There was sleet that evening, with a whopping wind, but neither this
storm nor that other which so imminently threatened him held place
in the consciousness of Bibbs Sheridan when he came once more to the
presence of Mary. All was right in his world as he sat with her, reading
Maurice Maeterlinck's Alladine and Palomides. The sorrowful light of
the gas-jet might have been May morning sunshine flashing amber and rose
through the glowing windows of the Sainte-Chapelle, it was so bright for
Bibbs. And while the zinc-eater held out to bring him such golden nights
as these, all the king's horses and all the king's men might not serve
to break the spell.
Bibbs read slowly, but in a reasonable manner, as if he were talking;
and Mary, looking at him steadily from beneath her curved fingers,
appeared to discover no fault. It had grown to be her habit to look at
him whenever there was an opportunity. It may be said, in truth, that
while they were together, and it was light, she looked at him all the
time.
When he came to the end of Alladine and Palomides they were silent a
little while, considering together; then he turned back the pages and
said: “There's something I want to read over. This:”
You would think I threw a window open on the dawn.... She has a
soul that can be seen around her--that takes you in its arms like
an ailing child and without saying anything to you consoles you
for everything.... I shall never understand it all. I do not know
how it can all be, but my knees bend in spite of me when I speak
of it....
He stopped and looked at her.
“You boy!” said Mary, not very clearly.
“Oh yes,” he returned. “But it's true--especially my knees!”
“You boy!” she murmured again, blushing charmingly. “You might read
another line over. The first time I ever saw you, Bibbs, you were
looking into a mirror. Do it again. But you needn't read it--I can give
it to you: 'A little Greek slave that came from the heart of Arcady!'”
“I! I'm one of the hands at the Pump Works--and going to stay one,
unless I have to decide to study plumbing.”
“No.” She shook her head. “You love and want what's beautiful and
delicate and serene; it's really art that you want in your life, and
have always wanted. You seemed to me, from the first, the most wistful
person I had ever known, and that's what you were wistful for.”
Bibbs looked doubtful and more wistful than ever; but after a moment or
two the matter seemed to clarify itself to him. “Why, no,” he said; “I
wanted something else more than that. I wanted you.”
“And here I am!” she laughed, completely understanding. “I think we're
like those two in The Cloister and the Hearth. I'm just the rough
Burgundian cross-bow man, Denys, who followed that gentle Gerard and
told everybody that the devil was dead.”
“He isn't, though,” said Bibbs, as a hoarse little bell in the next room
began a series of snappings which proved to be ten, upon count. “He gets
into the clock whenever I'm with you.” And, sighing deeply he rose to
go.
“You're always very prompt about leaving me.”
“I--I try to be,” he said. “It isn't easy to be careful not to risk
everything by giving myself a little more at a time. If I ever saw you
look tired--”
“Have you ever?”
“Not yet. You always look--you always look--”
“How?”
“Care-free. That's it. Except when you feel sorry for me about
something, you always have that splendid look. It puts courage into
people to see it. If I had a struggle to face I'd keep remembering that
look--and I'd never give up! It's a brave look, too, as though gaiety
might be a kind of gallantry on your part, and yet I don't quite
understand why it should be, either.” He smiled quizzically, looking
down upon her. “Mary, you haven't a 'secret sorrow,' have you?”
For answer she only laughed.
“No,” he said; “I can't imagine you with a care in the world. I think
that's why you were so kind to me--you have nothing but happiness in
your own life, and so you could spare time to make my troubles turn to
happiness, too. But there's one little time in the twenty-four hours
when I'm not happy. It's now, when I have to say good night. I feel
dismal every time it comes--and then, when I've left the house, there's
a bad little blankness, a black void, as though I were temporarily
dead; and it lasts until I get it established in my mind that I'm really
beginning another day that's to end with YOU again. Then I cheer up. But
now's the bad time--and I must go through it, and so--good night.” And
he added with a pungent vehemence of which he was little aware, “I hate
it!”
“Do you?” she said, rising to go to the door with him. But he stood
motionless, gazing at her wonderingly.
“Mary! Your eyes are so--” He stopped.
“Yes?” But she looked quickly away.
“I don't know,” he said. “I thought just then--”
“What did you think?”
“I don't know--it seemed to me that there was something I ought to
understand--and didn't.”
