She rested her hand upon his arm and looked up at him timidly with an expression that was more than pity. The leaves of the park fluttered and the flakes of sunlight fell.
“If I wasn’t going——” The rumble of London shook the heavy summer stillness, hinting at adventures awaiting their exploring. “If only I wasn’t going—— I’m beginning to like you most awfully, the way I did once when—— But I must go. I can’t help it You’ll stay to breakfast, won’t you? Then we can drive to the station together.”
“I’d like to. But would they like it?”
“Who? Fluffy and Horace? I don’t suppose so.”
“Then breakfast with me somewhere else?”
She played with the temptation, raising his expectations. Then, “No. I’ve too much to do—packing and all sorts of things. Perhaps you’re right We’d be awkward with each other before them. We’d better say ’Good-by’ now.”
But she didn’t say it. Her hand still rested on his arm and the gold-green leaves of the park fluttered.
“I can’t let you go like this,” he whispered hoarsely.
“No. I know it. But what can we do? Poor you! I’m so sorry.”
Her mood changed swiftly. “Oh, how stupid we are! Give me a pencil and some paper. Now put your foot on the step of the car and make a table for me.”
As she stooped to his knee to write, her hair fell back, exposing the whiteness of her neck. The familiarity with which she was filling these last moments sent all his dreams soaring. The daintiness, the slimness, the elfin beauty of her quickened his longing. His instinct told him that she was hoping that he would kiss her; but he guessed that, if he did, she would repulse him. “You go too fast for me,” she had said. Once again his imagination wove a magic garment and flung it about her shoulders. There was no one like her. She was called Desire because she was desired. If love could compel love, she should come into his life. He vowed to himself that he would win her.
“There.”
As he took the paper from her, their fingers touched and clung together. “What’s this? Your New York address? You mean that we can write to each other?”
Her eyes mocked his trouble with tenderness. “That wasn’t what I meant.”
“Then what?”
“That you’ll know where to find me when you come to America.”
“But I can’t I——”
She broke from him and ran up the steps. As she crossed the threshold she let her cloak slip from her. He saw again for one fleeting moment her sandaled feet and her pageant costume.
The door was closing. Before it shut she kissed the tips of her fingers to him.
“You can if you really care.”
He eyed the windows furtively, hoping to catch her peering out. He commenced to tinker with his engine to give himself an excuse for delaying. Why hadn’t he accepted her breakfast invitation? Without her he felt utterly desolate.
Perhaps, if he stayed there long enough, she would come to him. The door would open and he would hear her saying shyly, “Ha! So it did break down!” Of course the sensible thing to do would be to walk boldly up the steps and ask for her. But love prefers strategy.
A man came strolling along the terrace. He was in gray flannels, wore a straw hat and was swinging a cane jauntily. He had a distinct waist-line and humorous blue eyes. He was the kind of man who keeps a valet.
“Hulloa! Something wrong?”
Teddy unstooped his shoulders. “Nothing much. Nothing that I can’t put right.”
“Well, I’m going in here.” The man glanced across his shoulder at the house. “If it’s water you want or anything like that, or if you’d care to use the phone——”
Teddy flushed scarlet beneath his tan. So this cheerful looking person was Horace who, cooperating with Fluffy, had set an example that had cheapened all love’s values?
“I won’t trouble you. Thanks all the same.”
Had he dared, he would have accepted the proffered assistance. But Desire would guess; they all would guess that he had acted a lie to gain an entrance. Contempt for the foolishness of his situation made him hurry. The car made a miraculous recovery—so miraculous that the blue eyes twinkled with dawning knowledge.
“Come a long way to judge from the dust! From Glastonbury, perhaps?”
Teddy jumped to the seat and seized the wheel. “Yes, from Glastonbury,” he said hastily.
As he drove away he muttered, “Played me like a trout! He’s no cause to laugh when he’s been refused himself.”
From the end of the terrace, he glanced back. The man, with leisurely self-possession, was entering the house. He felt for him the impotent envy that Dives in torment felt, when he saw Lazarus lying on Abraham’s bosom. He tried to jeer himself out of his melancholy. “I’m very young,” he kept saying. But when he imagined the party of three at breakfast, he could have wept.
Now that she had vanished, he remembered only her allurement. Her faults became attractions: her coldness was modesty; her defense of Fluffy, loyalty; her unreasonable request that he should come to America, love. What girl would expect a man to do that unless she loved him?
