Part 5

He talked with a kittenish banter in his voice as if he were patting a child of five on the head. But he held her hand during his entire speech and his soft finger tips pressed moistly into her palm. It was hard at first to detect but after a long time Doris understood. Fanny had told her in an unsolicited confession that young men did that when they wanted to be familiar with a girl. It was a familiarity which only bad girls understood. Fanny added that a number of nice men whom she never would have suspected of such a low thing had done that to her hand but that the way to get the better of them was merely to pretend you didn't know anything about it.

Doris, disgusted by her sister's chatter, had remembered Judge Smith. The judge always did that, ... moving his finger tips as if he were unaware of the fact. This afternoon he had done it again. She had never been able to see the judge as her mother and brother saw him. To Doris there was something intangibly repulsive about his flabby, smooth-shaven face, about his shining linen and deliberate manner that impressed everybody. She did not resent the things he said. To these she was, in fact, indifferent. But the man's personality awakened a revulsion in her. She did not explain it to herself. She was aware only that she felt uncomfortable when he looked at her and that when he beamed his kindliest or boomed most virtuously, she felt like sinking lower in her chair and contorting her face with shame, not for herself but for him.

Basine and Henrietta had returned to the room. A grate fire was burning wanly. Basine, squatting down like an elated boy, arranged a cushion for her.

"Oh, we've forgotten the thingumabob," he exclaimed, "come help me find that."

Henrietta skipped excitedly after him. Moments like this were dear to Henrietta. Looking for thingumabobs, planning popcorn feasts, having lots of fun and in a way that was intelligent. In the kitchen Basine searched for a minute and then turned to the girl with a laugh.

"I wanted to ask you something," he said. "That's why I lured you out again."

"For heaven's sake! Gracious! Aren't you ashamed of yourself, George Basine!"

She laughed with him. The thought had secured to him that it would be interesting to take Henrietta away from Aubrey. He didn't want her himself for any particular purpose. She was not a girl one could seduce, or even desired to seduce. And marriage was miles from his head.

Yet he had once held her hand while sitting on her father's porch and whispered idiotic things to her. He had made love to her, said to her, "Henny dear, I'm wild about you." It annoyed him to think that Aubrey Gilchrist would marry her, would appropriate her as if the things he, Basine, had said and done were of no possible consequence. In addition he had always disliked Aubrey.

"Henny," he said quickly, he had called her Henny two years before, "are you really in love with Aubrey?"

Henrietta made a face and swung her shoulders like a child embarrassed.

Like Keegan, he was physically tired from his night's debauch. But in Basine there was no impulse to repent. As he stood looking at the girl he grew curiously sensual in his thought.

The consciousness of his deadened nerves was an irritant to his vanity. He was always doing things he felt disinclined to do, as a result of his constant work of idealization. Also, to follow one's impulse and act logically was what everyone did in a way. If Hugh Keegan was tired he sighed and said so. But Basine, if he was tired, would laugh and suggest adventures. If Keegan or the others he knew were elated over something, they announced it, naively, like children. But Basine edited his elation and often pretended to be bored. And when he was actually bored he often pretended enthusiasm.

Such odd perversions had become a habit with Basine. Behind the confusion of purpose that inspired them was a certainty that in acting the way he did he distinguished himself from other people. Often no one was aware, of course, that he was acting, that his enthusiasm was the heroic mask of weariness. But Basine was enough of an egoist to enjoy secretly the emotion of superiority.

Because he was tired and because he would have preferred ignoring the trim figure laughing beside him, he deliberately took her hand and allowed his smile to grow serious. Now as he looked at her and saw her eyes soften, his vanity clamored for satisfaction. It was one of the moments in his life when his vanity most desired satisfaction, proof of the high opinions he held of himself. He was tired, bored and without impulses.

To dominate others, to possess himself of their regard and homage was the goal toward which he always built. Now the desire to possess himself of the regard and homage of the girl whose hand he was holding came acutely into his thought.

"Henny," he whispered, "I'm sorry about you and Aubrey."

"Why?"

This was the sort of boy and girl scene at which she was almost adept. People held hands and even kissed without altering the correct social tone or content of their talk.

"Because," said Basine, "Oh well, because I love you."

The phrase stirred, as it always did, a faint emotion in his heart. He had used it frequently, even with prostitutes, and it had always given him a fugitive sense of exaltation. Walking alone in the street at night he would sometimes whisper aloud, "I love you, George. Oh, I love you so." He would have no one in mind whom he might be quoting at the moment. The words would come and utter themselves and give him a sudden lift of spirit. It was like his other self-conversation when walking along swiftly in the street he would begin exclaiming under his breath, "Wonderful ... wonderful ... wonderful...." The word like his mysterious, "I love you, George" came without cause or relation to his thoughts and repeated itself on his lips.

