they sat at the table and he looked across
to her shyly, almost like a boy, he wished he knew what would please her
best. He could not keep his eyes off her hand as it grasped the handle
of the teapot and poured his tea. It seemed such a mysterious hand with
the roughened finger pricks--and the little gentle hand inside that did
no work. He wanted to take the hand, to touch it.... Of course, a man
would not take his wife’s hand--like that. He could see the startled
look in Rosalind’s eyes if he should reach out.... There was a long road
to travel--and he did not know the way.
But he could begin softly with clothes--and touch her hand later
perhaps. She should have beautiful things------He had told her to buy
the fur-lined coat.
He pictured her in it--the coat that _his_ money should buy--he saw
her wrapped in it, and he sat still thinking of her and of the coat his
money should buy. Then the door opened and he looked up.
She was standing in the door--and about her was a long grey coat lined
with fur--the coat of the alcove. Her eyes looked at him over the soft
fur of the collar.
He sprang to his feet--then he checked the word on his lip.
He must not let her speak. It was the coat of the alcove. She would wear
it silently. But she would not tell him. She must not be frightened into
saying something that was not true. He came over to her and touched the
edge of the fur, as if questioning it, and she smiled and opened it out.
“Is it warm enough?” she asked proudly.
She stood with the garment extended like wings, and he held his breath.
Then she drew it together softly.
“I have had it some time,” she said. “I was keeping it to surprise you!”
His breath came quick. How much would she tell him? He looked at it
critically. “Was it a bargain?” he asked..
“No--Not a bargain.” And she stroked the edge of the fur. “I saw it and
liked it--and I got it.”
“That’s right. That’s the way to buy all your clothes.” He looked at it
a minute lightly and turned away.
She could not have guessed from his gesture that he was disappointed,
but her eyes followed him. “I hope you won’t think I paid too much--for
it?”
“What did you pay?” he asked. His back was toward her.
“I paid--two hundred dollars,” she said. The words came lightly, and
there was a little pause.
“No, I don’t think that was too much.” He had turned and was looking at
her--straight. “I would have paid more than two hundred--to give it to
you,” he said slowly.
She made no reply, but her eyes regarded him gravely over the edge of
the collar. Wrapped in the coat, she seemed for a moment the woman of
the alcove.
He looked at her blindly.
She returned the look a minute--and turned away slowly and went out.
Eldridge walked to the table and stood looking down.... He had given
her, in all, not more than two hundred and fifty dollars. Did she expect
him--to believe--that all the things that had come into the house since
had not cost more than fifty dollars?
It was as if she flaunted it at him--as if she wanted him to know that
it could not have been _his_ money that bought it!... So that was it!
She had seen--she had guessed the change in him--and this was her guard?
She would force him to know--to accuse her.
Old Barstow’s words came to him mockingly: “No--she will not contest it.
She wants--to be--free.”
X
BUT if she wished him to know she gave no other sign.
She spent the money that he gave her, and when it was gone she asked him
for more.
Only once she had said as she took it: “You are sure it is right for me
to spend this?”
And he had replied: “When you ask for anything I cannot give you I will
let you know.”
She had said nothing. She had not even glanced at him. But somehow he
fancied that she understood him.
He grew to know, by intuition, the days when she would go to Merwin’s.
As he left the house he would say: “She will be there--” And when he
dropped in, in the afternoon, he did not even need to glance at the
alcove on the right. He would sit down quietly in his place across the
aisle, glad to be with her.
He never saw her come and go and he did not know whether any one was
with her--behind her curtain. He tried not to know.... He was trying to
understand Rosalind. What was it drew her? Was it music--or the quiet
place? Or was there------?
He could easily have known.... Gordon Barstow’s detective would
have made sure for him in a day.... But Eldridge did not want to
know--anything that a detective could tell him. He did not want to be
told by detectives or told things detectives could tell. He was studying
Rosalind’s every wish--as if he were a boy.
He did not go to Merwin’s till he felt sure that she would be there in
the alcove, and he left before she drew the little curtain and came out.
He did not want to know.... He only wanted her to be there--and to sit
with her a little while, quietly....
He would wait and understand.