The reality of his predicament began to grow upon him. This wasn’t a romance or a dream he had invented; it had happened.
In a shadowed spot, overlooking the canal, he halted the car. He must think matters out—must get a grip on himself before he went further. Water-carts were going up and down. Well-groomed men were walking briskly through the park on their way to business. Boys and girls on bicycles passed him, going out by way of Hampstead for a day in the country. The absolute normality of life, its level orderliness, thrust itself upon him. He looked at the sedate rows of houses, showing up substantially behind sun-drenched branches. He saw their window-boxes, their whitened doorsteps, their general appearance of permanency. The men who lived in those houses wouldn’t say to a girl, “I love you,” in the first half-dozen hours of acquaintance. But neither would the girls say to a seven-hour-old lover, “Come to America”; they wouldn’t even say, “Run down to Southend,” for fear of being thought forward.
How distorted the views seemed to him now that he had held on the journey up from Glastonbury! They were the result of moonlight and of the pageant emotions stirred by a medieval world. How preposterously he had acted!
He tried to put himself in Desire’s place that he might judge her fairly. Irresponsible friends send her a telegram, saying that a man is coming to fetch her. Of course she believes that the man is to be trusted; but the first thing he does is to make love. In spite of that, she has to go with him; he is her one chance of getting to London. He at once commences to take advantage of her; she gets frightened and pretends to go to sleep in order to escape him. In the morning she discovers that he’s an old friend, but there’s too little time to replace the bad impression. At the last moment she feels sorry for him—begins to feel that she really does care for him; so she says the only thing possible under the circumstances, “Come to America.”
Obviously she wasn’t going to give herself away all at once. In that she had been wise, for, though he had wanted her to, he knew that if she had, she would have lowered her value.
But he wished she had shown more curiosity. She’d talked all about herself and hadn’t asked him a single question. She hadn’t even called him by his name—not once.
Then the cloud of his depression lifted. The truth came home to him in a flash: all these complaints and this unhappiness were proofs positive that at last he was in love. The splendor of the thought thrilled him—in love. The curtain had gone up. His long period of lonely waiting was ended. For him the greatest drama that two souls can stage had begun. Whither it would lead he could not guess. Everything was a blank except the present, and that was filled with an aching happiness. She was going from him. Already she was out of sight and sound; in a few hours he would be cut off from all communication with her. Yet he was happy in the knowledge that, however uncertain he might be of her, he belonged to her irrevocably. He longed to give himself to her service in complete self-surrender. His work, his ambitions, everything he was or could be, must be a gift for her. But how to make her understand this, while there was yet time?
He drove out of the park, passing by her house. Of her there was no sign. He wondered what they were doing in there. Was the man with the blue eyes taking his place and helping to strap her trunks? Or was he making love to Fluffy, while Desire looked on wistfully and wished—wished what he himself was wishing?
“You were a little judging?”
Yes, he had been judging. It had all taken place so differently from anything that he had conjectured. She herself was so different from the Desire he had imagined. All these years he had been preparing for her coming, but to her his coming had been an accident. That had hurt—hurt his pride, to have to acknowledge that she had almost forgotten the old kindnesses. And then she had tantalized him—-had taken a pleasure in treating him lightly. Perhaps all girls did that; it might be their way of defending themselves. Probably she hadn’t meant one half of what she had said, and had been trying to shock him. He couldn’t bear that she should think him narrow or censorious. The more he condemned himself, the more he longed to convince her of his breadth and generosity.
He found a florist’s and ordered a quantity of flowers.
“Shall I enclose your card, sir?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
He was afraid that, if she knew for certain they were from him, she might not accept them.
“The lady’s leaving Euston on the boat-train for Liverpool, so you must get them to her at once.”
“You shall see the boy start, sir. Going on a liner, is the lady, sir?”
“Yes, to America.”
“Then, may I make a suggestion?” Desire would have said that the florist was very understanding; he rubbed his hands and looked out of the window to avoid any needless causing of embarrassment. “If I might make a suggestion, sir, I would say it would be very nice to send the lady seven bouquets—one for every day of the voyage.”
“But can it be done? I mean, will the flowers keep fresh?”
“Oh, yes, sir. It’s quite the regular thing. We pack them in seven boxes and we mark each box for the day on which it’s to be opened. We send instructions with them for the lady to give to the purser, to keep them on ice. Usually we slip five shillings into the envelope with the instructions. Then the lady finds her bouquet waiting for her on her plate each morning with her breakfast. The idea is that she’ll think of the gentleman who sent them.” This florist understood too much. He treated love as a thing that happened every day, which, of course, it didn’t. Teddy assumed an off-hand manner. “If it won’t take too long to make up the bouquets, I’ll have them as well.”