She laughed and met his wondering gaze again frankly. “My eyes are
pleased,” she said. “I'm glad that you miss me a little after you go.”
“But to-morrow's coming faster than other days if you'll let it,” he
said.
She inclined her head. “Yes. I'll--'let it'!”
“Going to church,” said Bibbs. “It IS going to church when I go with
you!”
She went to the front door with him; she always went that far. They had
formed a little code of leave-taking, by habit, neither of them ever
speaking of it; but it was always the same. She always stood in the
doorway until he reached the sidewalk, and there he always turned and
looked back, and she waved her hand to him. Then he went on, halfway to
the New House, and looked back again, and Mary was not in the doorway,
but the door was open and the light shone. It was as if she meant to
tell him that she would never shut him out; he could always see that
friendly light of the open doorway--as if it were open for him to come
back, if he would. He could see it until a wing of the New House came
between, when he went up the path. The open doorway seemed to him the
beautiful symbol of her friendship--of her thought of him; a symbol of
herself and of her ineffable kindness.
And she kept the door open--even to-night, though the sleet and fine
snow swept in upon her bare throat and arms, and her brown hair was
strewn with tiny white stars. His heart leaped as he turned and saw that
she was there, waving her hand to him, as if she did not know that the
storm touched her. When he had gone on, Mary did as she always did--she
went into an unlit room across the hall from that in which they had
spent the evening, and, looking from the window, watched him until he
was out of sight. The storm made that difficult to-night, but she
caught a glimpse of him under the street-lamp that stood between the two
houses, and saw that he turned to look back again. Then, and not before,
she looked at the upper windows of Roscoe's house across the street.
They were dark. Mary waited, but after a little while she closed the
front door and returned to her window. A moment later two of the upper
windows of Roscoe's house flashed into light and a hand lowered the
shade of one of them. Mary felt the cold then--it was the third night
she had seen those windows lighted and the shade lowered, just after
Bibbs had gone.
But Bibbs had no glance to spare for Roscoe's windows. He stopped for
his last look back at the open door, and, with a thin mantle of white
already upon his shoulders, made his way, gasping in the wind, to the
lee of the sheltering wing of the New House.
A stricken George, muttering hoarsely, admitted him, and Bibbs became
aware of a paroxysm within the house. Terrible sounds came from the
library: Sheridan cursing as never before; his wife sobbing, her voice
rising to an agonized squeal of protest upon each of a series of muffled
detonations--the outrageous thumping of a bandaged hand upon wood; then
Gurney, sharply imperious, “Keep your hand in that sling! Keep your hand
in that sling, I say!”
“LOOK!” George gasped, delighted to play herald for so important a
tragedy; and he renewed upon his face the ghastly expression with which
he had first beheld the ruins his calamitous gesture laid before the
eyes of Bibbs. “Look at 'at lamidal statue!”
Gazing down the hall, Bibbs saw heroic wreckage, seemingly
Byzantine--painted colossal fragments of the shattered torso,
appallingly human; and gilded and silvered heaps of magnificence strewn
among ruinous palms like the spoil of a barbarians' battle. There had
been a massacre in the oasis--the Moor had been hurled headlong from his
pedestal.
“He hit 'at ole lamidal statue,” said George. “POW!”
“My father?”
“YESsuh! POW! he hit 'er! An' you' ma run tell me git doctuh quick 's
I kin telefoam--she sho' you' pa goin' bus' a blood-vessel. He ain't
takin' on 'tall NOW. He ain't nothin' 'tall to what he was 'while ago.
You done miss' it, Mist' Bibbs. Doctuh got him all quiet' down, to what
he was. POW! he hit'er! Yessuh!” He took Bibbs's coat and proffered a
crumpled telegraph form. “Here what come,” he said. “I pick 'er up when
he done stompin' on 'er. You read 'er, Mist' Bibbs--you' ma tell me tuhn
'er ovuh to you soon's you come in.”
Bibbs read the telegram quickly. It was from New York and addressed to
Mrs. Sheridan.
Sure you will all approve step have taken as was so wretched my
health would probably suffered severely Robert and I were married
this afternoon thought best have quiet wedding absolutely sure
you will understand wisdom of step when you know Robert better am
happiest woman in world are leaving for Florida will wire address
when settled will remain till spring love to all father will like
him too when knows him like I do he is just ideal.
Edith Lamhorn.