When he had finished breakfast, Matthias lighted a pipe, and setting his
feet anew in the groove they had worn diagonally from door to window,
began his matutinal tramp toward inspiration.
But this morning found his brain singularly sluggish: thoughts would not
come; or if they showed themselves at all, it was only to peer
mischievously at him round some distant corner which, when turned,
discovered only an empty impasse.
Distressed, he tamped down his pipe, ran long fingers through his hair,
and wrapped himself in clouds of smoke. Then a breath of cool, sweet air
fanned his cheek, and he looked round in sharp annoyance. It was like
that fool maid to leave the windows open and freeze him to death! And
truly enough, they were both wide open from top to bottom; though, for
all that, he wasn't freezing. And outside there was a bright crimson
border of potted geraniums on the iron-railed balcony. He hadn't noticed
them before; Madame Duprat must have set them out before he was up.
Curious whim of hers! Curious weather!
Disliking inconsistencies, he stopped in one of the windows to
investigate these unseasonable phenomena.
In one corner of the back-yard a dilapidated bundle of fur and bones,
conforming in general with a sardonic Post-Impressionist's candid
opinion of a tom-cat, lay blinking lazily in a patch of warm yellow
sunlight.
In the next back-yard a ridiculous young person in bare-legs, blue denim
overalls and a small red sweater, was industriously turning up the
earth with a six-inch trowel, and chanting cheerfully to himself an
improvisation in honour of his garden that was to be.
At an open window across the way a public-spirited and extremely pretty
young woman appeared with a towel pinned round her shoulders and let
down her hair, a shimmering cascade of gold for the sun's rays to wanton
with and, incidentally, to dry.
Somewhere at a distance a cracked old piano-organ was romping and
giggling rapturously through the syncopated measures of Tin Pan Alley's
latest "rag."
A vision drifted before Matthias' eyes, of the green slopes of
Tanglewood, the white château on its windy headland, the ineffable blue
of the Sound beyond....
Incredulous, he turned to consult his calendar: the day was Wednesday,
the seventeenth of April.
It was true, then: almost without his knowledge the bleak and barren
Winter had worn away and Spring had stolen upon Town, flaunting,
extravagant, shy and seductive, irresistible Spring....
For a little Matthias held back in doubt, with reluctant thoughts of his
work. Then--all in a breath--he caught up hat and stick, slammed the
door behind him, and blundered forth to fulfill his destiny....
She was seated on a bench, in a retired spot sheltered from the breeze,
open to the sun, when Matthias, having swung round the upper reservoir,
came at full stride down the West Drive, his blood romping, his eyes
aglow, warm colour in his face: for the first time in half a year
feeling himself again, Matthias the lover of the open skies divorced
from Matthias of the midnight lamp and the scored and intricate
manuscripts--that Matthias whom the world rejected.
At a word, her companion rose and moved to intercept him; and at the
sound of his name, Matthias paused, wondering who she could be, this
strange, sweet-faced woman, plainly dressed.
"Yes?" he said, lifting his hat. "I am Mr. Matthias--yes--"
"Mrs. Marbridge would like to speak to you."
His gaze veered quickly in the direction indicated by her brief nod. He
saw Venetia waiting, and immediately went to her, in his surprise
forgetful of the woman who had accosted him. This last moved slowly in
the other direction and sat down out of earshot.
"This is awfully good of you, Venetia," he said, bending over her hand.
"I didn't see you, of course--was thinking of something else--"
"But I was thinking of you," she said. "I've been wanting to see you for
a long time, Jack."
"Surely Helena could have told you where to find me...."
"I knew we'd run across one another, somehow, somewhere, sometime--today
or tomorrow, without fail. So I was content to do without the offices of
Helena. Do sit down. I want so much to talk to you."
"Most completely yours to command," he said lightly, and took the place
beside her.
But his heart was on his lips and in his eyes, and Venetia was far from
blind.
"Then tell me about yourself," she asked. "It's been so long since I've
had any news!"
"Is it possible? I should have imagined my doting aunt--"
She interrupted with a slight, negative smile and shake of her head:
"Helena doesn't approve of me, you know, and of late there has been a
decided coolness between the families. I'm afraid George fell out with
Vincent for some reason--not too hard to guess, perhaps."
He looked away, colouring with embarrassment.
"So," she pursued evenly--"about yourself: are you married yet?"
Matthias started, laughed frankly. "You didn't know about that,
either?... Well, it's true even Helena couldn't have told you much, for
I told her nothing.... No, I'm neither married, nor like to be."
"She was so very sweet and pretty--"
"Joan was wholly charming," he agreed gravely, "but--well, I fancy it
was inevitable. We were lucky enough to be obliged to endure a
separation of some weeks before, instead of after, marriage; and so we
had time to think. At least, she must have foreseen the mistake we were
on the point of making, for the break was her own doing--not mine."
"You think it would have been a mistake?"
"Oh, unquestionably. I confess I'd not have known it, probably, until
too late, if she hadn't made me think when she threw me over. I hope it
doesn't sound caddish--but I was conscious of a distinct sense of relief
when I got back from California and found she'd cleared out without
leaving me a line."
"I think I understand. And did you never hear from her?"
"Not from--by accident, _of_ her. She was predestined for the stage--I
can see that clearly now, though I objected then. She was offered a
chance during my absence, jumped at it, and made a sort of a half-way
hit in a very successful sketch which, oddly enough, I happened to have
written--under a pseudonym. It had been kicking round my agent's office
for a year; he didn't believe in it any more than I did; and I
disbelieved in it hard enough to be ashamed to put my own name to it.
That's often the way with a fellow's work; one always believes in the
cripples, you know.... Well, some actor chanced to get hold of the
'script one day, fell in love with it and put it on with Joan as his
leading woman. If it had been anybody else's sketch, I'd never have
known what became of her, probably. As it was, I knew nothing until I
got back from the Coast.... I believe they got married very shortly
after it was produced; and now they're playing it all over the country.
Odd, isn't it?"
"Very," Venetia smiled. "And so your heart wasn't broken?"