“As well as the cut flowers?”
“Yes.”
He helped to select the rosebuds, orchids and violets that were to lie against her breast It gave him a comforting sense of nearness to her. When the man’s back was turned he stooped to catch their fragrance and brushed his lips against their petals. Perhaps she might do the same, and her lips would touch the flowers where his had touched. By subtler words than language they would explain to her his love. When she landed in that far-away New York, he would be with her, for the flowers would have kept his memory fresh.
“Certain you won’t send your card, sir? It’s quite etiquette, I assure you.”
He shook his head irritably. The man took the hint and became absorbed in his own affairs. The boxes were tied up, the bill settled. Teddy watched the boy bicycle away on his errand and envied him the privilege of ringing her door-bell.
Breakfast! He hadn’t had any. He was too excited to feel hungry. He didn’t want to go home yet; he’d have to explain the abrupt ending of his holiday. He was trying to make up his mind to go to the station to see her off. As he drove about, killing time, he came to Trafalgar Square. That made him think of Cockspur Street and the shipping offices. He pulled up at Ocean House to find out what boats were sailing on that day. There were three of them, any one of which might be hers. A mad whim took him. Of course it was out of the question that he should go to America. How could he explain such a voyage to his parents? He couldn’t say, “I met Desire for a handful of hours and I’m in love.” Besides, he would never let any one suspect that he was in love. He wouldn’t even be able to mention his night ride from Glastonbury. It would sound improper to people who weren’t romance-people. He could see the pained look that would steal into his mother’s eyes if he told her. Nevertheless, although it was quite impossible, he asked for a list of sailings and made inquiries as to fares.
Then he drove to Gatti’s for breakfast and a general tidy-up. Something was the matter with the mirrors this morning. He saw himself with humble displeasure. Until he had met Desire, he had felt perfectly contented with his appearance; he had found nothing in it at which to take offense. But now he began to have a growing sense of injury against the Almighty. As he sat in the mirrored room, waiting for his meal to be served, his reflections watched him from half-a-dozen angles. They seemed to be saying to him, “Poor chap! May as well face up to the fact. This is how you look; and you expect her to love you.”
He compared himself with her. He thought of her eyes, her lips, her hair, the grace of her figure, the wonderful smallness of her hands. Her voice came back to him—the sultry, emotional, coaxing way she had of using it The arch self-composure of her manner came back—the glances half-mocking, half-tender which she knew how to dart from under her long lashes. She was more elf than woman.
All her actions and speech were unconsciously calculated to win affection. Her beauty was without blemish; the memory of her filled him with self-ridicule. He regarded himself in the mirrors with sorrowful despising. His face was too long, his eyes too hollow, his mouth too sensitive—nothing was right. How could she ever bring herself to love him? How monstrous it seemed to him now that he should have dared to criticize her! There was only one way to win her approbation—to make her admire his talent A thought struck him. Leaving his meal untasted, he ran out in search of a bookshop.
“A copy ofLife Till Twenty-One. Yes, by Theodore Gurney. Can you deliver it?... No, that’s too late. It’s got to be there by eleven. If you can send a boy now, I’ll give him half-a-crown for his trouble. I’ll drive him in my car to within a hundred yards of the house. It’s most important. The people who want it are sailing for America.”
As the shopman wrapped it up, he remarked, “You were in luck to get a copy. There’s been a run on it. The publishers are out of stock. This is our last one.”
Once again he came within sight of her house. At a discreet distance he set his messenger down and saw the book delivered. His heart fluttered as the door opened; she might—it was just possible—she might come out. But no, all he had was a fleeting glimpse of the maid in the white cap and apron.
The moment the deed was done, he was assailed by trepidations. It might seem egotistical to her, bad taste, vaunting. He could almost hear her laughing. Oh, well, if she troubled to read it—and surely she would do that out of curiosity—she would learn exactly how much she had meant to him. She would see her own face looking out from the pen-and-ink drawings that dodged up and down the margins.
