he had lost count of days in the swiftness of happenings. as he drove uptown to fetch her, he wondered why the streets were so quiet. he pulled out his watch; it was past eight. not so extraordinarily early! his watch might be wrong. his eye caught a clock; it wasn’t then the knowledge dawned on him that the emptiness of the streets and his sense of earliness were due to the leisure which betokens sunday morning.
new york had a look of the rural. now that few people were about, trees claimed more attention and spread abroad their branches. grass-plots in squares showed conspicuously. it almost seemed that on these islands of greenness, lapped by sun-scorched pavement, one ought to see rabbits hopping.
when he reached the apartment, she wasn’t ready. from somewhere down the passage she called to him: “good-morning, meester deek. you’re early.” then he heard her tripping footsteps crossing and recrossing a room, and the busy rustling of packing.
he leant out of the window, drinking in the sunny stillness. a breeze ruffled the hudson. the palisades shone fortress-like. far below, dwarfed by distance beneath trees of the drive, horsemen moved sluggishly like wound-up toys. a steamer, heavily loaded with holidaymakers, churned its way up-river; he caught the faint cheerfulness of brazen music. the tension of endeavor was relaxed; a spirit of peace and gayety was in the air. his thoughts went back to eden row, lying blinking and quaint in the sabbath calm. in this city of giant energies he smiled a little wistfully at the remembrance.
he listened. the sounds of packing hadn’t stopped. time grew short; it wasn’t for him to hurry her. secretly he hoped she would lose her train; they might steal an extra day together.
she entered radiant and laughing. “you’ll think i always keep you waiting. come on. we’ve got to rush for it.”
“but let me have a look at you.”
“time for that on the way to the station.”
when he had seen the luggage put on, he jumped in beside her—really beside her, for she sat well out of the corner.
“almost like a honeymoon,” he laughed, “with all the bags.”
“a spoilt honeymoon.” as they made a sharp turn into broadway she was thrown against him. “poor old you, not to be coming!”
“hulloa!” he looked at her intently.
“a discovery?”
“the beauty-patch has wandered. it’s at the corner of your mouth to-day.”
“observing person! there’s a reason.” she leant nearer to whisper. “it’s a sleep-walker.”
in the midst of her high spirits she became serious. “it’s mean of me to leave you. if i’d known that it was only to see me that you’d sailed—— i couldn’t believe it—not even when you’d cabled. i ought to feel flattered. i shouldn’t think—shouldn’t think it’s often happened that a man came so far on ’spec.’”
“perhaps never,” he said. “there was never a desire——”
then they felt that they had gone far enough with words, and sat catching each other’s smile in silence.
“you don’t want to go?” he asked.
“i oughtn’t to say that.” she frowned thoughtfully. “it would be ungracious to fluffy. but i don’t want to go much.” then, letting her hand rest on his for a second: “it’ll make our good times that are coming all the better.”
all the way to the station, like shy children, without owning to it, they were doing their best to comfort each other.
“i’m glad i had that photograph taken.”
“was that why? because——”
“meester deek, i didn’t know you so well then. it didn’t seem so terrible to leave you. but—it was partly.”
the tiffs and aloofness of yesterday seemed as distant as a life-time.
“we were stupid to quarrel.” his tone invited her indorsement.
“we’ll do it again,” she laughed.
they swung into the grand central. she let him look to her luggage as though it were his right. it was nearly as good as being married to her.
“shall i take your ticket?”
“let’s get it together.”
when they came to the window, she opened her bag and handed him the money.
“where to?” he asked. then he remembered: “why, you haven’t given me your address.”
“to springfield. here, i’ll scribble out the address while you get the change. you’d better write your first letter to the theatre in care of fluffy. i’ll send you the names of the other towns later.”
at the barrier they met with an unexpected setback; the gateman refused to let him see her off. “not allowed. you ought to have a pass.”
it seemed hopeless. the man looked too righteous for bribery and too inhuman for argument. desire leant forward: “oh, please, won’t you let my brother——?”
slowly and knowingly the man smiled. he glanced from the anxious little face, doing its best to appear tearful, to the no less anxious face of teddy. he scented romance and signed to them to go forward. so teddy had proof that others could become weak when she employed her powers of fascination.
he followed her into the train and sat down at her side.
