The talkers

When Sutton came out on Fifty-seventh Street a raw wind was blowing from the river. Whether from this or from reaction the boy was shivering in his overcoat; and he turned up the collar around his pinched and bloodless face.

There was no vehicle to be seen; he walked westward along the wide, dreary street, bisected at intervals by filthy, rusting elevated structures and by desolate avenues through which dust whirled. Swarms of dingy people, shabby and purposeless as dirty, wind-driven leaves, eddied about the streets.

Half-frozen children, their faces masked or smeared with rouge and charcoal, drifted hither and thither, whining and begging for New Year’s alms.

He hailed a taxi, at last, and drove to Thirty-fifth Street. Freda opened the door and went back to her kitchen. The place was still dusky, shades lowered, curtains drawn.

Again he passed by the ghostly Christmas tree, with its festoons of tinsel and its unlighted bulbs, and knocked at her bedroom door.

He heard her stir, heard a faint response, went in. She sat up sleepily, gave him a confused glance, stifled a yawn with the back of her hand.

But, in her clearing consciousness, now, he saw her own self looking at him out of sweetly disconcerted eyes.

“Stuart,” she said, “this is rather casual of us, isn’t it?——” But already she was remembering; the humourously uneasy expression faded from her features. She pushed aside her hair, gazed at him, then her face flushed to her throat, and her furtive gaze stole fearfully around the disordered room.

“Oh, my God!” she whispered to herself, and took her face between her snowy hands.

She remained so in the chill of the semi-dusk, her knees drawn up to her chin, her face dropped between her hands, unstirring, silent.

There was some wood by the hearth, kindling, last evening’s paper still folded.

He built a fire, went into the bath-room and turned the hot water into the tub.

When he came out he stood looking at her for a moment.

“We’ll talk it over when you are ready, Gilda. Don’t worry; we’ll fix it. You must never go through this again.”

He went out, closing the bedroom door, rid himself of hat and overcoat, walked into the kitchen.

“Could we have breakfast in an hour?” he asked. “That’s fine, Freda. We’ll have it on a card-table in the living-room.”

The living-room, evidently, had been swept and dusted, and Gilda’s derelict evening garments removed.

He raised the shades and drew the curtains. A gleam of wintry sunshine struck the wall.

The fire being laid, he set a match to it, seated himself to collect his thoughts.

Reaction had brought that weariness for which rest seems to be no balm. His tired mind seemed like some infernal machine which went on running after all else had run down.

It continued hatching out thought—no use trying to stop it, quiet it, ignore the hellish monotony of its functioning. He had to follow the record of the machinery, endlessly committing the same words, the same scenes to the custody of his tired brain.

The mantel clock timed the wearying reiteration; the flames on the hearth asked the same questions and answered them softly, lightly, inexorably. To what had his chance encounter with this girl brought him? It had now brought him to the verge of murder.

Because he loved her? Yes, evidently. Because he loved her enough to lay down his own life for her happiness? Evidently. Then he really loved her? It seemed so. If there was no other way to help her he was going to kill a man for her sake. And pay the penalty.... And permit his father and mother to share the penalty?

Thought went on burrowing through his brain to find a way out of it. There was no way out, if he killed Sadoul.

There was no way out for Gilda, either, unless Sadoul held his hand—unless he should be able and willing to undo what he had done toward her spiritual destruction.

The boy stared, hot-eyed, at the flames.

Freda opened and placed a card table on wabbly legs. In a few minutes she brought breakfast. Gilda entered, fresh from the bath, her skin all roses and snow and her red-gold hair in two braids.

She stole a shamed look at Stuart as he set a chair for her by the hearth. They had little appetite, pretended to none. Freda took away table and tray and closed the door.

The girl sank back in her deep chair, rested her chin on one hand and looked steadily at the fire. The silk sleeve of her boudoir wrap fell to the elbow.

“Tell me, Gilda,” said the boy in a low voice.

“Yes.” Her gaze never left the fire. “I’ll tell you, Stuart.... I hadn’t slept well. I was a little restless; but I didn’t think it was because of the Other One. Still, I wanted you—I wanted you to come early.... Because it didn’t seem as though I—I could endure my love for you, alone.

“You were in my mind, in every breath I drew, in every heart-beat.... It seemed to become so overwhelming.... Then that strange buoyancy came over me; contact, touch of earth, consciousness of material ebbed.... That flame-like lightness was all there seemed to be of me.... Even then it all seemed too heavenly to fear.... I was lying on the couch.... I think my soul stood a little way from me. Over by the second window.... It’s hard to remember. I can’t remember, in fact.... Only my heart had been looking out of that second window from where it would be possible to see your taxi when you arrived....”

Her bright head dropped on her hand, and her eyes grew tragic.

