Part 4

Benedick strolled out thoughtfully, remembering to smile at Geneviève, and feeling more like a good little boy than a ripened cynic. It was incredible how virtuous it made one feel to be happy! He wanted to adopt a yellow dog and give money to a beggar and buy out a florist shop. The florist shop was the only object accessible, and he walked in promptly; the clerk had spoken to him before he realized that he couldn’t send her flowers, because he didn’t happen to know who she was. He might tell him to send them to the Loveliest Lady in New York, but it was a little risky. However, he bought an armful of daffodils, and a great many rose-red tulips, and enough blue and white hyacinths to fill a garden, and went straight back to his apartment without even waiting for change from the gold piece that he gave to the clerk. He handed them over to the startled Harishidi with the curt order to put them in water; never mind if he didn’t have enough vases. Put them in high-ball glasses--finger-bowls--anywhere--he wanted them all over the place. The buyer of flowers then retired and put on a gorgeous and festively striped necktie, washed his face and hands with a bland and pleasing soap, brushed his black hair until it shone, smiled gravely at the dark face in the mirror, and returned to the sitting room. There he selected a white hyacinth blossom with meticulous care, placed it in his buttonhole, and earnestly requested Harishidi to retire and remain in retirement until summoned.

He spent quite a long time after that, drawing the curtains to shut out the grayness, struggling despairingly over the diminutive fire, piling the cushions so that they made a brilliant nest at one end of the velvet sofa, placing a gold-tooled volume of Aucassin and Nicolette where she could reach it easily--oh, if he could not send his flowers to her, he would bring her to his flowers! He adjusted the reading lamp with its painted parchment shade and dragged a stool up to the sofa. It was his sister-in-law’s best find--a broad and solid stool, sedate and comely--he sat there clasping his knees, his cheek against the velvet of the sofa--waiting. After a long time, he drew a deep breath, and smiled into the shadows. He did not turn his head; what need to turn it?

She was there--he could see her sinking far back into the scarlet cushions, greeting his flowers with joyous eyes. She had on a cream-coloured dress of some soft stuff, and a long chain of amber beads; the lamplight fell on her hair and on her clasped hands--and still he sat there, waiting. What need had they of speech? There was a perfume in her hair--a perfume of springtime, fleeting and exquisite; if he reached out his hand he could touch her. He sat very still; after a little while he felt her hand on his dark head, but still he did not stir--he only smiled more deeply into the shadows, and closed his eyes---- His eyes were still closed when Harishidi came in to ask him if he had forgotten dinner, and his lips were parted, like a little boy lost in a happy dream--in a happy, happy dream....

After that, the days passed by in an orderly and enchanted procession; he watched them bringing gifts to the corner table at Raoul’s, feeling warm and grateful and safe; too content to risk his joy by so much as stirring a finger. By and by he would speak to her, of course; in some easy, simple way he would step across the threshold of her life, and their hands would touch, never to fall apart again. She would drop her brief case, perhaps, and he would give it back to her, and she would smile; she would come into some drawing room where he was standing waiting patiently and the hostess would say, “You know Mr. Benedick, don’t you? He’s going to take you in to dinner.” He would go to more dinners--surely she must dine somewhere, and dances--surely she danced! Or the gray kitten might capture that wisp of a handkerchief, and bring it to him as booty--he would rescue it and carry it back to her--and she would smile her thanks--she would smile---- It would all be as simple as that--simpler, perhaps; for the time, he asked no more than to let the days slip by while he sat watching her across the table; that was enough.

Ah, those days! There was the one when she brought out a great volume of Schopenhauer, and laughed all the time she read it; twice she laughed aloud, and so gay and clear was her derision that Jules joined in, too. It was probably the essay on Woman, Benedick decided--the part where he said that ladies were little animals with long hair and limited intelligence. There was the day when she read out of a slim book of vellum about that small, enchanting mischief, Marjorie Fleming, and when Jules put the iced melon down before her she did not see it for almost a minute--her eyes were too full of tears. There was the day when she read “War and Peace” with her hands over her ears and such a look of terror on her face that Benedick had all that he could do to keep from crossing over and putting his arms about her, to close out all the dangers that she feared--even the ones she read about in books.

