'Listen. Let's go down to the shore and watch for the sunrise. We
couldn't sleep a wink after--after this--anyway.'
'Nobody'd ever know,' breathed Mildred.
Humphrey took her arm. They moved slowly down the walk toward the
street.
Corinne, still leaning there, looked at Henry.
He reached toward her, but she evaded him and waltzed slowly away over
the grass, humming a few bars of the _Myosotis_.
Henry's eyes followed her. He felt the throbbing again in his temples,
and his cheeks burned. He compressed his lips. He moved after her. He
was in a state of all but ungovernable excitement, but the elation
of two hours back had gone, flattened out utterly. He felt deeply
uncomfortable. It was the sort of ugly moment in which he couldn't have
faced himself in a looking-glass. For Henry had such moments, when,
painfully bewildered by the forces that nature implants in the
vigorously young, he loathed himself. Life opened, a black precipice,
before him, yet Life, in other guise, drove him on. As if intent on his
destruction.
He hung back; let Corinne glide on just ahead of him, still slowing
revolving, swaying, waltzing to the soft little tune she was so
musically humming. He wanted to watch her; however great his discomfort
of the spirit, to exult in her physical charm.
On the earlier occasion when she had overtaxed his emotional capacity he
had got out of it by using the forces she stirred in him as a stimulant.
But now he wasn't stimulated. Not, at least, in that way. His spirit
seemed to be dead. Only his body was alive. All the excitement of the
evening had played with cumulative force on his nerves. He had arrived
at an emotional crisis; and was facing it sullenly but unresistingly.
The picture of Mildred and Humphrey lost in each other's gaze--in the
window-seat at the rooms, on the Ames's horse block--kept coming up in
his mind. He could see them in the flesh, walking on ahead, arm in arm,
but still more vividly he could see them as they had been before he
went back to Mildred's house. He knew that love had come to them. He
wondered, trembling with the excitement of the mere thought, how it
would seem to live through that miracle. No such magic had fallen upon
him.. Not since the days of Ernestine. And that had been pretty youthful
business. This matter of Corinne was quite different. He sighed. Then he
hurried up to her, gripped her arm, walked close beside her.
At the beach they paired off as a matter of course. Henry and Corinne
sat in the shadow of a breakwater. Humphrey and Mildred walked on to
another breakwater.
Corinne made herself comfortable with her head resting on Henry's arm.
He was thinking, 'Sort of thing you dream of without ever expecting it
really. Ain't a fellow' in town that wouldn't envy me.' But gloom was
settling over his spirit like a fog. It seemed to him that he ought
to be whispering skilful little phrases, close to her ear. He couldn't
think of any.
He bent over her face; looked into it; smoothed her dusky hair away
from her temples.
He began humming: 'I arise from dreams of thee.' She picked it up, very
softly, in a floating, velvety pianissimo.
His own voice died out. He couldn't sing.
He felt almost despondent. What was the matter with him! Time passed.
Now and then she hummed other songs--bits of Schumann and Franz.
Schubert's _Serenade_ she sang through.
'Sing with me,' she murmured.
He shook his head. 'Sometimes I feel like singing, and sometimes I
don't.'
'Don't I make you feel like singing, Henry?'
'Oh yes, sure!'
'You're a moody boy, Henry.'
'Oh yes, I'm moody.'
She closed her eyes. He watched the dim vast lake for a while; then
finding her almost limp in his arms, bent again over her face. 'I'm
a fool,' he thought. He could have sobbed again. He bit his lip. Then
kissed her. It was the first moment he had been able to. Her hand
slipped over his shoulder; her arm tightened about his neck.
Abruptly he stopped; raised his head, a bitter question in his eyes.
6
A faint light was creeping over the bowl-like sky. And a fainter colour
was spreading upward from the eastern horizon. The thousands of night
stars had disappeared, leaving only one, the great star of the morning.
It sent out little points of light, like the Star of the East in Sunday
school pictures. It seemed to stir with white incandescence.
Henry straightened up; gently placed Corinne against the breakwater;
covered his face.
She considered him from under lowered eyelids. Her face was
expressionless. She didn't smile. And she wasn't singing now. She
smoothed out her skirt, rather deliberately and thoughtfully.
'Think of it!' Henry broke out with a shudder. 'It's a dreadful thing
that's happened!'
'It might be,' said Corinne very quietly, 'if Arthur didn't have the
sense to take that train.'
'And we're sitting here as if----'
'Listen! What on earth made you go back to the house?'
'I can't tell you. I don't know. I _had_ to.'
'Hm! You certainly did it. You're not lacking courage, Henry.'
He said nothing to this. He didn't feel brave.
'Mildred was foolish. She shouldn't have let herself get so stirred up.
She ought to have gone back.'
'How can you say that! Don't you see that she _couldn't_!'
'Yes, I saw that she couldn't. But it was a mistake.' Henry was up on
his knees, now, digging sand and throwing it.
'It was love,' he said hotly--'real love.'
'It's a wreck,' said she.
'It can't be. If they love each other!'
'This town won't care how much they love each other. And there are other
things. Money.'
'Bah! What's money!'
'It's a lot. You've got to have it.'
'Haven't you any ideals, Corinne?'
She reflected. Then said, 'Of course.' And added: 'She had Arthur where
she wanted him. That's why he went away, of course. He thought she'd
caught him. Now she's lost her head and let him get away. Dished
everything. No telling what he'll do when he finds out.'
'He mustn't find out.' Henry was not aware of any inconsistency within
himself.
'He will if she's going to lose her head like this. There are some
things you have to stand in this world. One of the things Mildred had to
stand was a husband.'
'But how could she go back to him--to-night--feeling this way?'
'She should have.'
'You're cynical.'
'I'm practical. Do you want her to go through a divorce, and then marry
Humphrey? That'll take money. It's a luxury. For rich folks.'
'Don't say such things, Corinne!'
'Why not. She's made the break with Arthur. Now the next thing's got to
happen. What's it to be?'
Henry got to his feet. He gazed a long time at the morning star.
The university clock struck three.
Henry shivered..
'Come,' he said. 'Let's get back.' It didn't occur to him to help her
up.
The four of them lingered a few moments at Mildred's door. Humphrey
finally led Mildred in. For a last goodnight, plainly.
Corinne smiled at Henry. It was an odd, slightly twisted smile.
'After all,' she murmured, 'there's no good in taking things too
seriously.'
He threw out his hands.
'You think I'm hard,' she said, still with that smile.
'Don't! Please!'
'Well--good-night. Or good-morning.'
She gave him her hand. He took it. It gripped his firmly, lingeringly.
He returned the pressure; coloured; gripped her hand hotly; moved toward
her, then sprang away and dropped her hand.
'Why--Henry!'
'I'm sorry. I don't know what's the matter with me. I was looking at
that star----'
'I saw you looking at it.'
'I was thinking how white it was. And bright. And so far away. As if
there wasn't any use trying to reach it. And then--oh, I don't know--Mr
Henderson made me blue, the way he looked to-night. And Humphrey and
Mildred--the awful fix they're in. And you and me--I just can't tell
you!'
'You're telling me plainly enough,' she said wearily.
'Do you ever hate, yourself?'
She didn't answer this. Or look up.
'Did you ever feel that you might turn out just--oh well, no good? Mr
Henderson made me think that.'
'He isn't much good,' said she.
'As if your life wasn't worth making anything out of? Your friends
ashamed of you? They talk about me here now. And I haven't been bad. Not
yet. Just one or two little things.'