Within the next hour he sent her three telegrams. The first simply gave his address in Eden Row. The second said, “Please write to me.” The third was a bold optimism, “Perhaps coming.” After that he had to stop, for the time was approaching when she would be leaving for the station. The signing of the telegrams gave him much difficulty. The first bore his signature in full, “Theodore Gurney”; the next was less formal, “Theodore”; the last touched the chord of memory, “Teddy.” His difficulty had arisen because he couldn’t remember that she had called him anything.
She lived in his thoughts as a phantom—too little as a creature of flesh and blood. Within the brief space that had elapsed since he had touched her, she had become again a faery’s child. The sound of her laughter was in his ears. He imagined how her finger had gone up to her mouth and the babies had come into her eyes, each time the bell had rung and something fresh had been handed in to her. “Very queer and dear of him,” she had said—something like that.
It was nearly twelve. He was torn between his anxiety to see her and his shyness at intruding. If he had had only her to face, he would have gone to Euston; but she’d be surrounded by friends. When it was too late, he cursed his lack of enterprise.
Perhaps she had sent him an answer to his telegrams. He hurried back to Eden Row. As he came in sight of the tree-shadowed street, with the river gleaming along its length and the staid, sleepy houses lining its pavement, the calm normality of an orderly world again accused him. To have suggested to Eden Row a trip to America merely to see a girl would have sounded like an affront to its sanity. As he passed by Orchid Lodge, the carriage-and-pair was waiting for Mrs. Sheerug to come out. For fifteen years she had been going through the same curriculum of self-imposed duties—playing her harp, working at her tapestries, scattering her philanthropies. How could he say to her, “I’m going to America,” without stating an adequate reason?
His mother met him in the hall. “Why, Teddy, back! What’s the matter? You didn’t send us warning.”
“I got tired of roving,” he said. “Has anything come?”
“Come! No. I forwarded your last letters to Glastonbury. I thought you were to be there this morning.”
“So I was to have been, but—I changed my mind suddenly.”
“You look awfully tired.”
“I am.” He forced a laugh. “I haven’t slept. I drove all night for the fun of it. I think I’ll go and lie down.” In the room where he had passed his boyhood dreaming of her, he sat down to wait for her message. He looked out of the window. How unaltered everything was, and yet how different! The pigeons fluttered. In the studio at the bottom of the garden he could make out the figure of his father, standing before his easel. Across the wall, Mr. Yaffon carried cans of water back and forth among his flowers. He remembered the great dread he had had that nothing would ever happen. And now it had happened—money, reputation, and at last Desire. He ought to be feeling immensely glad; he was in love—the make-believe passions of childhood on which he had fed his imagination were ended. The real thing had come. If he could only have one sign from her that she cared——
He listened. Every time he heard the bell ring he went out on to the landing and called, “Anything for me? What is it?”
Afternoon lengthened out. He manufactured reasons for her silence. She had probably intended to telegraph him from Euston, but had been rushed at the last minute. She would do it from Liverpool before she sailed. That would mean that he would hear from her by seven. Anyway she had his flowers and she had his book—so many things to remind her of him. He pictured her curled up in a corner of the railway-carriage, blind to the flying country, deaf to what was going on about her, smiling over the pages ofLife Till Twenty-One, and recognizing what poetry he had brought to his loving of her. She wouldn’t be hard on him any longer for his behavior on the ride from Glastonbury. She would understand why he hadn’t liked her to speak of love as though it were flirtation. Perhaps already she was feeling a little proud of him—nearly as proud as he felt of her.
Seven struck on the clock downstairs. Eight, nine, ten! No message would come till morning now; but he would not let himself believe that she had not sent one. Probably she had given it to Horace, and he had slipped it into his pocket and forgotten. Something like that! Or else, being a girl and afraid to appear forward, she would write a letter on the ship and send it ashore by the pilot. A letter would seem to her so much less important than a telegram.
His mother looked in on her way to bed. “Still up? You’ve been hiding all evening. What have you been doing? Working?”
She slipped her arm about his neck and laid her face against his cheek. She was trying to sympathize—trying to draw him out. What did she suspect? Instinctively he barricaded his privacy. He felt a cruel shame that his secret should be guessed. Why he should feel ashamed of love—of love which was so beautiful—he could not tell. “What have you been doing, Teddy?”
He smiled cheerfully. “Doing! I’ve had an idea. A good one. I’ve been thinking it out.”
“For your next book?”
“Perhaps.”
When she was gone, he turned out his light. He knew she would be watching for its glow against the trees. If she did not see it, she would believe him sleeping and her mind would be at rest. Then he seated himself by the open window in the darkness.
