CHAPTER XXXIII
On coming back the next afternoon from selecting the spot for Lovey’s grave there was a man in khaki on the train. When I got out at the Grand Central I saw another. In Fifth Avenue I saw another and another. They seemed to spring out of the ground, giving a new aspect to the streets. In the streets that shining thing I had noticed on landing was no longer to be seen. Silver peace had faded out, while in its place there was coming—coming by degrees—but coming—that spirit of strong resolve which is iron and gold.
Or perhaps I had better say that peace had taken refuge in my dingy little flat, where Lovey was lying on his bed in his Sunday clothes, with hands folded on his breast. Peace was in every line of the fragile figure; in the face there was peace satisfied—peace content—gentle, abiding, eternal.
Two days later a little company of us stood by his grave while Rufus Legrand read the ever-stirring words of the earth to earth. It was the old comradeship which Lovey himself would have liked—the fellowship of men who had fought the same fight as he, and were hoping to be faithful unto death like him—Christian, Straight, little Spender, Beady, Pyn, the wee bye Daisy, and one or two others. Cantyre alone had none of the dark memories—and yet the bright and blessed memories—that held the rest of us together; but Cantyre had his place.
We had driven out side by side in the same motor, as what the undertaker called chief mourners. I don’t remember that we uttered a word to each other till we got out at the grave.
It was Cantyre who said, then: “I want you to drive back with me, Frank. There’s somewhere I should like to take you.”
Reassured by his use of my name, I merely nodded, wondering what he meant.
I didn’t ask, however; nor did I ask when we were back in the motor again and on our way to town. I got my first hint as we began to descend the long avenue in which Sterling Barry had his house.
As I expected, we stopped at the door. The vacant lot was still vacant, and among its dead stalks of burdock and succory April was bringing the first shades of soft green. I thought of Lovey, of course; of our tramp round Columbus Circle; of my midnight adventure right on this spot. It was like going back to another life; it was as this life must have seemed to Lovey and his Lizzy reunited in that world where her neck was as straight as a walking-stick, and everything was lovely-like.
Cantyre spoke low, as if he could hardly speak at all.
“I asked Regina to be in. She’ll be expecting us.”
And she was. She was expecting us in that kind of agitation which hides itself under a pretense of being more than usually cool. In sympathy with Lovey’s memory, I suppose, she was dressed in black, which made a foil for her vivid lips and eyes. Out of the latter she was unable to keep a shade of feverish brightness that belied the nonchalance of her greeting.
She talked about Lovey, about the funeral, about the weather, about the declaration of war, about the men inkhaki who with such surprising promptness had begun to appear in the streets. She talked rapidly, anxiously, against time, as it were, and busied herself pouring tea. Suspecting, doubtless, that Cantyre had something special to say, she was trying to fight him off from it as long as possible.
I had taken a seat; he remained standing, his back to the fire. His look was abstracted, thundery, morose.
Right in the middle of what Regina was saying about the seizure of the German ships he dropped with the remark, “You two know what Lovey told me—what he’s been telling me ever since you both came home.”
Neither of us had a word to say. We could only stare. You could hear the mantelpiece clock ticking before he went on again.
“Well, I’m not going to give you up, Regina,” he declared, aggressively, then.
One of her hands was on the handle of the teapot; one was in the act of taking up a cup. If coloring was ever transmuted into flame, her coloring was at that moment. There was a dramatic intensity in her quietness.
“Have I asked you to, Stephen?”
“No; but—”
“Have I?” I demanded.
“No; but—”
“If Lovey did it it was without any knowledge of mine,” I continued. “I practically killed him, God forgive me, for doing it!”
“You’re both off the track,” Cantyre broke in. “You don’t know what I—what I want to say.”
“Very well, then, Stephen. Tell us,” Regina said, tranquilly.
He spoke stammeringly. “It’s—it’s—just this: This is no time—for—for—love.”
We stared again, waiting for him to go on.
“It’s what—what Christian told us two or three nights ago. We’re in a world where—where love and marriage are no longer the burning questions. They’re too small. Don’t you see?”
We continued to stare, but we agreed with him.
“So—so,” he faltered, “I want you—I want you both—to—to put it all off.”
“The moratorium of love?” I suggested.
“The moratorium of everything,” he took up, “but what—what Christian put before us. I see that now more plainly than I ever saw anything in my life. We’ve got to give everything up—and get it back—different. We shall be different, too—and things that we’re struggling over now will be settled for us, I suppose, without our taking them into our own hands at all. That’s how I look at it, if you two will agree.”
“I agree, Stephen,” Regina said, with the same tranquillity.
“And I, too, old chap.”
“I’m—I’m going over,” he stumbled on, “with the first medical unit from Columbia—”
“Oh, Stephen! How splendid!”
He contradicted her. “No, it isn’t. I’m not doing it from any splendid motives whatever. I’m going just to—to try and get out of myself. Don’t you see—you two? You must see. I’m—I’m sunk in myself; I’ve never been anything else. That’s what’s been the matter with me. That’s why I never made any friends. That’s why you, Frank, have never really cared a straw about me—in spite of all the ways I’ve made up to you; and whyyou, Regina, can hardly stand me. But, by God! you’re both going to!”
With this flash of excitement I sprang up, laying my hand on his arm.
“We care for you already, old man.”
“That’s not the point. I’ve—I’ve got to care for myself. I’ve got to find some sort of self-respect.”
But Regina, too, sprang up, joining us where we stood on the hearth-rug. She didn’t touch him; she only stood before him with hands clasped in front of her.
“Stephen dear, you’re not doing any more heart-searching than Frank and I are doing; or than every true American is doing all through the country. What you say Mr. Christian told you the other night is more or less consciously in everybody’s soul. We know we’re called to the judgment seat; and at the judgment seat we stand. That’s all there is to it. Marriage and giving in marriage for people like us must wait. It’s become unimportant. There are people—younger than we are for the most part—to whom it comes first. But for us, with our experience—each of us—you with yours, Frank with his, I with mine—well, we have other work to do. We must see this great thing through before we can give our attention to ourselves. And we shall see it through, sha’n’t we, by doing as you say? We must give everything up—and wait. Then we shall probably find our difficulties solved for us. I often think that patience—the power to wait and be confident—is the most stupendous force in the world.”
And with few more words than this we left her. I went first, giving them a little time alone together. But I hadn’t gone very far before, on accidentally turning round, I saw Cantyre coming down the steps.