The talkers

Often in those days, working with his secretary, or, in the little inner office, working alone, something approaching realisation of the problems in which he was being involved would suddenly confront Stuart, leaving him dismayed.

The simpler of the problems was less disturbing. Their solution, if they were to be solved, was obvious: he could ignore the traditions of his race and drift on with little Miss Greenway as his mistress; he could challenge those traditions and marry her—after her case had been pulled through some legal knot-hole or other.

He was now aware that he had only to choose. Either choice lay outside the customs and habits of his race. The Suttons had never condescended to irregular love affairs; the Suttons did not marry ineligible women.

The basic question, however, was yet to be solved—whether this impassioned preference for little Miss Greenway was actually love. It had several of love’s ominous symptoms—all its impulse, restlessness and fever, all the familiar sieges, alarums, and excursions incident to the oldest story in the world—older even than death.

Not to see her for a day was endurable. And it was always during the first day’s separation that he doubted the genuineness of his passion. A second day brought restlessness, and time lost in freeing his thoughts of her so that other matters might be pursued with a free mind.

Then, before the third day, his vague unease became a longing. The desire to see her set in like a tide—as passionless but as inevitable as some immemorial custom of nature obeying its law.

It was this phase that made him aware of depths within himself unstirred heretofore—blind, unplumbed depths, profoundly in motion.

Always their reunion quieted these deeps in him—even in that strange phase of her when her soul seemed helplessly entangled in obscurity and her over-flushed and altered beauty warned him of the dark transition.

For he found her, sometimes, during those unreal and shadowy moments when another intelligence possessed her.

In that lovely and tragic transfiguration she no longer attempted to avoid him. On the contrary, she now called him, her changed voice alone being sufficient warning.

For they had talked it over together, sadly, in fear, consulting each other what was safest for them while the shadow of the Other One possessed her.

The boy had laid down the law, furiously. She was to call on him; never again to face this obsession recklessly out of bounds.

No more parties where, unafraid and maliciously immune, she could watch Sadoul, undaunted, and taunt him with the very lips he had altered for his own desire. No more escapades. The fever must burn itself out behind doors that opened only to him.

He was to take the brunt of it—though, in tears, she bade him remember and beware of treachery within herself—warned him that she must prove a false ally in that occult crisis—in the burning obscurity of her obsessed mind; in the faithless intent of a subtle and uncaged heart.

“There is no other way, dearest,” he said. “If there’s ever a débâcle then we crash down together.”

“And when I awake, Stuart?”

“Had you rather awake in any other arms?”

“No.... But I don’t want ever to awake that way.... Even in your arms.... What was it you told me about one of those Western states?”

“It’s necessary to establish a residence.”

“How?”

He went over it with her again—details that he spoke of with difficulty—the whole sordid legal procedure so utterly repugnant to them both, yet which held for them a miserable fascination. Also, there was Sadoul, and they did not know what he might do to fight divorce—she very certain that he would follow her—he aware that Sadoul could close her road to complete freedom and make it a drawn game.

One dark afternoon toward Christmas-tide, they had been speaking of it—an odd time to revert to so miserable a subject, for Gilda was going to have a tree for them both, and they had been dressing it.

Now she knelt beside the tree with yards of tinsel trailing from her hand, watching Stuart winding the electric wire, with its rows of tiny coloured bulbs, among the branches.

“I don’t know,” she murmured—“I think the only way is to go on as we are. Don’t you, Stuart?”

He muttered something inaudible, twisted a strand of bulb-set wire through a fragrant green branch.

“We are anything but unhappy,” she ventured. And, as he said nothing, busy with his wire among the branches: “I wonder why you care to marry me. It would not be agreeable to your family.”

He turned around: “Why do you assume that?”

“I don’t assume it, Stuart. Sadoul told me.”

“What damned business is it of Sadoul’s——”

“Please! The conversation had become general; Veronica was giving us tea; George Derring talked snobbishly about old families and social traditions. Somebody mentioned you. Sadoul etched one of his vivid portraits—a sort of composite portrait of a Sutton.... You know Sadoul is a master of trenchant English—a word is a phrase with him.... Your race lived for a hundred years when he spoke.... I was quite scared.... Then I realized that what he said was sneeringly meant for me.... That was all, Stuart.”

After a silence he resumed his task among the branches:

“A man marries to please himself,” he said in a slightly sullen voice.

“Men of your race marry within their family’s approbation.”

“Good heavens, Gilda! That dreary, stilted era is as dead as Mrs. Grundy!”

“Sadoul says its traditions never die out among such families as yours.”

That was true. He knew it. Even within himself, to his impatience and annoyance, the musty old precepts remained alive, surprising him at inopportune moments by their ridiculous virility.