He thought of Vashti, who had not married Hal. Did Desire know that her mother had not married? He remembered the horror he had felt when he had learnt that fact—the chivalrous pity for Desire it had aroused. It was then that he had planned, when he became a man, to help her in the paying of the price. And now——
He smiled frowningly. She didn’t seem to need his help. She was the happiest, most radiant person he had ever met. She had found the intenser world, for which he had always been searching—the world which is forever somewhere else. His world—his poor little world, which he had tried to make so fine that he might offer it to her—his world seemed dull in comparison.
“Come to America,” she had said, as though the people she knew were those lucky persons who are at all times free to travel, and never need to trouble about expense. It hadn’t seemed to enter her head that he might have obligations or a living to earn. She hadn’t even inquired; she had just said, “Come to America,” as another might say, “If you care to call, you’ll find me at home on Fridays.”
He adored her the more, as is the way with lovers, for the magnificent inconsequence of her request. It was the standard she set for his need of her—the proof she required. The more he thought, the more certain he was of that.
Next morning brought neither telegram nor letter. All day he stayed at home, fearing that, if he went out, something might arrive in his absence. Her silence drove him to distraction. Could it be that she was offended? Was she annoyed because he had put her into a book? Had she expected him to turn up at Euston for a final farewell? He must get some word to her. There were three ships, any one of which might be carrying her. He went out that evening and addressed a wireless message to her on each of them: “Thinking of you. Longing to hear from you. Love.” He felt very discomforted when the clerk, before accepting them, insisted on reading them over aloud. Again he hoped vainly that she might guess his suspense—perhaps gauge his by her own—and return a wireless. Nothing.
The next three weeks were the longest in his memory. He became an expert on transatlantic sailings. Every day he covered several pages to her. He filled them with sketches; he put into them all the emotion and cleverness of which he was capable. He said all the tender and witty things he had intended to say to her when they met.
He burlesqued his own shyness. He recalled happenings of the old farmhouse days which even he had all but forgotten. As an artist he knew that he was outdoing himself. His letters were masterpieces. He laughed and cried over some of the passages in the same breath. They couldn’t fail to move her. When three weeks had elapsed he began to look for an answer. None came. It was as though she mocked him, saying: “Come to America if you really care.”
He grew hurt. For a month he tried the effect of not writing. Then he tried to forget her, and did his best to become absorbed in his work. But the old habits of industry had lost their attraction; every day was a gray emptiness. His quietness seemed irrecoverable. She haunted him. Sometimes the wind was in her hair and her face was turned from him. Sometimes her gray eyes watched him cloudily, and her warm red lips pouted with tender melancholy. He saw her advancing through the starlit streets of Glastonbury, walking proudly in her queen’s attire. He saw her in a thousand ways; every one was sweet, and every one was torturing.
“This is love,” he told himself; “love which all the inspired people of the world have painted and described and sung.”
The odd thing was that, much as it made him suffer, he would not have been without it.
His mother noticed his restlessness and would have coaxed hi$ secret from him, but his lips were obstinately sealed. He could not bring himself to confess. He resorted to evasions which he felt to be unworthy.
Gradually the determination grew up in him to go to America. He sought for an excuse that would disguise his real purpose. It came to him in a letter from a New York editor, offering prices, which sounded fabulous by English standards, for a series of illustrated reminiscences of childhood similar to those contained inLife Till Twenty-one.
He read the letter aloud at the breakfast table. “I’m going,” he said, “to talk it over.”
“Going where?” his father questioned.
“To America.”
“Oh, nonsense!”
He let the subject drop for the time being; but a few days later he walked out of Ocean House and whistled his way down Cockspur Street to Trafalgar Square. He halted in the drowsy August sun and pulled the ticket from his pocket to examine it. He could scarcely credit the reckless length to which his infatuation had carried him.
He seemed to see her again, standing on the threshold in her green-and-gold pageant costume, whispering tauntingly, “Come to America if you really care.”
She would have to acknowledge now how much she meant to him. He couldn’t wait to tell her. Crossing the street to Charing Cross Telegraph Office, he cabled her the date of his arrival, the ship on which he was sailing and the one word, “Coming.” Then he turned thoughtfully homeward, to break the news to Eden Row.
Her masterly faculty for silence had conquered.
