"Is that all she says?"
She hesitated again. "Yes--that's all." As she spoke she tossed the
telegram into the basket beneath the writing-table. "As if I didn't HAVE
to go anyhow?" she exclaimed.
With an aching clearness of vision she saw what lay before her--the
hurried preparations, the long tedious voyage on a steamer chosen at
haphazard, the arrival in the deadly July heat, and the relapse into all
the insufferable daily fag of nursery and kitchen--she saw it and her
imagination recoiled.
Van Degen's eyes still hung on her: she guessed that he was intensely
engaged in trying to follow what was passing through her mind. Presently
he came up to her again, no longer perilous and importunate, but
awkwardly tender, ridiculously moved by her distress.
"Undine, listen: won't you let me make it all right for you to stay?"
Her heart began to beat more quickly, and she let him come close,
meeting his eyes coldly but without anger.
"What do you call 'making it all right'? Paying my bills? Don't you see
that's what I hate, and will never let myself be dragged into again?"
She laid her hand on his arm. "The time has come when I must be
sensible, Peter; that's why we must say good-bye."
"Do you mean to tell me you're going back to Ralph?"
She paused a moment; then she murmured between her lips: "I shall never
go back to him."
"Then you DO mean to marry Chelles?"
"I've told you we must say good-bye. I've got to look out for my
future."
He stood before her, irresolute, tormented, his lazy mind and impatient
senses labouring with a problem beyond their power. "Ain't I here to
look out for your future?" he said at last.
"No one shall look out for it in the way you mean. I'd rather never see
you again--"
He gave her a baffled stare. "Oh, damn it--if that's the way you feel!"
He turned and flung away toward the door.
She stood motionless where he left her, every nerve strung to the
highest pitch of watchfulness. As she stood there, the scene about her
stamped itself on her brain with the sharpest precision. She was aware
of the fading of the summer light outside, of the movements of her maid,
who was laying out her dinner-dress in the room beyond, and of the fact
that the tea-roses on her writing-table, shaken by Van Degen's tread,
were dropping their petals over Ralph's letter, and down on the crumpled
telegram which she could see through the trellised sides of the
scrap-basket.
In another moment Van Degen would be gone. Worse yet, while he wavered
in the doorway the Shallums and Chelles, after vainly awaiting her,
might dash back from the Bois and break in on them. These and other
chances rose before her, urging her to action; but she held fast,
immovable, unwavering, a proud yet plaintive image of renunciation.
Van Degen's hand was on the door. He half-opened it and then turned
back.
"That's all you've got to say, then?"
"That's all."
He jerked the door open and passed out. She saw him stop in the
ante-room to pick up his hat and stick, his heavy figure silhouetted
against the glare of the wall-lights. A ray of the same light fell
on her where she stood in the unlit sitting-room, and her reflection
bloomed out like a flower from the mirror that faced her. She looked
at the image and waited. Van Degen put his hat on his head and slowly
opened the door into the outer hall. Then he turned abruptly, his bulk
eclipsing her reflection as he plunged back into the room and came up to
her.
"I'll do anything you say. Undine; I'll do anything in God's world to
keep you!"
She turned her eyes from the mirror and let them rest on his face, which
looked as small and withered as an old man's, with a lower lip that
trembled queerly....