And suddenly March was over, and it was April, and there was the day when she took a new volume out of the brief case--so new that it still had its paper cover with large black letters announcing that it contained desirable information about Small Country Houses for Limited Incomes, Colonial Style. She read it with tremendous intensity and a look wavering between rapture and despair; once she sighed forlornly, and once she made a small, defiant face at some invisible adversary--and once she patted a picture lingeringly.

After she had gone, Benedick took his sister-in-law’s automobile, and drove out to Connecticut, and bought a house--a little old white house with many-paned windows, that sat on a hill with lilac bushes around it, and looked at the silver waters of the Sound. It was perfectly preposterous that she shouldn’t have a house if she wanted it, and he was glad that she wanted a small country house, Colonial style, even though it didn’t necessarily imply a moderate income. For the first time in his life he was glad that his income was not moderate. When he got back to town he bought a gray roadster--not too heavy, so that she could drive it. She might want to be in and out of town a lot; you never could tell.

He told his sister-in-law that he was going to raise Airedales, because it was impossible to buy a decent puppy these days, and he discoursed lucidly and affably about a highly respectable Scotch couple that he was going to get to look after the white house and supervise the Airedales. After that he devoted most of his leisure hours to antique shops and auctions, where he purchased any amount of Sheraton furniture and Lowestoft china and Bristol glass and hooked rugs and old English chintzes for the benefit of the Airedale puppies and the Scotch couple. He hadn’t as much time as formerly, because he had been growing steadily more uncomfortable at the thought of explaining to those gray eyes and gay lips the undeniable fact that he had twenty-four hours of leisure to dispose of every day of his life; so he had wandered over to the dark office one morning and remarked casually to the gray gentleman at the desk that he might blow in every now and then and see if there was anything around for him to do. It appeared that there was plenty around--so much that he took to blowing in at about nine and blowing out at about five--and he did it not so badly, though a good clerk might have done it better. He continued to spend a generous hour over lunch, however, proving a total loss to the firm for a considerable time after he returned, sometimes in such an abandoned mood that there was a flower in his buttonhole.

And then it was May, and the sapphire feather was gone, and she would come in through the brown door with flowers on her drooping hat and pale frocks tinted like flowers, cool and crisp as dresses in a dream. She still had the brief case, but it was absurd to think that a stenographer would wear such hats; anything so ravishing would cost a year’s salary. When he wasn’t too busy watching the way her hair rippled back, showing just the tips of her ears, he would wonder whether she were a great heiress with an aversion to jewellery or a successful novelist who had to choose between pearls and Raoul’s. He had never seen even the smallest glint of jewels about her; never a gleam of beads at her throat or a brooch at her waist or a ring on her fingers--sometimes he thought that it would be pleasant to slip a long string of pearls about her neck and a band of frosted diamonds about her wrist, to see her eyes widen at their whiteness. Still, this way she was dearer, with flowers for her jewels--better leave the pearls alone--pearls were for tears.

It was incredible how radiant she looked those days; when she came through the door with her flying step and her flying smile the very kitten would purr at the sight of her; her eyes said that the secret that they knew was more delightful and amusing than ever, and her hands were always full of flowers.