Not until the shores of England had faded behind him did he realize the decisiveness of the step he had taken. Divorced from his familiar surroundings, in the No-Man’s-Land of shipboard, he had an opportunity of taking an outsider’s view of his actions. Now that there was no going back, a fatalistic calm settled down on him. During the past weeks he had lived in a tempest of speculations, of wild hopes and unreasonable doubts. He had had to hide his emotions, and yet had dreaded lest they were suspected. The fear of ridicule had been heavy upon him. He had walked on tiptoe, always listening for a voice which never answered. Now at last he regained self-possession.
Lying lazily in his steamer-chair, with the sun-dazzled vacancy of ocean before him, the bigness of life came acutely home to him. Looking back over his few years, he saw that the supreme need for great living is charity—to be content to love, as Madame Josephine would put it. He saw something else: that life has amazing recuperative powers and that no single defeat is overwhelming. Disappointment only becomes overwhelming when it is used for bitterness, as it was used by Hal.
“Life’s an eternal picking one’s self up and going forward,” he told himself.
And so, if the unthinkable were to befall him, and he were to fail to make Desire love him—— He couldn’t believe that love could ever fail to awaken love—not the kind of love he had for her; but, lest that disaster should happen and that he might prevent it from crushing him, he tried not to take the purpose of his voyage too seriously. He pretended to regard it cavalierly as an adventure. He schooled himself in the knowledge that he might not be wanted. Except for her having said, “Come to America if you really care,” he had no grounds for supposing that she would want him. Why should he be anything to her? She was only something to him because, by reason of her parentage, she had appealed powerfully to his imagination at the chivalrous period of adolescence. He had woven his dreams about her memory, clothed it with affection and brought it with him up to manhood; then, by pure accident, he had met her. She herself had warned him that he did not love the actual Desire, but the magic cloak in which he had enfolded her. Perhaps most men did that—worshiped a fantastic ideal, till they became sufficiently humble to set out in search of reality.
It didn’t follow that, because the child-Desire had cared for him, the Desire of twenty was still fond of him. It was that supposition that had made him so precipitate in his own actions, and so unreasonable in his expectations of hers. She had cared for him so little that she had been in England since April and hadn’t troubled to discover him. Well, if he found that she didn’t care for him now, he would make his business the excuse for his voyage and return directly it was ended. He wasn’t going to repeat Hal’s humiliating performance and give himself hopelessly. He couldn’t, if he would. He knew that ultimately, if a woman didn’t choose to make herself important, his work would take him from her. That, at least, was his compensation for being an artist and over-sensitive: when reality had made him suffer, his dreams would again claim him. So, having assured himself many times that he was calm, he came to believe that he was fortified against disillusion and would remain unshaken by it.
He was living up to her test by coming to America—proving to her beyond a doubt that he really did care. A few days would be sufficient to let him know precisely how much that meant to her. At worst, he would have enriched himself by an experience. And at best—at best, he would have gained the thing which in all the world was most precious to him.
Thus armed with the cardboard weapons of a sham cynicism, he allowed himself to wander, like a knight-errant, still deeper into the haunted forest of his imagination. And there, as is the way with knight-errants, he grew impatient with his caution. Why should he strive so desperately to rein in his passion with doubts—this strange and wonderful passion that was so new to him? Of course she had wanted him. At this very moment she was thinking of him—ticking off the hours till they should be together. If she hadn’t written, hadn’t cabled, had ignored him entirely, it was because—— Perhaps because in the early stages women show their love by hiding it, just as men show theirs by displaying it A man’s excitement is to win; a woman’s to be won. Perhaps! He smiled humorously; he had invented so many motives for her silence. The obvious motive he had overlooked—that it was her silence that was compelling him to her.
Probably his ardor had frightened her. Their introduction had been so unusual that it afforded no basis for correspondence, though he had shut his eyes to that. If Desire were here, and he were to ask her why she hadn’t written, she would probably crouch her chin against her shoulder and tell him, “It isn’t done in the best families.”
It wasn’t. But in New York conditions would be different. Vashti would be there. Vashti for whom he had saved his marriage-box. Vashti who could make Mrs. Sheerug believe that she was good only when she sang. Vashti whose voice was like a beanstalk ladder by which lovers might escape to the stars. Did she rememberThe Garden Enclosed, and how his boyish kiss had changed her painted lips from an expression of brooding to one of kindness? Odd to think of her as Desire’s mother! “My beautiful mother!” Vashti would be generous; already he was counting on her alliance. When Desire had her mother’s consent, she would no longer want to conceal her affection.
