XI
AN INTERLUDE
All this happened on a Saturday, and Paul had a full day to think it over. He went back to his work on Monday, and, for reasons he did not stop to define, not only chose the same place, but even had the weakness to try to keep the desk next it free by depositing his hat and gloves there. It would be hard to say what he expected. He had looked at the address more carefully when he was sending back the umbrella, and it confirmed the impression he had already received from the girl's clothes and casual, assured manner. She was some daughter of a good family, he felt sure, guarded and checked, and so the more inclined to kick over the traces when away from watchful home eyes. Had he been an Englishman the very perfection of her turnout might have still further puzzled him, and he might have been inclined to speculate as to how so young a girl came by all the rings she wore; far too many, though they were only pretty baubles. But Ingram came from a country where beauty does not wait on marriage for its adornment. He was even ignorant that a set has arisen there, the most artificial and utterly contemptible, surely, in the world, which has sacrificed the healthy freedom that was its birthright, to ape the social hypocrisies and superstitions that Europe is outgrowing.
Anyway, she had made him feel very old, and for the moment out of conceit with his self-imposed tasks, just as some wild, free creature of fur or feather encountered on a holiday walk in the country might distaste any one of us with his own humdrum workaday life. And he had the same further impulse that the wayfarer may have had to arrest the busy, aimless errand, close his hand on the furry flank—prison the fluttering wings, and, having made the creature share his captivity a moment, to open his fingers and let the throbbing quarry go free. A desire so innocent—so purely intellectual, that it scarcely deserves the hard name of the lust of the eye, and has nothing whatever in common with the lusts of the flesh.
It must be remembered also, to account for his unusual and dangerous mood, that just about this time he had put his manuscript into my hands. No period is so demoralizing mentally as one during which we have relaxed our own efforts, and are indulging in the vague hope of some good to come to us through other people's.
Tuesday—Wednesday passed. Paul ceased to look for the girl. Why should he? Hadn't she said she was not coming back. And what a fool he was even to desire it. She was a pretty memory; he, a writer, should know the value of such impressions, the pity of disturbing them. Suppose he met her again, was it likely the glamour of the first encounter would survive? Apart from thebizarrerieof her quaint, childish confidences, she had said really nothing that was worth remembering. On a second meeting he would be sure to find her trivial and vulgar. Even the pretty manner was probably a trick she had tried elsewhere, and found "fetching." Toward the end of the week he happened to be reading, in the course of his work, the diary of a man some of whose blood, according to family tradition, ran in his own veins: the daily journal of Cotton Mather. Skimming through the record of that dark, tortured soul, he lit upon the curious passage wherein the middle-aged widower, with the naïve self-revelation that sweetens his persecuting memory, deplores the inroads which a handsome young pupil to whom he is teaching Latin is making in his self-respect. "The Lord," groans Mather, piously, "deliver me from this ingenious child!" Paul gave such a sudden laugh that his neighbors looked at him in wonder. "Bravo, Cousin Cotton!" he said to himself. "I'm not proud of you, but I'll forgive you a lot for that." He felt immensely relieved. Who has not known such a foolish moment of light-heartedness, when something we have read or heard seems to set us right with ourselves? "The Lord deliver me from this ingenious child!"
That night after dinner he lit a cigar and strolled westward. He found Number Eleven Suffolk Square easily enough. It was a big, double-fronted house of cream-colored stucco, with wide steps and a pillared porch. It happened just then that all three floors were lit up. This illumination gave the house a festive appearance and exaggerated its opulent aspect. Against the amber colored blinds the pattern of handsome lace curtains stood out in bold silhouette. The kitchen blinds had not been lowered and Paul noted three maid-servants, two of them in black dresses and caps with long white streamers. On the other side of the area, across another lighted window, red curtains were drawn. More servants, probably—butler, coachman, and footman. He thought of his own home in far Massachusetts; the "hired help" who came to table with them; his own chapped wrists; the dying mother, rolling out pastry on the low table to which they wheeled her chair. A feeling of fierce camaraderie with the toilers, the little ones of the earth, possessed him; a hatred for luxury and the parade of wealth. He took three or four turns before the house, and went away. Before he left the square, however, he kissed his hand toward Number Eleven. "Good-bye, Fenella," he said. "You're a kind-hearted baby, but I guess the folks in that house will know how to spoil it when the time comes."