“i wish i were coming.”
she gazed out of the window. he bent across to see her face.
“why, desire, you’re——”
“i’m silly,” she said quickly. “parting with anybody makes me cry. oh, dear, i wish i wasn’t going.”
“then don’t.”
he covered her hand in his excitement. there was no time to lose. the conductor was calling for the last time; passengers were scurrying to get aboard.
she considered the worth of his suggestion. “i must there’s fluffy. but why don’t you come? you can get back to-night.”
he wavered. she was always at her sweetest when saying good-by; if he went with her, she might get “tired” and become the praying girl again. he had almost made up his mind to accompany her when the train gave a preliminary jerk, as though the engine were testing its strength.
“oh, well, you know best.” her expression was annoyed and her tone disappointed. “only two weeks, after all.”
“but two weeks without you.” he had not quite given up the idea of accompanying her.
“hurry up,” she said, “or you won’t get off.”
it was no good going with her now. from the platform he watched her. as the train began to move, he ran beside her window. at the point of vanishing she smiled forgiveness and kissed the finger-tips of miss self-reliance.
in passing out of the station it occurred to him to inquire how long it took to get to springfield. he wanted to follow her in imagination and to picture her at the exact hour of arrival. he was surprised to find that it was such a short journey and that she might have gone by a later train. if she’d been so sorry, she needn’t have left him in such a hurry. when he came to reason things out, he saw that she could have gone just as well on monday, since fluffy’s company was evidently playing in springfield another night. perhaps she had a good reason for going. it was some comfort to remember that at the last train. if she’d been so sorry, she needn’t have left him in such a hurry. when he came to reason things out, he saw that she could have gone just as well on monday, since fluffy’s company was evidently playing in springfield another night. perhaps she had a good reason for going. it was some comfort to remember that at the last moment she had wanted to stay.
then began the long days of waiting, from which all purpose in living seemed to have been banished. ambitions, which had goaded him forward, were at a halt. everything unconnected with her took on an air of unreality. his personality became distasteful to him because it seemed not to have attracted her sufficiently.
things that once would have brought him happiness failed to stir him. a boom was being worked for him. he was on the crest of a wave. interviewers were continually calling to get personal stories. articles appeared in which he confided to the public: “how i became famous at twenty-three,” “why i came to america,” “what i think of new york,” “why i distrust co-education.” there seemed to be no subject, however trivial, upon which his views were not of value to the hundred million inhabitants of america. he was continually finding his face in the papers. he sprang into an unexpected demand both as writer and artist.
the fun he derived from this fluster was in imagining the added worth it would give him in her eyes. he liked to think of her as dashing up to news-stands and showering on him the enthusiasm he had seen her shower on fluffy. success left him the more humble in proportion as it failed to rouse her comment. if success couldn’t make her proud of him, there must be some weakness in his character. he searched her letters for any hint that would betray her knowledge of what was happening. perhaps her very omissions were a sign that she was feeling more than she expressed. at last he wrote and told her. she replied inadequately, “how very nice for you!” his hope had been that she would have included herself as a sharer in his good fortune.
though he sat for long hours at a stretch, he accomplished laborious results. his attention refused to concentrate. he was always thinking of her: the men who might be with her in his absence; the things she had said and done; the things he had said to her, and which might have been said better; her tricks of gesture and shades of intonation. her very faults endeared themselves in retrospect he coveted the least happy of the hours he had spent in her company.
for the first day he was consoled by the sight of her tin-type photograph on the desk before him. he glanced at it between sentences and felt that she was near him. but soon he made a sad discovery: it was fast fading. as the days went by he exposed it to the light more and more grudgingly. he had the superstitious fear that, if it was quite dark before she returned, his hope of winning her would be ended.