His optimism caught fire. It was a wonderful world to which he was sailing—a world of enchantment.- She might be on the dock to meet him. Would she look very altered with her hair done like a woman’s? How would a modern dress suit her? What fun it would be to go wandering through a strange city at her side!
His thoughts ran madly ahead. Marriage!’ Where would they live? Would Vashti want them to stay in America? Anyway, they’d go back to Eden Row for their honeymoon. Hal would be happy at last In time he might meet Vashti. They might learn to love each other afresh, and then——
He drew up sharply, assuring himself gravely that all these peeps into the future were highly problematic. The chances were that in two weeks’ time he’d be sailing on the return-journey, doing his best to forget that he had ever believed himself in love.
The blue trackless days passed quickly, while his mood alternated between precautionary coldness and passionate anticipation. His thoughts spread their wings, beating up into the unknown in broad flights of fancy.
The last morning. He had scarcely slept. The throb of the engines was slower. Overhead he could hear the creaking of pulleys, and the commotion of trunks being raised from the hold and piled upon the deck. He rose with the first flush of dawn to see the wraith of land stealing nearer. He had the feeling that, in so doing, he was proving his loyalty. Somewhere, over there to the westward, her eyes were closed and she was dreaming of him. It was his old idea that their thoughts could reach out and touch.
His heart was in his throat. He paced up and down in a vain endeavor to keep it quiet. Gulls, skimming the foam with shrill cries, seemed her messengers. Through the pearl-colored haze white shipping passed noiselessly. The sun streamed a welcome.
As they crept up the harbor, he could no longer disguise his excitement. It nearly choked him. He seemed disembodied; he was a pair of eyes. His soul ran out before him. He felt sure she would be waiting for him. He saw nothing of the panting little tugs, which pulled and shoved the liner to her moorings. He hardly noticed the man-made precipices of New York, rising like altar-steps to a shrine of turquoise. He was straining his eyes toward the gaps in the dock-shed, white with clustered indistinguishable faces. One of them must be hers. It seemed wrong that, even at this distance, he should not be able to pick her out As they moved slowly alongside, he kept persuading himself that he had found her and waved furiously—only to realize that he had been mistaken.
He passed down the gang-plank with eager eyes, asking himself: “How shall I greet her? What will she expect me to say to her?” On every side, friends were darting forward, shaking hands, clasping each other and not caring who witnessed their emotional gladness. At any minute he might see her pressing through the crowd.
He had been searching for her for half-an-hour. “If your friends have come to meet you,” an official told him, “they’ll look for you where your baggage is examined. What’s your name? Gurney. Well, they’ll be waiting for you under the letter G., if they’re waiting anywhere.”
His luggage had been passed by the inspector. The crowd was thinning. The only people left were a few flustered passengers who were having trouble with the customs. His hope was ebbing; after his high anticipations he was suffering from reaction. Loitering disconsolately by his trunks, he clutched obstinately at the skirts of his vanishing optimism. His brain was fertile in producing excuses for why she had not met him. The news that the ship had docked might not have reached her, or it might have reached her too late. Perhaps at this very moment she was hurrying to him, sharing his suspense.
He wouldn’t leave yet. It would seem as though he blamed her, didn’t trust her, if she should arrive to find him gone.
Two hours had elapsed since he had landed. It wasn’t likely that she would come now. As he drove to the Brevoort, he tried to explain the situation to himself so that it might appear in its bravest aspect. She must know that he had landed to-day; if his cable, telling her of his coming, had failed to be delivered, he would have been notified. And if, when she had received it, she hadn’t wanted him, she would have replied. Therefore, she both wanted him and knew that he had landed. He came to the conclusion that he had hoped for too much in expecting her to meet him. Until he had got excited, he hadn’t really expected that. It was only at the last minute that he had persuaded himself she would be there. To have had to welcome him in public, knowing the purpose of his voyage and knowing so little about him, would have been embarrassing. She was waiting for him to go to her home where their meeting would be private.
At the Brevoort, the telephone-clerk found the phone-number of her address. He was trembling as he slipped into the booth. He was going to hear her voice. What would she say to him—to his daring at having accepted her challenge; and what would he say to her? He took up the receiver.
“I’ve come, Desire. Who’s this? Can’t you guess? It’s the person you used to call Teddy.”
He listened. There was a pause. “Hulloa! Are you there?”
Muffled and metallic the answer came back: “Yes.—But Miss Desire’s not at home. This is Madame Jodrell’s maid speaking.—No. Madame Jodrell’s gone out. She won’t be home to lunch. She didn’t say when I was to expect her.—Has she gone to the dock to meet some one? No. I’m sure she hasn’t. Will you leave a message?”