And then there was the day that she came in looking so exultant that she frightened him; it wasn’t fair that she should look so happy when she didn’t know about the house on the hill, or the gray roadster, or the lucky person who was going to give them to her--it wasn’t fair and it was rather terrifying. Perhaps it would be better not to wait any longer to tell her about them; she couldn’t be disdainful and unkind through all that happiness. Of course he would lead up to it skilfully. He wasn’t a blundering schoolboy; he was a man of the world, rather more than sophisticated, with all his wits about him and a light touch. He would catch her eye and smile, deferential and whimsical, and try some casual opening--“Our friend the kitten” or “good old Jules slower than usual--spring turns the best of us to idlers!” and the rest would follow as the night the day--or better still, as the day the night. It mightn’t be a bad idea to upset something--his wine glass, for instance; he raised a reckless hand, with a swift glance at the next table--and then he dropped it. She was reading a letter, an incredibly long letter, page after page of someone’s office paper covered with thick black words that marched triumphantly across the sheets, and her face was flooded with such eloquent light that he jerked back his head swiftly, as though he had been reading over her shoulder. He could not speak to her with that light on her face; he sat watching her read it through twice, feeling cold and sick and lonely. He was afraid--he was afraid--he would speak to her to-morrow----

To-morrow came, and with it his lady in a green muslin frock, and a shadowy hat wreathed with lilacs; he noted with a slow breath of relief that she had no brief case, no book, no letters. His coast was clear then at least; this day she had no better comrade to share her table--he would go to her, and ask her to understand. He had risen to his feet before he saw that she had not taken off her hat; she was sitting with her head a little bent, as though she was looking at something on the table, her face shadowed by the drooping hat, her hands clasped before her--and then Benedick saw what she was looking at. There was a ring on her finger, a small, trivial, inconsequential diamond, sparkling in its little golden claw like a frivolous dewdrop; and suddenly she bent her head, and kissed it. He sat down, slowly and stiffly--he felt old. He did not even see her go; it was Jules’ voice that made him lift his head.

“_Ah, le printemps, le printemps! V’là la jolie demoiselle qui s’est fiancée._”

“Yes,” said Benedick. “Spring--in spring it is agreeable to have a fiancé.”

“Monsieur, perhaps, knows who she is?”

“No,” replied Monsieur amiably. “But she is, as you say, a pretty girl.”

“She is more than that, if Monsieur pardons. The man whose bride she will be has a little treasure straight from the good God. What a nature--what a nature! Generous as a queen with her silver, but she turns it to gold with her smile. Monsieur has perhaps noted her smile?”

“No,” replied Monsieur, still amiably. “Bring me a bottle of the Widow Clicquot, however, and I will drink to her smile. Bring a large bottle so that I can drink often. It might be better to bring two.”

He drank both of them under the eyes of the horrified Jules; it took him all of the afternoon and part of the evening to accomplish it, but he won out. All during the hours that he sat sipping the yellow stuff he was driving his mind in circles, round and round over the same unyielding ground, round and round again. It was a hideous mistake, of course; there was nothing irretrievable in an engagement. He could make her see how impossible it was in just a few minutes; it might be a little hard on this other fellow at first, but that couldn’t be helped. He hadn’t been looking for her, starving for her, longing for her all the days of his life, this other fellow, had he? Probably he had told half-a-dozen girls he loved them--well, let him find another to tell. But Benedick--whom else had Benedick loved? No one, no one, all the days of his life.

Surely she would see that; surely when he told her about the white house and the gray roadster she would understand that he couldn’t let her go. He had been lonely too long--he had been hard and bitter and reckless too long--he would tell her how black and empty a thing was loneliness; when she saw how desperately he needed her, she would stay. When he told her about the two corner cupboards in the low-ceilinged dining room, full of lilac lustre and sprigged Lowestoft, and the painted red chairs in the kitchen, and the little stool for her feet with the fat white poodle embroidered in cross-stitch, she would see all the other things that he had never told her! There was the tarnished mirror with the painted clipper spreading all its sails--he had hung it so that it would catch her smile when she first crossed the threshold; there was the little room at the head of the stairs that the sun always shone into--he had built shelves there himself, and put in all his Jules Verne and R. L. S. and Oliver Optic and Robin Hood and the Three Musketeers and some unspeakably bad ones of Henty; he had been waiting for her to tell him what kind of books little girls read, and then he was going to put them in, too. Of course she couldn’t understand those things unless he told her--to-morrow when she came he would tell her everything and she would understand, and be sorry that she had hurt him; she would never go away again.