he lived for the arrival of her letters. his anxiety was a repetition of what he had suffered after her departure from london. he left orders with the hotel-clerk to have them sent up to his room at once. every time a knock sounded on his door he became breathless.
they came thick and fast, funny little letters dashed off at top-speed in a round girlish handwriting and made to look longer than they were by being sprawled out over many pages. they were full of broken phrases like her speech, with dashes and dots for which he might substitute whatever tenderness his necessity demanded. usually they began “dear miester deek” and ended “yours sincerely, desire.” once, in a glorious burst of expansiveness, she signed herself “affectionately, desire,” and scratched it out. he watched for the error to occur again; it was never repeated. they were the kind of letters that it was perfectly safe to leave lying about; his replies emphatically were not. he marveled at her unvarying discretion.
she had a knack of reproducing the atmosphere of her environment. it was a gay, pulsating world in which she lived. like flora, flowers and the singing of birds sprang up where she passed. he contrasted with hers the world he had to offer; it seemed a dull place. she had the keys to arcady. how false had been his chivalrous dream that a fate hung over her from which she must be rescued!
his lover’s eye detected a wealth of cleverness in her correspondence. he sincerely believed that she was more gifted as a writer than himself. her letters were full of descriptions of fluffy in her part, thumb-nail sketches of the other members of the cast and accounts of the momentously personal adventures of a theatrical company on tour. she had a trick of humor that made her intimate in an adjective, and made him laugh. she also had a trick of allotting to him prejudices. “you’d call our leading man a very bad character, but i like him: i think one needs to have faults to be truly charitable. i’d ask you to join us, but—— you wouldn’t get on with theatrical people; you rather—i know, so you needn’t deny it—you rather despise them. i think they’re the jolliest crowd. we dance every night when the show is ended and have late suppers, and—you can guess.”
it was after receiving this that he made up his mind, in preparation for her return, to learn the latest dances. he wondered where she could have gathered the impression that he was puritanical.
but there were other letters in which she joined his future with hers. “perhaps you’ll write a great play one day, and allow me to be your leading lady.”
he paused to let the picture form before he went further. it would be rather fun. he saw himself holding hands with her and bowing to applauding audiences. as husband and wife they’d travel the world together, emancipated beings who never gave a thought to money, each contributing to the other’s triumph. fun! yes. but unsettling. the life that he had always planned was a kind of glorified eden row existence without the worries. he thought of jimmie boy and dearie, and all the quiet bonds of dependence they had built up by living always in one place together.
his eyes went back to her letter. “you’ll come and see me, won’t you, meester deek, if ever i become a great actress? and i shall.—oh, did i tell you? horace is on his way over. i wonder what he and fluffy will do? perhaps quarrel. perhaps just dawdle.”
he was tempted to go to her; but she hadn’t really invited him. he felt that she wouldn’t be his in her nomad setting. he couldn’t bear to have to share her with these butterfly people who viewed love as a diversion, and marriage as a catastrophe.
sometimes he doubted whether he was as unhappy as he fancied. he searched through books to prove to himself that his case was by no means solitary—that it was the common lot of lovers. he became an admirer of the happy ending in novels. he sought for fiction-characters upon whose handling of similar situations he could pattern his conduct one writer informed him that the secret of success in love was to keep a woman guessing; another, that with blonde women a heated courting brought the best results, while with women of a darker complexion a little coldness paid excellently. all this was too calculating—too like diplomacy. he fell back on the advice of madame josephine: “don’t judge—try to understand. when a good man tries to be fair, he’s unjust.” as an atonement for the disloyalty of his research, he sent desire a needlessly large box of flowers.