He repeated his name and gave her his address.
“I’ll tell whichever of them gets home first,” the distant voice assured him; then he heard the click of the receiver hung up.
He was bewildered. Things grew more and more discouraging. Desire must have mistaken the day of his arrival. If not, however pressing her engagement, she would have left him some word of welcome.
He had a lonely lunch at a table looking out on Fifth Avenue. From where he sat he caught a glimpse of Washington Square—a glimpse which suggested both Paris and London. He was inclined to feel angry; the next moment he was amused at his petulance. A lover was always in haste. He wouldn’t let himself feel angry. It would be time enough for that if he found that she’d led him on a wild-goose chase. Then anger would help him to forget. In the meanwhile he must take Madame Josephine’s advice and be content to love. “Women long to be trusted.” Perhaps all this apparent indifference was a part of Desire’s test; she was trying to discover how far he would trust her. When he thought of her cloudy gray eyes, he felt certain that any seeming unkindness wasn’t intended. “I’m far nicer than you suspect,” she had told him.
Then, from anger he became all tenderness. What did a little postponement matter? It would make their meeting all the finer. He wouldn’t ask her a single accusing question..That was the kind of thing Hal would have done, spoiling available happiness by a remembered grievance. Love, if it was worth anything, was a rivalry between two people to be generous. The man had to set the example; the girl didn’t dare.
As he passed out of the hotel, his eye caught a florist’s tucked away behind the doorway. He ordered some lilies of the valley to be sent to her. This time he inclosed his card. He smiled. If he took to sending her presents at the rate he had in London, she’d have no excuse for not knowing that he had landed.
“She feedeth among the lilies.” Where had he heard that? As he sauntered up Fifth Avenue in the ripe September sunlight, the scene drew from out the shadows of his memory: a little boy standing naked in a stable-studio, while a piratical-looking wild-haired father worked upon a canvas and chanted, “‘She feedeth among the lilies. She looketh forth in the morning, fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an army with banners. If a man give all his substance for love he cannot...’” He remembered how his father had wagged his head at him: “No, he cannot, Teddy. Yet many waters cannot quench love.”
“She feedeth among the lilies!” He wished he had sent her a different kind of flower.
The magic of the streets took his interest—the elation of being in a new country. He was conscious of a height, a daring, a vigor which were novel in his experience. Mountains of concrete and steel met his gaze. What kind of a people was this who raised soaring palaces, bigger than cathedrals, and used them as offices? To get to the top must be a day’s journey. The people who inhabited the highest stories must live among the clouds and come down for week-ends. He watched the eagerness of the keen alert faces which hurried past him on the pavements—the quick tripping step of the girls, and the thin racing look of everybody. The types of the faces were cosmopolitan, but their expression was one: they all had the high-wrought look of athletes who were rushing to a future which would not wait for them. He felt himself caught up, daunted, stung into vitality, and whirled forward by a wave of monstrous endeavor.
That afternoon he visited the editor who was the excuse for his journey. All the while, as he sat talking to him, he kept thinking: “The flowers will have arrived by now. She’ll know that I have come.”
He talked prices which should have astounded him; but the only thought he had was how much this influx of money and reputation would enable him to do for her. When he had arranged the nature of his contributions, he was on edge for his interview to end. The moment it was over, he dashed to the elevator, found the nearest telephone and rang up his hotel.
“This is Mr. Gurney. Has a message been left for me?”
“None.”
Strange. There must be some reason. She would tell him when they met. Should he call her up? Or go to her house and camp till she came back? He shook his head. His pride warned him that that wouldn’t be policy. The next sign must come from her. And then he wondered, was it right to have either pride or policy when you were in love? It was pride and policy that had made him waste his chances on that night drive from Glastonbury.
He went to see his publisher, who was astonished by his youth and had had no idea that he was in America. He found himself treated as a personality—a man to be reckoned with. It was exhilarating, flattering; but all that it meant to him was something to tell Desire to make her glad. That was all that any success meant now.
It was five o’clock when he returned to his hotel. He went to the desk.
“Any message?”
The clerk glanced down the row of pigeon-holes and drew out a slip of paper.
“A lady called you up.”
With nervous fingers he took it from him and read:
“Come to dinner seven forty-five. Vashti Jodrell.”
From Desire nothing!