by morning it had become a dream.
eldridge was late and he hurried from the house and hurried all the morning to catch up. by luncheon time he was in another world. he took plenty of time for his luncheon; it was one of the things he had learned—to eat his luncheon slowly and take time to digest it. sometimes he read the paper, sometimes he dropped into a moving-picture show for a few minutes afterward. but to-day he did neither. he sat in the restaurant—it was a crowded restaurant, all america coming and going—and he watched it idly. he had a rested, comfortable feeling, as if he had escaped some calamity. it seemed foolish now, as he looked back—a kind of fever in the blood that had twisted the commonest things into queer shape. he looked back over it dispassionately—it was the woman in merwin’s who had started it, of course; there was something about her—something like rosalind—curiously like her—it was like what rosalind might have been, more than what she was—a kind of spirited-up rosalind! he smiled grimly.
he called for his check; and while he waited he saw her again, the figure of the woman—not in the restaurant—but in a kind of vision—in the alcove behind the curtain, her head a little bent, her hands folded quietly in her lap... who was she—? his heart gave a sudden twist and stopped—he had never felt like this about—any one—had he? he looked down at a red check, with its stamped black figures, and fumbled in his pocket—and brought out a coin and laid it beside the check and stared at it.... the check and the coin slipped away and he stared at the marble top. suppose he saw her—again... some time.... two coins reappeared on the table and he picked them up. then he put back one and felt for his hat and went out.... the traffic shrieked at him and people jostled him with their elbows and hurried him, and he jostled back and woke up and shook off the queerness and went about his work.... he was forty-one years old and his property was all well invested. it had never occurred to him that he could be different from himself.... he read in the paper of people who did things—did things different from themselves, suddenly—people who squandered fortunes in a day, or murdered and ran away from business—and their wives—people who committed suicide. vicariously, he knew all about how queer men could be... and his chief experience with it all, with this world that his newspaper rolled before him every day, was a kind of wonder that people would do such things and a knowledge, deeper than faith or conviction, that eldridge walcott would never do any of them. he explained such men—if he explained them at all—by saying that they must have a screw loose somewhere. perhaps he thought of men, vaguely, as put together with works inside, carefully adjusted and screwed in place, warranted, with good usage, to run so long; certainly it had not occurred to him that a man could change much after he was forty years old.
he went back to business refreshed, more refreshed than his luncheon often left him. he thought of rosalind, now and then, with a kind of thankfulness—rosalind waiting for him at night with the children, life moving on in the same comfortable way. he had even a moment’s flash of thankfulness to the unknown woman that she had made him see how comfortable he was, how much he had to be thankful for in his quiet life. it was a profitable afternoon—the best stroke of business in six months; and he flattered himself that he handled it well. he felt unusually alive, alert. on the way home he passed a florist’s and half stopped, looking down at a beautiful plant that flamed on a bench outside the door; he did not know what it was; they were all “plants” to him, except roses—he knew a rose—this was not a rose; he looked at it a moment and hurried on.... she would think it strange if he brought her anything like a plant.
the idea grew with him the next day and the next. why should he not give her something? she deserved it. there seemed always some good reason why her clothes were the last to be bought and the plainest and shabbiest—and a woman’s clothes could always be made over.... suppose she had a new suit—something that was really good—suppose he got it for her—would she be in the least like that—other—one—? he had long ago abandoned the idea that there was a real resemblance between them. he knew now that he must have been overwrought, excited in some mysterious way—the woman herself seemed to have excited him.
the wrong that he had done rosalind—even in his thought—made him tender of her. he did not buy a crimson flower to take home to her. but a week later he called one day at his bank and in the evening he handed her a little, twisted roll of something.
she had finished her work and was sitting for a minute before she brought her sewing basket. he laid the roll in the curve of her fingers in her lap.
when she glanced down at it she took it up in short-sighted surprise and looked at the new, crisp bills—and then at him—
he nodded. “for you,” he said. “it’s a new suit—you need it.” he balanced a little on his toes, looking down at her.
her face flushed red; it grew from neck to chin and flooded up to him. “what do you mean?” she said under her breath.
“i want you to get a good one—good stuff, good dressmaker—it’s enough, isn’t it?”
“it is more—than enough—” the red had flooded her face again—as if she would cry. but she said nothing for a minute. she was looking down at the bills.
then she looked up. the plain face had a smile like light from somewhere far away. “may i get just what i like—?”
he nodded proudly. she was almost beautiful... perhaps—in the new gown—he pulled himself together.... she had looked down again and was fingering the bills happily.... “there is a little muff and fur—” she said.
he nodded, encouraging—“a muff and fur and a little fur cap that i wanted—so much—for mary—and overcoats for the boys—they’re so shabby—and your hat is really not fit, you know—” she was looking up now and smiling and checking them off—he stopped her with a gesture.
“you are to spend it on yourself,” he said almost harshly.
“on myself—! why do you say that?” she almost confronted him—as if she caught her breath—“you never have things and you always get out of spending things on yourself.” he half muttered the words.
“oh—oh—! i shall get something for myself. you will see!”
he held out his hand. he was a good man of business. no one got far ahead of him.—“when you have bought the dress i will pay for it,” he said. “give them to me. i cannot trust you with them.”
she looked at him—and at the bills—and they dropped from her hand into his slowly and her arms fell; her shoulders rose and trembled and the hands covered her face. she was weeping, deep, silent sobs—
he bent over her—ashamed. “you must not do that,” he said. “you needn’t feel bad. i wanted you to have it—”
she took down her hands and looked at him. “it seemed so good to have—enough—more than enough! to be extravagant!” she threw out her hands with a little wasteful gesture.
he was looking at her closely. a suspicion leaped at him. her face was so free and the tears had made it mysterious and sweet—she was as wonderful as that other—she was—she was—he stopped with a quick jerk. “i want you to be extravagant on yourself!” he said. he was watching her face.
it flamed again but it did not drop before him. only the eyes sent back a look—on guard, it seemed to him. “i do not need so much for myself,” she said quietly, “part of it will be quite enough.”
he put the bills in his pocket. “all or nothing,” he said easily.
all the next day he turned it in his mind—the look in her eyes, the beauty—something deep within her, shining out.... he no longer went peacefully about his work. could it have been rosalind, after all?... he had never seen her look like that—he had not dreamed.... but when he came home at night the look was not there; he fancied that she was more worn and a little troubled. certainly, no one could think of her as beautiful... and why should a man want to think his wife beautiful?... it was the woman in the alcove that had done the mischief. he should never get over the woman in the alcove. she had got into his life whether or not. he could not be comfortable about rosalind. there was something about her that he had not known or suspected before. he fell to watching her when she was not aware. he had thought he knew her so well and now she was a stranger.... but perhaps it was himself—the woman had done something to him. rosalind was the same—but was she? he looked at her a long time one night as she lay asleep. the moonlight had come in and was on her face. he watched it—as if a breath might speak to him—it was not rosalind’s face. some stranger was there, out of a strange land; a great yearning came to him to waken her, to ask her whence she came, what it was that she knew—what made her face so peaceful in the moonlight—calling to him? he got up softly and closed the blind. he remembered he had heard that it was not good for people to sleep with the moon shining on them—it was only superstition, of course. but superstition had suddenly changed its bounds for him.... were there things, perhaps, that people knew, that they guessed—true things that they could not explain and did not talk about?...