“it’s only two weeks, after all,” she had said. but the two weeks had come and gone. all his plans were dependent on hers, and she seemed to be without any. already he was receiving inquiries from eden row as to when he could be expected back. he could give no more definite answer than when he had left; he procrastinated by enclosing press-cuttings and talking vaguely about taking advantage of his american opportunities. his position was delicate. he didn’t dare to use the argument with desire that she was his sole reason for remaining in new york; it would have seemed like blackmailing her into returning. meanwhile, since her letters arrived regularly, he attributed her continued absence not to lack of fondness, but to fear of facing up to a decision. he must do nothing to increase her timidity.
on several occasions he visited vashti. each time other people were present. he noticed that her eyes followed him with a curious expression of amusement and compassion. at last one afternoon he found her alone.
she was curled up on the couch by the window, wearing a pale-blue peignoir and a boudoir cap embroidered with tiny artificial roses. a novel lay face downwards on the floor beside her, and she was playing with the silky ears of twinkles, who snuggled in her lap. as he entered, she reached out her hand without rising and made a sign for him to sit beside her.
“twinkles is lonely, too. aren’t you, twinkles? we’re all waiting for our little mistress.”
she went on smiling and playing with the dog’s ears. slowly she raised her eyes.
“i can guess what you’re wishing. you’re wishing that i wore a little curl against my neck and had a beauty-patch.”
“a beauty-patch that’s a sleep-walker,” he added.
she laughed softly. “and did she tell you that? i’ve been thinking about you—expecting to hear any day that you were sailing to england.”
he shook his head. “i’m like twinkles. i’m waiting.”
vashti lifted herself from the cushions and gazed at him intently. “how long are you prepared to wait?”
“d’you mean how long till she comes back?”
“no. for her. she’s young, teddy, and she asks so much—so many things that life’ll never give her. she’s got to learn. she may keep you waiting a long, long while yet.”
“i’ll wait.” he smiled confidently.
she leant forward and kissed him. “i’m glad. if you win, she’ll be worth it.”
she went back to playing with twinkles; he watched her in silence.
with her face averted she said: “at first you thought you had only to love and she’d love you in return—wasn’t that it? with you to love her has been a mission; that’s where you’re different from other men. other men start by flirting—they intend the run-away right up to the last minute; then they find themselves caught but you—— it takes an older woman than desire to understand. you’re so impetuously in earnest, you almost frighten her. you’re such a dreamer—the way you were about the marriage-box. you always take a woman at her word; and a woman, when she’s loved, means most by the things she leaves unsaid. what happened to the marriage-box after you found me out?”
he blushed at the confession. “i burnt it.”
“ah! burnt me in effigy. that’s what hal’s done, i expect. that’s where men make mistakes; they’re so impatient. often a woman’s love begins at the point where a man’s ends. i wonder, one day will you get tired and do something like that to her?”
he wanted to ask her whether her love had begun for hal at the point where his had ended; but he said, “i was a little boy, then.”
she took his hands and made him meet her eyes. “little boys and men are alike. don’t wait at all, teddy, unless you know you’re strong enough to wait till she’s ready.”
“i am.”
“easily said. a man once told me that. there came a time when i wanted him badly; i turned round to give him all that he had asked; he was gone.”
she sank her voice. “can you go on bearing disappointment without showing anger? can you go on being generous when she hides her kindness? you may have to see her wasting her affection on all kinds of persons who don’t know its value. she may stop away from you to punish herself—she won’t tell you that; and perhaps all the time she’ll be longing to be with you. that’s the kind of girl desire is, teddy; she leaves you to guess all that’s best can you stand that?”
280
he nodded. he couldn’t trust his voice to answer.
“then, here’s a word of advice. don’t let her see that you’re too much in earnest.” she laughed, relieving the suspense. “almost like the wedding-service, wasn’t it?”
as he left, the last sight he had of her she was still sitting curled up on the couch, in her pale-blue peignoir, with the sky behind her, playing with the silky ears of twinkles snuggled asleep in her lap. she, too, was waiting. for whom? for what?
that night he wrote a letter to hal; tore it up and rewrote it. even then he hesitated. at last he decided to sleep over the wisdom of sending it.