“Well, Gilda,” he said, “if there remain in us absurdities, narrowness, traces of the priggish Victorian, we’re not utterly antediluvian. I do not believe for a moment that the attitude of my family would be anything but cordial to the girl I marry.”

She drew the shining strands of tinsel slowly through her slender fingers, still kneeling, not looking up.

“I was not thinking of myself,” she said.

“Of whom, then?”

“You, of course.... I would not have your pride suffer through me.”

“How do you mean?”

The girl sighed lightly. “There are so many ways—situated as you are.... I know a little about the traditions of old and conservative families.... Their traditions are part of them. They are not to be suppressed or removed. They are as much part of them as heart and lungs: they last till death.”

“You speak with familiar authority on such things,” he said, smiling.

She looked up.

“Yes,” she said. “I am a victim of tradition.”

He came over and knelt down on the floor, facing her.

“How do you mean, Gilda?” he asked curiously.

She was sorry she had spoken; that seemed evident. She said, reluctantly: “I am not yet twenty, Stuart.... I am living here in New York quite alone. Nobody related to me is visible. There seems to be nobody to vouch for me.... Do you imagine it always was so?”

“Dear, I don’t suppose so. But you never have spoken to me of these things——”

She shook her head: “No; there’s no reason to.”

“But if we should ever marry——”

“Yes, there would be a reason then.... I would not wish you to think me less than I am.”

The boy put both arms around her:

“I could not think more of you, dearest. I don’t care what were your circumstances——”

“That’s the darling thing about you, Stuart,” she said, flushing and drawing his face to hers impulsively. “You know something about me. You know vaguely about Sadoul—that once he was part of my life——But what part you don’t know, you never ask; you are just sweet and kind to me, Stuart, and I fell in love with you before I knew it—before I meant to—wanted to——”

Her fresh lips rested on his; she looked deep into his eyes.

“I didn’t think there was any future for us when I fell in love,” she said. “I didn’t think of anything. If I had I’d have been frightened.... Because, if the world had not gone so wrong with me, I ought to have met you on your own level—if destiny intended us to meet.”

“I’ve always thought that,” he said.

“Have you? You’re such a darling, Stuart. And you are not wrong.... I’d rather not talk about it—unless it ever should come true that we marry. Just believe that I am not—not less than you would wish me.... Not in any way, Stuart.”

“Can’t you tell me now?”

“I can’t bring myself—please—you see there are—others to remember—shelter—unless I were married to you—when their honour becomes yours also——”

“I understand, Gilda.”

“Do you? I am speaking of my father and mother. Unless I were married to you their tragedy could not be made a confidence between us to be guarded with our own honour by both of us.”

He nodded gravely.

“It’s as though,” she explained wistfully, “there were such a tragedy in your own family. If I were less than your wife you could not permit me to take my share in it and help guard the common honour.”

“Of course.... That I am in love with you is not enough.”

“No, dear; not even if you were my lover.”

“That’s the only thing that would ever make me doubt your quality, Gilda—that you ever could consider such a thing possible——”

“Oh, Stuart, that is the peril to me when the Other One is in possession. Because you and I are of the same sort—and there is no condescension—only the common fault—to share between equals——”

“If Sadoul really gave that Other right of way into your heart, he’s a devil incarnate,” said Stuart, slowly.

“He did it because he wanted me at any cost. And it has cost him his last chance.... But you, Stuart!—you know that I’d be miserable, humiliated, heartbroken, if I were your mistress—no matter how much I was in love? It’s only when the Other One is in possession——” She dropped her face on his breast, clung so, closely.

“I trust you so,” she whispered, “—even when the dark transition comes—even when I am in your arms and the Other One looks at you out of my eyes——”

A quick little sob cut her short; she rested one hand on his shoulder, sprang to her feet, whisked away a tear, laughed uncertainly.

“Are we going to dress our tree? Or make each other unhappy——”

“We’re going to dress this jolly little tree,” he said, getting to his feet.

She brought a big pasteboard box full of brilliant, flimsy things—stars, globes, shining shapes of various patterns to dangle from the branches. He hung them subject to her approval, and they became very busy again.

“Tell me,” he said, “what do you do over there at Pockman’s laboratory when you go?”

“Oh, it’s a nuisance, Stuart. Pockman fusses around. He has a lot of charts—I don’t understand them. It seems that it’s important, scientifically, for him to keep me under observation for a while. He takes measurements, pressures, all sorts of records—do you know I’ve grown a quarter of an inch since you first met me?”

“Good heavens, no!”

