“All right,” I said, “I'll come at two.”
He looked straight at me, and held out his hand.
“You've helped me, I think,” he said, in a very decent spirit. Then he
glanced down at his big hand, and added--“Better take it, Eckhart.”
I took it. Then, stirred by doubts and hopes so extreme and so confused
that I hardly knew what I was thinking, I went out. The last I saw of
him, then, he was throwing aside his under-wear, and exposing a deep
chest, with big muscles curving down over the shoulders, and smaller
ridges of muscle in rows on either side. And on his face was that set
look.
I ran up the stairs (at the _Hôtel de Chine_) and burst into my own
room. Then I stopped short, and took off my hat.
For there, by the window--in my room--stood Heloise. She wore a simple
but very beautiful frock of her favorite color, blue. It made her look
taller, and slimmer, and more exquisitely womanly.
The room itself was changed. She had picked it up, and given it what few
cheerful touches she could. On the bureau, in the toothbrush holder from
my washstand, stood a spray of white cherry or pear blossoms. I can't
imagine where she got them; I did not think to ask, when we were
together, for we had so much else on our minds.
On the bureau, also, in a neat little pile, were the pieces of my ten
broken cylinders. She had gathered them all and put them there.
It was the first time she had ever tidied up my room like that. It
touched me. I stood motionless for a moment, looking about.
“Did you see him?” she asked, very low.
“Yes,” said I, still looking about the room, “I saw him. It is going to
be all right, Heloise--all right. We are to meet again at two.” Then
I indicated the white blossoms. “You have made it seem almost like a
home.”
“Oh--that?” she murmured. “It was hard to wait. I had to keep myself
busy.” She said it very gently. And it thrilled me to realize that,
whatever strange event might come to her and to me, we had at last
arrived at a fine spirit of companionship.
Just to think that she could do this friendly act, feeling in her heart
that I would not misinterpret it or in some crude masculine way take the
advantage--I like that, even though I distinctly do not deserve it.
But she was speaking, still in that low voice, but breathlessly, I
thought:--
“How will it be 'all right,' Anthony? What do you mean? What have you
done?”
I felt that I must be very gentle. But with her, as with that man over
yonder in the other hotel, it was the time for frank talk. For as I had
insisted with Crocker, her life was her own to live; and I could not go
on now without her approval.
I drew my one comfortable chair to the window for her. She took it. Then
I explained to her, just as briefly as I could, that Crocker had agreed
to consider setting her legally free, on condition that she go to Paris
and work out her career independently of myself or any other man.
She heard me without a word, sitting there, her hands folded in her
lap. I could not make out the expression of her face. It was grave, of
course, but composed--with no sign of the hysteria that I had considered
as a possibility. Indeed, I am not certain but what she was rather
calmer than I.
When I had said it all, and had paused, looking anxiously at her, she
asked:--
“How long have you known about him? Did _he_”--she indicated the room
across the hall with a slight movement of her head--“tell you?”
I explained to her that I had been with Crocker on the ship and at
Yokohama, and that he himself had talked to me of his difficulties.
This surprised her, I could see, but she made no comment regarding it.
Her next question was uttered with hesitation:--
“Was he--did he seem--”