At eleven o’clock Jules once more despairingly suggested that Monsieur must be indeed fatigued, and that it would perhaps be better if Monsieur retired. Monsieur, however, explained with great determination and considerable difficulty that he had an extremely important engagement to keep, and that all things considered, he would wait there until he kept it. True, it was not until to-morrow, but he was not going to take any chances; he would wait where he was. Raoul was called in, and expostulated fervently, “_Mais enfin, Monsieur! Ce n’est pas convenable, Monsieur!_”

Monsieur smiled at him, vague and obstinate, and Raoul finally departed with a Gallic shrug, leaving poor Jules in charge, who sat nodding reproachfully in a far corner, with an occasional harrowed glance at the other occupant of the room. The other occupant sat very stiff and straight far into the night; it was toward morning that he made a curious sound, between defeat and despair, and dropped his dark head on his arms, and slept. Once he stirred, and cried desperately: “Don’t go--don’t go, don’t go!”

Jules was at his side in a moment, forgiving and solicitous.

“_Monsieur désire?_”

And Monsieur started up and stared at him strangely--only to shake his head, and once more bury it deep in his arms. It was not Jules who could get what Monsieur desired....

It was late the next morning when he waked and he consumed a huge amount of black coffee, and sat back in his corner, haggard and unshaven, with a withered flower in his buttonhole, waiting for her to come through the door--but she did not come. Not that day, nor the next, nor the next; he sat in his corner from twelve to two, waiting, with a carefully mocking smile on his lips and a curious expression in his eyes, wary and incredulous. He had worked himself into an extremely reasonable state of mind; a state of mind in which he was acidly amused at himself and tepidly interested in watching the curtain fall on the comedy--he blamed a good deal on the spring and a taste for ridiculously unbalanced literature; the whole performance was at once diverting and distasteful. This kind of mania came from turning his back on pleasant flirtations and normal _affaires de cœur_; it was a neatly ironical punishment that the God of Comedy was meting out to pay him for his overweening sense of superiority. Well, it was merited--and it was over! But he still sat in the corner, watching, and the fourth day the door opened, and she came in.

She had on a gray dress, with a trail of yellow roses across her hat and a knot of them at her waist, and a breeze came in with her. She stood hesitating for a moment in the sunlight, and then she went quickly to where Geneviève sat at her high desk, and stretched out her hands, with a pretty gesture, shy and proud. The sunlight fell across them, catching at a circle above the diamond ring--a little golden circle, very new and bright. Benedick rose to his feet, pushing back his chair--he brushed by her so close that he could smell the roses; he closed the brown door behind him gently and leaned against it, staring down the shining street, where the green leaves danced, joyous and sedate, upon the stunted trees. Well, the curtain had fallen on the comedy; that was over. After a minute, he shrugged his shoulders, and strolled leisurely down to the real-estate agent and sold him the little white house, lock, stock, and barrel, including some rather good china and a lot of old junk that he had picked up here and there. It was fortunate that the young couple from Gramercy Square wanted it; he was willing to let it go for a song. Yes, there was a view of the Sound, and he’d done quite a lot of planting; oh, yes, there was a room that could be used as a nursery--lots of sun. There was his signature, and there was the end of it--the papers could be sent to his lawyers. He then sauntered over to his sister-in-law’s and presented her with the gray roadster; he was about fed up with motoring, and he’d changed his mind about Airedales. Dogs were a nuisance. After a little pleasant banter he dropped in at the club and played three extremely brilliant rubbers of auction, and signed up for a stag theatre party to see a rather nasty little French farce. He didn’t touch any of the numerous cocktails--he wasn’t going to pay her the compliment of getting drunk again--but he laughed harder than any one at the farce, and made a good many comments that were more amusing than the play, and his best friend and his worst enemy agreed that they had never seen him in such high spirits.

