"Do you people want to get across the street or not?"
"Personally," said McCrea, smiling at him, "I'm not particular."
The policeman was Irish and he liked lovers. He thought he was looking
at a pair of them.
"Well, it's not the place I'd be choosing for conversation, sir," he
said.
"Right you are," agreed Ray. "I suppose you'd prefer a lane in
Ballamacree?"
"Yes, sir. Good luck to you, sir."
"Same to you," called back Ray.
He and Kate swung into the procession on the boulevard. Kate was smiling
happily.
"You haven't changed a bit!" she cried. "You keep right on enjoying
yourself, don't you?"
"Not a bit of it," retorted Ray indignantly. "I've been miserable! You
know I have. The only satisfaction I got at all was in hoping I was
making you miserable, too. Was I?"
"I wouldn't own to it if you had," said Kate. "Shall we forgive each
other?"
"Do you want it to be as easy as that--after all we've been through?
Wouldn't it be more satisfactory to quarrel?"
"You can if you want, of course," Kate laughed. "But hadn't it better be
with some other person? Really, I wanted to see you dreadfully--or, at
least, I wanted to see you pleasantly. I had made preparations. You
didn't let me know when to expect you, and I had an engagement when you
did come. Weren't you foolish to get in a rage?"
"But I was so frightfully disappointed. I expected so much and I had
expected it so long."
"Ray!" Her voice was almost stern, and he turned to look at her half
with amusement, half with apprehension. "Expect nothing. Enjoy
yourself to-day."
"But how can I enjoy myself to-day unless I am made to understand that
there is something I may expect from you? Circumstances have kept us
playing fast and loose long enough. Can't we come to an
understanding, Kate?"
Kate stopped to look in a florist's window and fixed her eyes upon a
vast bouquet of pale pink roses.
"Do say something," he said after a time. "Shall I speak from the
heart?"
"Oh, yes, please." He drew his breath in sharply between his teeth.
"Well, then, I'm not ready to give up my free life, Ray. I can't seem to
see my way to relinquishing any part of my liberty. I think you know
why. I've told you everything in my letters. I feel too experimental to
settle down."
"You don't love me!"
"Did I ever say I did?"
"You gave me to understand that you might."
"You wanted me to try."
"But you haven't succeeded? Then, for heaven's sake, let me go and make
out some other programme for myself. I've come back to you because I
couldn't be satisfied away from you. I've seen women, if it comes to
that,--cities of women. But there's no one like you, Kate, to my mind;
no one who so makes me enjoy the hour, or so plan for the future. Ever
since that day when you stood up by the C Bench and fought for the right
of women to sit on it,--that silly old C Bench,--I've liked your warring
spirit. And I come back, by Jove, to find you marching with the militant
women! Well, I didn't know whether to laugh or swear! Anyway, you do
beat the world."
"A pretty sweetheart I'd make," cried Kate, disgusted with herself. "I'm
only good to provide you with amusement, it seems."
"You provide me with the breath of life! Heavens, what a spring you
have when you walk! And you 're as straight as a grenadier. I'm so sick
of seeing slouching, die-away women! It's only you American women who
know how to carry yourselves. Oh, Kate, if you can't answer me, don't,
but let me see you once in a while. I'm a weak character, and I've got
to enjoy your society a little longer."
"You can enjoy as much of it as you please, only you mustn't be holding
me up to some tremendous responsibility, and blaming me by and by for
things I can't help."
"I give you my word I'll not. Oh, Kate, is this a busy day with you?
Can't you come out into the country somewhere? We could take the
electric and in an hour we'd be out where we could see orchards
in bloom."
"I _could_ go," mused Kate. "I've a half-holiday coming to me, and
really, if I were to take it to-day, no one would care."
"The ayes have it! Let us go to the station-I'll buy plenty of tickets
and we can get off at any place where the climate seems mild and the
natives kind."
* * * * *
It proved to be a day of encounters.
They had traveled well beyond the city, past the straggling suburbs and
the comfortable, friendly old villages, some of which antedated the city
of which they were now the fringe, and had reached the wider sweeps of
the prairie, with the fine country homes of those who sought privacy.