A piano had come into the house and the boys were taking lessons. One
day he discovered that Rosalind was learning, too.
He had come home early, wondering whether he would ask her to go for a
walk with him. He had asked her once or twice and they had gone for
a little while before supper, walking aimlessly through the suburban
streets, saying very little; he had fancied that Rosalind liked it--but
he could not be sure.
He opened the door with his latchkey and stepped in. Some one was
playing softly, stopping to sing a little, and then playing again....
Rosalind was alone.
[Illustration: 0127]
He stood very quiet in the dark hall; only a little light from above the
door--shining on the stair rail and on a lamp that hung above it.... She
was playing with the lightest touch--a few notes, as if feeling her
way, and then the little singing voice answering it.... So she was like
this--very still and happy--and he was shut out. His hand groped behind
him for the latch and found it and opened the door, and he stepped
outside and closed the door softly.
He stood a moment in the wind. Behind his door he heard the music
playing to itself....
He walked for a long time that afternoon--along the dull streets,
staring at brick houses and at children running past him on brick
walks.... It was all brick walks and long rows of houses--and dulness;
he could not reach Rosalind. He could buy clothes for her--more
bricks... and there was the music--his mind halted--and went on.
Music made her happy--like that! He bought an evening paper and studied
it awhile, standing by the newsstand, with the cars and taxis shooting
past. Presently he folded the paper and took a car that was going toward
town. There was something he could do for Rosalind--something that no
one had thought of--something that she would like!
He was as eager and as ignorant as a boy, standing in front of the
barred ticket window and looking in.
“Tickets for the Symphony?” The man glanced out at him. “House sold
out.”
Eldridge stared back. “You mean--I cannot--get them!”
“Something may come in. You can leave your name.” The man pushed paper
and pencil toward him.
Eldridge wrote his name slowly. “I want--good ones.”
“Can’t say--” said the man.
“There are six ahead of you--” He took up the paper and made a note.
Eldridge stepped outside. A man looked at him and moved up, falling into
step beside him. “I have a couple of tickets--” he said softly.
He did not know that he was speaking to a man on a quest, a man who
would have paid whatever he might ask for the slips of paper in his
hand--They were not mere symphony tickets he sold. They were tickets to
the fields of the sun. He asked five dollars for them; he might have got
fifty.
Eldridge slipped them into his pocket. He stepped back into the hall. “I
shall not need those tickets,” he said.
The man in the window glanced at him, indifferent, and crossed out a
name.
All the way home Eldridge’s heart laughed. Would she like it?... She
had played so softly... she would listen like that--and he would be with
her.... He could not keep the tickets in his pocket. He took them out
and looked at them--two plain blue slips with a few black marks on
them.... And he had thought of it himself!--It was not Mr. El-dridge
Walcott’s money that bought them for her.... Would she understand it was
not money--?
She took them from him with half-pleased face--“For the Symphony?” she
said.
“I thought you might--we--. might like it--”
She looked at them a minute. “I never went to a symphony--”
“Nor I--” He laughed a little. “I thought we might--try it.”
She was still regarding them thoughtfully. “I haven’t anything to
wear--have I--?” She looked up with the wrinkled line between her eyes.
“Wear your--” He checked it on his tongue. “Get something--There’s a
week, you know. You can get something, can’t you?”
“Yes, if you think I ought--”
“Of course--get what you need.” She waited thoughtfully.... “I have--a
dress that might do--with a little changing--” she said.
He saw with a flash, suddenly, the dark attic above them--and a man on
his knees staring down at the grey and shimmering whiteness. “Better get
something new, wouldn’t you?” said Eldridge.
“Perhaps--I will think--about it.”
He could not have told which he wished-----But when, the night of the
concert, she came down to him wearing the grey dress and long grey
gloves, with the lace falling softly back--he knew in the flash, as he
looked at her, that he was glad....
She was buttoning one of the gloves and the long grey coat hung from her
arm. She did not look up.
He took it from her and wrapped her in it.
They were going to another world--together. She was going--with him.
There was a little, quiet flush in her face as she sat in the car. Other
people were going to the concert, and she looked at them as they came in
and sat down.