The spring night was potent, warm and damp; it was filled with intangible
influences which troubled the mind and stirred the memory to vain,
melancholy groping. Meta Beggs was so close to Gordon that their shoulders
touched. He rolled a cigarette and lit it, resting his arms upon the
railing. Her face was white in the gloom; not white as Lettice's had been,
like a flower, but sharply cut like marble; her nose was finely modelled,
her lips were delicately curved, but thin, compressed. He could
distinguish over her the paramount air of dissatisfaction.
She aroused in him unbidden thoughts; without the slightest freedom of
gesture or words she gave the impression of careless license. He grew
instinctively, at once, familiar, confidential, in his attitude toward
her. And she responded in the same manner; she did not draw back when
their arms accidentally met.
An interest, a vivacity of manner, such as Gordon had not experienced for
weeks stirred in him. Meta Beggs called back into being the old freedom of
stage-driving days, of the younger years. Her manner flattered his sex
vanity. They progressed famously.
"You don't like the children any better than you did?"
"They get more like rats every year."
"I thought about you, held against your will."
"Don't tell lies; I went right out of your mind."
"Not as quick as I went out of yours. I did think about you, though--" he
stopped, but she insisted upon his finishing the remark. "Well, I
remembered what you said about your shoulders, and I saw you that night at
your window...."
"Men, somehow, are always curious about me," she remarked indifferently;
"they have bothered me ever since I was a girl. I make them mad. I never
worry about such things myself--from the way women talk, and men go on,
there must be something left out of me ... it just seems silly to get all
red in the face--"
He almost constructed her words into a challenge. Five years ago, he
continued, or only two, he would have changed her conception of living, he
would have broken down her indifference, but now--His mental deliberations
ended abruptly, for, even in his mind, he avoided all reference to
Lettice; they studiously omitted her name in their conversation.
"Are you going to the camp meeting on South Fork next week?" she
demanded. "I have never seen one. Buckley Simmons says all sorts of things
happen. He's going to take me on Saturday. I wish--" she broke off
pointedly.
"What?"
"I was going to say that I wish, well--I wish I were going with somebody
else than Buckley; he bothers me all the time."
"I'd like a lot to take you. It's not fit for you to go, though. The best
people in Greenstream don't. They get crazy with religion, and with rum;
often as not there's shooting."
"Oh! I had no idea. I don't know as I will go. I wish you would be there.
If I go will you be there to look out for me?"
"I hadn't thought of it. Still, if you're there, and want me around, I
guess that's where I will be."
"I feel better right away; I'll see you then; it's a sort of engagement
between you and me. Buckley Simmons needn't know. Perhaps we can slip away
from him for a while."
Voices rose from below them, and they drew back instinctively. Gordon
found in this desire to avoid observation an additional bond with Meta
Beggs; the aspect of secrecy gave a flavor to their communion. They
remained silent, with their shoulders pressed together, until the voices,
the footfalls, faded into the distance.
He rose to leave, and she held out her hand. At its touch he recalled how
pointed the fingers were; it was incredibly cool and smooth, yet it seemed
to instil a subtle fire in his palm. She stood framed in her doorway,
bathed in the intimate, disturbing aroma of her person. Gordon recalled
the cobwebby garment on the bed. He made an involuntary step toward her,
and she drew back into the room ... the night was breathlessly still. If
he took another step forward, he wondered, would she still retreat?
Somewhere in the dark interior he would come close to her.
"Good night." Her level, impersonal voice was like a breath of cold air
upon his face.
"Good night," he returned hastily. "I got turned right around." His
departure over the gallery was not unlike a flight.