“I have! Also, I’m informed that I’m superbly healthy, and—if you please, monsieur—rather unusually symmetrical. Now, may I expect a more respectful attitude from you?”

“Am I lacking dear?”

“You never ask leave to kiss me.”

He started toward her; she fled around the tree; taunted him; consented at last to kiss him through the branches; and came around to join him with her box of baubles.

“It’s going to be charming!” she exclaimed, surveying the glistening boughs laden with glittering objects and striped canes of candy. “Stuart, there’s only one thing I want you to give me for Christmas.”

“What’s that, darling?”

“A doll.”

“All right. I’ll give you a hum-dinger——”

“No! I want an old-fashioned French doll of wax. I want her eyes to open and shut. I should like to have her say ‘Ma-ma!’ in a squeaky voice when her tummy is gently indented. Will you give me that kind?”

“You bet, sweetheart!”

“Thank you. What do you wish, Stuart?” she added. “If you say anything sentimental I’ll throw this green globe at you!”

“Well, then”—he meditated for a moment—“give me a toy shovel and pail so I can transplant little pine trees this spring.”

“Shovel and pail,” she repeated, making a mental note. The dressing of the tree was resumed. Presently she said: “When do you expect to go North?”

“Not until the ground thaws.”

“It must be very lovely up there where all your tiny new forests are growing.”

“It’s pretty except where it’s been lumbered. We’re planting that by degrees. And the standing timber, of course, is beautiful.”

“It must be,” she said, with an unconscious sigh.

“Would you like to come with me?” he said.

“Darling!” she protested with an enchanting smile.

“You mean the Grundy?”

“I do. You said she was dead, but I knew you were mistaken.”

“Would you really like to come?”

“I’d adore it. But how?”

“There’s Veronica——”

“Oh, Stuart, that wouldn’t be wise. You know what they’d all think—Katharine Ashley, Frances Hazlet—and then the men——”

“Of course,” he said, “we’ve got to care what is said about you.... If we could get into my car and just beat it some day, nobody would be the wiser; and you and I know we’re all right——”

“That,” she said quite seriously, “is the nuisance of not being married. And—oh, Stuart!—if ever you wanted to marry me afterward and your family found out!”

“Awkward,” he admitted.

“What a perfectly beastly nuisance not to be married!” exclaimed the girl. “Think of the things we could do, Stuart. Have you any idea how my heart sinks when you have to go home, and I lock the door and come back here alone—thinking of a million things I forgot to tell you——”

“Do you, dear?”

“Yes. Don’t you feel that way? Or are you pig enough not to?”

“Don’t you suppose I miss you as much as you do me?”

“I don’t know.... I want you desperately, sometimes. A woman’s different, I suppose.... I don’t think any woman in love is absolutely self-sufficient.... A man in love, I fancy, is not so dependent.... A girl admits a companion to her mind and heart for the first time in her life when she falls in love.... A man has other comradeships which stave off loneliness of mind—of heart, too, perhaps.... It’s curious—and rather sad.... No woman ever completely filled her lover’s mind. No lover but completely fills the mental and sentimental life of any girl who really loves.”

The boy hung the last specimen of papier-maché fruit upon the tree, came around and took the girl’s idle hands in his.

“Do you think I’m in love with you, Gilda?”

“I—think so.”

“Are you in love with me?”

“Yes, I know it. You see, Stuart, it’s merely the difference between knowledge and belief—the fundamental difference between our sexes. Belief satisfies us; knowledge alone satisfies you.” She laughed, rested her lips lightly on his chin. “So—we both are satisfied.”

They stood smiling at each other.

“I’ll go home and dress and we’ll dine at——”

“Dear! Freda has such a nice dinner!”

“Don’t you want to see a show——”

“No!”

“Don’t you want——”

“No. Are you tired of me?”

“You lovely little thing——”

“Let’s stay with our tree. I adore it. I’ll play for you, after dinner.... And we can read more of those vapid, egotistical memoirs——”

“That impossible woman!”

“Do you know,” said Gilda, thoughtfully, “she really is not impossible. She’s quite nice and human—even sweet to people she likes.”

“You speak as if you knew her,” he said.

“I do——” The girl flushed as though recollecting herself, gave him a confused look.

“You know the Countess of Wyvern, Gilda?”

“Yes,” she said in a low voice. There was a silence. She lifted distressed eyes to his, looked elsewhere, stood nervously twisting her fingers.

“Lady Wyvern is—a relative,” she murmured.

She had turned partly away. Now she went to the mantel and stood looking at the clock.

“If you have anything to do before dinner,” she said over her shoulder—“I think I had better see what Freda is about——”

She turned on her boudoir and bathroom lights for him and continued on through the dining-room toward the kitchen.