At length they came to a junction of the road.
"All out here for--"
They could not catch the name.
"Isn't that where we're going?" laughed Kate.
"Of course it is," Ray responded.
They hastened out and looked about them for the train they had supposed
would be in waiting. It was not yet in, however, but was showing its
dark nose a mile or two down the track.
"I must see about our tickets," said Ray. "Perhaps we'll have to buy
others."
Kate had been standing with her back to the ticket station window, but
now she turned, and through the ticker-seller's window envisaged the
pale, bitterly sullen face of Lena Vroom. It looked sunken and curiously
alien, as if its possessor felt herself unfriended of all the world.
"Lena!" cried Kate, too startled to use tact or to wait for Lena to give
the first sign of recognition.
Lena nodded coolly.
"Oh, is this where you are?" cried Kate. "We've looked everywhere for
you."
"If I'd wanted to be found, I could have been, you know." The tone was
muffled and pitifully insolent.
"You are living out here?"
"I live a few miles from here."
"And you like the work? Is it--is it well with you, Lena?"
"It will never be well with me, and you know it. I broke down, that's
all. I can't stand anything now that takes thought. This just suits
me--a little mechanical work like this. I'm not fit to talk, Kate.
You'll have to excuse me. It upsets me. I'm ordered to keep very quiet.
If I get upset, I'll not be fit even for this."
"I'll go," said Kate contritely. "And I'll tell no one." She battled to
keep the tears from her eyes. "Only tell me, need you work at all? I
thought you had enough to get along on, Lena. You often told me
so--forgive me, but we've _been_ close friends, you know, even if we
aren't now."
"My money's gone," said Lena in a dead voice. "I used up my principal.
It wasn't much. I'm in debt, too, and I've got to get that paid off. But
I've a comfortable place to live, Kate, with a good motherly German
woman. I tell you for your peace of mind, because I know you--you always
think you have to be affectionate and to care about what people are
doing. But you'll serve me best by leaving me alone. Understand?"
"Oh, Lena, yes! I'll not come near you, but I can't help thinking about
you. And I beg and pray you to write me if you need me at any time."
"I can't talk about anything any more. It tires me. There's your train."
Ray bought his tickets to nowhere in particular. The little train came
on like a shuttle through the blue loom of the air; they got on, and
were shot forward through bright green fields, past expectant groves
and flowering orchards, cheered by the elate singing of
innumerable birds.
Ray had recognized Lena, but Kate refused to discuss her.
"Life has hurt her," she said, "and she's in hiding like a wounded
animal. I couldn't talk about her. I--I love her. It's like that with
me. Once I've loved a person, I can't get it out of my system."
She was staring from the window, trying to get back her happiness. Ray
snatched her hand and held it in a crushing grip.
"For God's sake, Kate, try to love me, then!" he whispered.
It was spring all about them,--"the pretty ring-time,"--and she had just
seen what it was to be a defeated and unloved woman. She felt a thrill
go through her, and she turned an indiscreetly bright face upon her
companion.
"Don't expect too much," she whispered back, "but I _will_ try."
They went on, almost with the feeling that they were in Arcadia, and
drew up at a platform in the midst of woods, through which they could
see a crooked trail winding.
"Here's our place!" cried Ray. "Don't you recognize it? Not that you've
ever seen it before."
They dashed, laughing, from the train, and found themselves a minute
later in a bird-haunted solitude, among flowers, at the beginning of the
woodland walk. There seemed to be no need to comment upon the beauty of
things. It was quite enough that the bland, caressing air beat upon
their cheeks in playful gusts, that the robins gave no heed to them, and
that "the little gray leaves were kind" to them.
Never was there a more capricious trail than the one they set themselves
to follow. It skirted the edge of a little morass where the young flags
were coming up; it followed the windings of a brook where the wild
forget-me-not threw up its little azure buds; it crossed the stream a
dozen times by means of shaking bridges, or fallen trees; it had
magnificent gateways between twin oaks--gateways to yet pleasanter
reaches of leaving woodland.
"Whatever can it lead to?" wondered Kate.
