through the weeks that followed eldridge watched the things money could buy quietly taking their place in the house. little comforts that he had not missed—had not known any one could miss—were at hand. the children looked somehow subtly different. he had a sense of expansion, softly breaking threads of habit, expectancy. only rosalind seemed unchanged. yet each time he looked at her he fancied that she had changed—more than all of them. he could not keep his eyes from her. something was hidden in her—something he did not know—that he would never know. perhaps he should die and not know it.... did the dead know things—everything? he seemed to remember hazily from sunday-school—something—if he were dead, he might come close to her—as close as the little thoughts behind her eyes——
the cold grew keener, and eldridge, shivering home from the office, remembered a pair of fur gloves in the attic. he had not worn them for years. but after supper he took a light and went to look for them.
it was cold there, in the attic, and he shivered a little, looking about the dusty place. there were boxes stacked along under the eaves and garments hanging grotesquely from the beams. he knew where rosalind kept the gloves; he had seen them one day last summer when he was looking for window netting. it had not seemed to him then, in the hot attic, that any one could ever need gloves. he set down the lamp on a box and drew out a trunk and looked in it; they were not there. she must have changed the place of things—he would have to go down and ask her.
then his eye sought out a box pushed far back under the eaves—he did not remember that he had ever seen that box; he glanced at it—and half turned away to pick up the lamp—and turned back. he could not have told why he felt that he must open it. he had set the light on a box a little above him, and it glimmered down on the box that he drew out and opened—and on a smooth piece of tissue-paper under the cover——a faint perfume came from beneath the paper, and he lifted it. there was a pair of long grey gloves—with the shape of a woman’s hand still softly held in the finger-tips.... he lifted them and stared and moistened his lips and ran his hand down inside the box to the bottom—soft, filmy stuff that yielded and sprang back.... he kneeled before it, half on his heels, peering down. he bent forward and lifted the things out—white things with threaded ribbon and lace—things such as eldridge walcott had never seen—delicate, web-like things—then a fur-lined coat and a grey dress and, at the bottom, a little linked something. he lifted it and peered at it and at the coins shining through the meshes and dropped it back.
he stood up and looked about him vaguely... after a minute he shivered a little. it was very cold in the attic. he knelt down and tried to put the things back; but his fingers shook, and the things took queer shapes and fell apart, and a soft perfume came from them that confused him. he tried to steady himself—he began at the bottom, putting each thing carefully in place... smoothing it down.
the door below creaked. a voice listened.... “you up there, eldridge?”
he straightened himself... out of a thousand thoughts and questions. “where are my fur gloves?” he said quietly. he took the light from its box and came over to the stairs.
her face, lifted to him, was in the light and he could see the rays of light falling on it—and on the stillness, like a pool....
“they’re in the black trunk,” said rosalind. her foot moved to the stair—“i’ll get them for you.”
“no—don’t come up,” he said. “it’s cold here. i know—i was just looking there.”
so she went back, closing the door behind her to keep out the cold.
when eldridge came down he did not look at her. he blew out the light and put the gloves with his hat in the hall and came over with his paper and sat down.
she was standing by the fire, bending over a pair of socks that she had been washing out. she was hanging them in front of the fire, pulling out the toes. her eyes looked at him inquiringly as her fingers went on stretching the little toes.
“did you find them?”
“yes.” he opened his paper slowly. she went on fussing at the socks, a little, absent smile on her face. “if it keeps on like this i must get heavier flannels for them,” she said. the look in her face was very sweet as she bent over the small socks.
he looked up—and glanced away. “money enough—have you?”
“oh, yes—plenty of money. i will get them to-morrow—if i can go in to town—” she said.
his mind flashed to the attic above them and to the quiet alcove with the little green curtains that shut it off. “better dress warm if you do go,” he said carelessly. “it is pretty cold, you know.” he took up the paper and stared at it.
