It enraged him that she was so collected; her body, pressed against him
from knee to shoulder, was without a tremor, her breast was tranquil. She
might have been, from her unstudied, total detachment, a fine, flexible
statue in his straining embrace, under his eager lips. Suddenly, with no
apparent effort, she released herself.
She removed the hat with the blue feather, calmly laid it on the
indistinct bed, and moved to the mirror of a small bureau, where her hands
glided over her smooth hair.
"Men are so--elementary," she observed, "and all alike. I wish I could
feel what you do," she turned to Gordon, "just once."
"What are you made of?" he demanded tensely; "stone?"
"I often wonder."
She crossed the room to the gallery, where she glanced swiftly about. "You
must leave, and I'll go down to supper. Next Sunday I am going to
walk ... in the morning."
"If you go out by the priest's," he suggested, "and turn to the right, you
will find a pretty stream; further down there's an old mill."
She drew back, waiting for him to descend to the ground below.
Simmons' clerk was standing on the platform before the store, and Gordon
drew up. "How's Buckley?" he inquired.
"Bad," the other answered laconically. "They sent to Stenton for help. His
head's cracked. It's funny," he commented, "with a hundred people around
nobody saw that stone thrown 'tall."
"It don't do sometimes to see this and that," Gordon explained, tightening
the reins.
He unhitched the horse in his shedlike stable by the aid of a hand
lantern. He was reluctant to go into the house, and he prolonged the
unbuckling of the familiar straps, the measuring of feed, beyond all
necessity. Outside, he thought he heard General Jackson by the stream, and
he stood whistling softly, but only the first notes of the whippoorwills
responded. "The night's just come down all at once," he said. Finally,
with a rigid assumption of indifference covering an uneasy heart, he went
in.
Lettice was asleep by the lamp in the sitting room. She looked younger
than ever, but there were shadows under her eyes, her mouth was a little
drawn as if by the memory of pain. A shawl, he saw, had slipped from her
shoulders, and he walked clumsily on the tips of his shoes and rearranged
it. Then he sat down and waited for her to wake.
The flame of the lamp was like a section of an orange; it cast a warm, low
radiance through the room. His gaze rested on the photograph of Lettice's
mother in her coffin. He imagined that paper effigy of inanimate clay
moved, turned its dull head to regard him. "I'm getting old," he told
himself contemptuously, repressing an involuntary start of surprise. His
heart rested like a lump of lead in his breast; it oppressed him so that
his breathing grew labored. His mind returned to Meta Beggs: coldness like
hers was not natural, it was not right. He thought again, as men have
vainly of such women since the dawning of consciousness, that it would be
stirring to fire her indifference, to ignite a passion in response to his
own desire. The memory of her slender, full body, her cool lips, tormented
him.
Lettice woke abruptly.
"Gordon!" she cried, in an odd, muffled voice; "you're always late; your
supper is always spoiled."
"I had my supper," he hurriedly fabricated, "at Peterman's. It's nice in
here, Lettice, with you and all the things around. It has a comfortable
look. You're right pretty, Lettice, too."
The unexpected compliment brought a flush to her cheeks. "I'm not pretty
now," she replied; "I'm all pulled out." General Jackson ambled into the
room, sat between them. "Let's hear the General sing," she proposed.
Gordon wound the phonograph, and the distant, metallic voice repeated the
undeniable fact that Rip Van Winkle had been unaware of the select
pleasures of Coney Island. The dog whimpered, then raised his head in a
despairing bay.
A time might come in a man's life, Gordon Makimmon realized, when this
peaceful interior would spell complete happiness.