“When I realised that the Other was in possession I got up in a dazed way. My heart was already in her control—I felt the fire stealing through my veins. But I thought my mind was still clear. I tried to pray.... And sat up laughing, reckless, blind, deaf to everything——”

She fell silent, dropped her hands in her lap and fell to turning a black pearl ring that she sometimes wore.

“Shall I tell you where I went?” she asked, intent on her ring.

“I have heard.”

She gave him a startled glance.

“Pockman told me,” he said in a dull voice.

The hot colour stained her to the forehead. Twisting her slim fingers, fighting to control her voice, she said:

“If a girl can become so depraved is—is it worth your while to try to hold her?”

“Are you depraved, Gilda?”

“Not utterly ... so far.”

“Were you intoxicated?”

“Yes.”

The boy’s face had gone very white.

“What happened?”

“Nothing I dare not tell you.”

He looked into her eyes.

“There are two ways out of this for you,” he said. “Either Sadoul must undo what he has done to you, or——”

After a pause: “He will not help me. What is the other way?” she asked. And suddenly understood what he meant.

Presently she fell to shivering, placed her feet on the fender. His eyes rested on them. They were very white in the sandals.

“What good would it do me?” she asked, trembling. “Would it help if you destroyed yourself and your father and mother? There are other ways.”

“What ways?”

“One, anyhow. Do you think I’d let you destroy yourself to save me? I’d rather give myself to you, innocence, evil, and all, and take the consequences!”

“Do you think it makes a difference how your spiritual destruction is wrought?” he demanded hotly.

“Yes! The difference is that it’s you, not Sadoul. I’d rather kill myself.... I shall, if you talk that way——”

“Gilda——”

“I shall, I tell you. My physical virtue and bodily purity are not worth murder, if my mind is right. And my mind is right—my real mind. You cannot make it more upright by shooting Sadoul and ruining yourself and your family’s honour.”

“What do you expect me to do?” he said with an ugly light in his eyes, “—sit by complacently and see you go to hell?”

“Do you want to go, too, and leave your people to die under the disgrace?”

The boy gave her an agonized look, and she gave him a white and terrible look in return.

“There’s another way,” she said harshly. “You can step out of my life—or I can step out of yours.”

His visage grew ghastly.

“Either that, or I become your mistress.... Or, if you’re afraid I’d be too unhappy, I’ll go away, or kill myself——”

She leaned forward, twisting her fingers convulsively, her voice scarcely controlled:

“If you think you are in love, I’ll prove I love you better. If your conscience resents me, unmarried to you, send me away. I’ll go. It’ll hurt you. But you’ll get well and marry somebody——”

“Don’t!—Gilda——”

“Well, then, what? What? Tell me! It’s your agony. You can’t go on—can’t continue. Killing Sadoul won’t help. I’m trying to find something to help you. Don’t you understand? I’m trying to think of something to take away pain from you!”

“It isn’t that——”

“It is! I can stand anything. When a girl loves as I love she can stand anything. It’s love that keeps one dauntless. If you were dead, it would keep my head up. If you were my lover—and my pride agonising within me—it would keep my head high, and my heart in my eyes for you to see where love dwells!——”

She got up, flushed, trembling, excited, took a step or two past the tree, turned and came back to confront him.

“I don’t ask you to look out for me,” she said. “I can do that. It is you who need aid, who need counsel, education in the courage of love. If you want me you shall have me. If it would help you to have me go, I’ll go. It’s for you to find out and tell me what to do for you.”

He got up, dumb, crimson to his temples, confused and scorched by the girl’s fiery outburst. Something in his face excited her compassion, and she went on recklessly, feeling the tears in her eyes and throat:

“You have said to me that men of your race are not accustomed to defy convention. You must not think that I would defy it, lightly. What do you suppose brought me here to New York, friendless, alone? Defiance of age-old law. But not by me.

“That is why I never had a home. All the misery of my childhood and youth arose from that. And do you think I would defy lightly the law that still revenges itself on a girl because the dead are beyond its punishment?”

The boy leaned heavily on the mantel, his face buried on his arm.

“There’s no way out of it,” he said.

“The way out of it is what you choose to have me do.” She came nearer, almost blinded by tears:

“There remains the last hope of all—to ask the Christ, who gave me resurrection, to stand by us, now.... If you wouldn’t mind praying beside my bed—with me——”

He looked up; she could scarcely see, holding out one hand toward him.

They went into her room together, settled to their knees beside each other. Her low, trembling voice drove all other thought out of his mind.

“O God,” she whispered, “let Stuart be my husband, somehow—so that if I misbehave it will be with him—and let me marry him—unless it would make him unhappy and ashamed, or alienate him from his parents.... Amen.”