He went back to the apartment humming to himself, and yawned ostentatiously for Harishidi’s benefit, and left word not to wake him in the morning--and yawned again, and went to bed. He lay there in the blackness for what seemed hours, listening to his heart beat; there was a tune that kept going round in his head, some idiotic thing by an Elizabethan--“Fair and kind”--he must go lighter on the coffee. “Was never face so pleased my mind----” Coffee played the deuce with your nerves. “Passing by----” Oh, to hell with it! He stumbled painfully out of bed, groping his way to the living room, jerking on the light with a violence that nearly broke the cord. One o’clock; the damned clock must have stopped. No, it was still ticking away, relentless and competent. He stood staring about him irresolutely for a moment, and then moved slowly to the Florentine chest, fumbling at the drawer. Yes, there it was--“An Elizabethan Song, Sung by Mr. Roger Grahame”--“There was a lady, fair and kind”--There was a lady---- He flung up the window with a gesture of passionate haste, and leaning far out, hurled the little black disk into deeper blackness. Far off he heard a tinkling splinter from the area; he closed the window, and pulled the cord on the wrought-iron lamp, and stumbled back to the Renaissance bed.

He was shaking uncontrollably, like someone in a chill, and he had a sickening desire to weep--to lay his hot cheek against some kind hand, and weep away the hardness and the bitterness and despair. Loathsome, brain-sick fool! He clenched his hands and glared defiance to the darkness, he who had not wept since a voice had ceased to read him fairy tales a long time ago. After eternities of staring the hands relaxed, and he turned his head, and slept. He woke with a start--there was something salt and bitter on his lips; he brushed it away fiercely, and the clock in the living room struck four. After that he did not sleep again; he set his teeth and stared wide-eyed into the shadows--he would not twice be trapped to shame. He was still lying there when the sun drifted through the window; he turned his face to the wall, so that he would not see it, but he did not unclench his teeth....

It was June, and he took a passage for Norway, and tore it up the day that the boat sailed. There was a chance in a thousand that she might need him, and it would be like that grim cat Fate to drop him off in Norway when he might serve her. For two or three days she had been looking pale; the triumphant happiness that for so long she had flaunted in his face, joyous and unheeding, was wavering like the rose-red in her lips. It was probably nothing but the heat; why couldn’t that fool she had married see that she couldn’t stand heat? She should be sitting somewhere against green pines, with the sea in her eyes and a breeze lifting the bright hair from her forehead.

She never read any more. She sat idle with her hands linked before her; it must be something worse than heat that was painting those shadows under her eyes, that look of heart-breaking patience about her lips. And Benedick, who had flinched from her happiness, suddenly desired it more passionately than he had ever desired anything else in his life. Let the cur who had touched that gay courage to this piteous submission give it back--let him give it back--he would ask nothing more. How could a man live black enough to make her suffer? She hardly touched the food that was placed before her; Jules hovered about her in distress, and she tried to smile at him--and Benedick turned his eyes from that smile. She would sit very quiet, staring at her linked hands with their two circles, as though she were afraid to breathe--she, to whom the air had seemed flowers and wine and music. Once he saw her lips shake, terribly, though a moment later she lifted her head with the old, valiant gesture, and went out smiling.

Then for a day she did not come--for another day--for another--and when once more she stood in the door, Benedick felt his heart give a great leap, and stand still. She was in black, black from head to foot, with a strange little veil that hid her eyes. She crossed the room to her table, and sat down quietly, and ordered food, and ate, and drank a little wine. After Jules had taken the things away she still sat there, pressing her hands together, her lips quite steady--only when she unlinked them, he saw the faint red crescents where the nails had cut.