"To some new kind of Paradise, perhaps," answered Ray. "And see, some
one has been before us! Hush--"
He drew her back into the bushes at the side, beneath a low-hanging
willow. A man and a woman were coming toward them. The woman was walking
first, treading proudly, her head thrown back, her body in splendid
motion, like that of an advancing Victory. The man, taller than she, was
resting one hand upon her shoulder. He, too, looked like one who had
mastered the elements and who felt the pangs of translation into some
more ethereal and liberating world. As they came on, proud as Adam and
Eve in the first days of their existence, Kate had a blinding
recognition of them. They were David Fulham and Mary Morrison.
She looked once, saw their faces shining with pagan joy, and, turning
her gaze from them, sank on the earth behind the screen of bushes. Ray
perceived her desire to remain unseen, and stepped behind the
wide-girthed oak. The two passed them, still treading that proud step.
When they were gone, Kate arose and led the way on along the path. She
wished to turn back, but she dared not, fearing to meet the others on
the station platform. Ray had recognized Fulham, but he did not know his
companion, and Kate would not tell him.
"What a fool!" he said. "I thought he loved his wife. She's a fine
woman."
"He loves his wife," affirmed Kate stalwartly. "But there's a hedonistic
fervor in him. He's--"
"He's a fool!" reaffirmed Ray. "Shall we talk of something else?"
"By all means," agreed Kate.
They tried, but the glory of the day was slain. They had seen the
serpent in their Eden--and where there is one reptile there may always
be another.
When they thought it discreet, they went back to the junction. Lena
Vroom was still there. She was nibbling at some dry-looking sandwiches.
Her glance forbade them to say anything personal to her, and Kate, with
a clutch at the heart, passed her by as if she had been any
ticket-seller.
She wondered if any one, seeing that gray-faced, heavy-eyed woman, would
dream of her so dearly won Ph.D. or of the Phi Beta Kappa key which she
had won but not claimed! She had not even dared to converse, lest Lena's
fragile self-possession should break. She evidently was in the clutches
of nervous fatigue and was fighting it with her last remnant of courage.
Even the veriest layman could guess as much.
Kate hastened home, and as she opened the door she heard the voice of
Honora mingled with the happy cries of the twins. They were down in the
drawing-room, and Honora had bought some colored balloons for them, and
was running to and fro with them in her hand, while Patience and
Patricia shrieked with delight.
"What a lovely day it's been, hasn't it?" Honora queried, pausing in her
play. "I've so longed to be in the country, but matters had reached such
a critical point at the laboratory that I couldn't get away. Do you
know, Kate, the great experiment that David and I are making is much
further along than he surmises! I'm going to have a glorious surprise
for him one of these days. Business took him over to the Academy of
Science to-day and I was so glad of it. It gave me the laboratory quite
to myself. But really, I've got to get out into the country. I'm going
to ask David if he won't take me next Sunday."
Kate felt herself growing giddy. She dared not venture to reply. She
kissed the babies and sped up to her room. But Honora's happy laughter
followed her even there. Then suddenly there was a scurrying. Kate
guessed that David was coming. The babies were being carried up to the
nursery lest they should annoy him.
Kate beat the wall with her fists.
"Fool! Fool!" she cried. "Why didn't she let him see her laughing and
dancing like that? Why didn't she? She'll come down all prim and staid
for him and he'll never dream what she really is like. Oh, how can she
be so blind? I don't know how to stand it! And I don't know what to do!
Why isn't there some one to tell me what I ought to do?"
Mary Morrison was late to dinner. She said she had run across an old
Californian friend and they had been having tea together and seeing the
shops. She had no appetite for dinner, which seemed to carry out her
story. Her eyes were as brilliant as stars, and a magnetic atmosphere
seemed to emanate from her. The men all talked to her. They seemed
disturbed--not themselves. There was something in her glowing lips, in
her swimming glance, in the slow beauty of her motions, that called to
them like the pipes o' Pan. She was as pagan and as beautiful as the
spring, and she brought to them thoughts of elemental joys. It was as
if, sailing a gray sea, they had come upon a palm-shaded isle, and
glimpsed Calypso lying on the sun-dappled grass.