Henrietta was staring at him. It was chiefly because she was surprised. She remembered that they had been friends once and held hands and that he had said things. But all that had been a part of a pretty game one played with boys, because they liked it and because it was rather likable in itself. She was surprised now because he looked sad. Sadness in her mind was synonymous with seriousness. People were never serious unless they were sad. When she wanted to be serious she would always lower her eyes and arrange her expression as if she were going to weep. Then people understood that what she said was really truly serious and not just part of the game people were always playing among themselves. A game in which nothing was serious or funny or anything--but just was. Because that was the way it should be.

Basine was pulling her slowly toward him.

"Don't you love me?" he asked. "Don't you love me at all?"

He was talking aloud to conceal the fact that he had drawn her to him and was placing his arms around her. To do anything like that in silence would have frightened Henrietta. But to talk while one was doing it, that made it seem less definite. One could ignore what one was doing, ignore the hands pressing one's shoulders and the touching of bodies by pretending to interest one's self entirely in the conversation.

Basine knew this because he had made love to girls and taken liberties. As long as he kept talking and asking questions the girl would pretend she was so occupied in answering the questions and keeping up socially her end of the talk that she was oblivious to the liberties that were being taken with her.

Henrietta answered, "Why do you ask that? Do you really think you ought to ask me questions like that, George Basine?"

"Yes I do," he said, "why shouldn't I?"

"Oh because. Because you're engaged to Marion."

"Who told you that?"

"I know. Anybody could know that. Aren't you?"

"No more than you are to Aubrey."

"Gracious! Aren't you the clever boy. I declare! Engaged to Aubrey! Heavens, I'd like to know where you heard that."

"A little bird told me."

"It did not."

"Yes it did."

"You know better than that, George Basine. I wish you'd tell me really."

"Why should I."

"I'd like to know, that's why. I think I have a right to know."

"Oh but I did tell you something. I told you I love you."

"Why, George Basine!"

During the talk Basine had moved her closer to him. His arms were tightly around her and he had kissed her eyes and cheeks between his questions and answers. The embrace had aroused no physical desire in him. He was irritated by the coolness of his nerves. He was irritated at his being unable to feel anything with his arms around a pretty girl. Usually the incident would have reached its climax with the half kiss he placed on her mouth. That was as far as good girls went. At this point they ordinarily said something like, "Listen, I want to tell you something. I almost forgot." And gently detaching themselves from one's arms, continued to talk in the same tone they had used during the embrace about some event that had occurred during the week.

And then one returned to the sitting room and went on talking casually as if nothing had happened. It was the height of bad taste to remind a good girl today that one had kissed her yesterday or to presume upon it in any way. It was the height of bad taste also to resist when they gently pushed one away and said, "Listen, I want to tell you something. I almost forgot."

Basine knew the simple technique of these virginal intrigues. Henrietta's hands were pressing him. This was the signal to release her and pretend that nothing had happened. Ordinarily Basine would have complied. He had no interest in the girl. His original impulse to take her from Aubrey had slipped from his mind.

But he had grown sad. The mild sensual moment he would usually have experienced in the embrace had been missing. His tired nerves had not responded. Unable to exhilarate his senses he sought to make up for the failure by treating his vanity to an exhilaration. This exhilaration would come if the girl he was holding grew suddenly sad, raised wide eyes to him and in a shamed voice murmured, "I love you, George. Oh, I love you so."

He would make her do this.

"Oh, Henny. Why don't you love me? I want you so much all the time."

"Why George Basine!"

She had suspected something different about the game when it started. And this was different. Even with Aubrey it had not been as different as this. Aubrey's mother and her father had decided upon the engagement after Aubrey had been fussing her for a few weeks.

But this was different. George Basine was in love with her! She had always liked him because her father said he was a fine, promising young man and because he knew how to play, and was really like herself in many ways. She wondered what she should do. She felt worried because she was afraid she would say something that wasn't right.

She couldn't ask him to let her go because he was only holding her lightly and she could move away if she wanted to. She thought his eyes were sad and she felt suddenly sorry for him. He had stopped talking and his eyes were sad. They were looking at her and they made her feel sad, too. Things were so different when one felt sad. Everything seemed to go away then and nothing remained. Everything went away and left one a little frightened. As if the world were unreal and everybody was unreal and nothing really was.

She was frightened like that now. Or at least she thought it was fear. Then she saw it was something else. Her heart had started to pound hard and her throat fluttered inside. No one had ever looked at her like this. So seriously. As if she were somebody very serious. It made her feel strange. She grew dizzy and her arms felt weak. She whispered his name and his hands crept over her cheeks. This thrilled her as if there were electricity in his fingers. And frightened her again. But it was nice. Like being a little girl, almost a baby, and falling into an older man's arms--her father's arms. She could almost remember being a little girl and lying in her father's arms.

"Do you love me?"

She would answer this time.

"Yes," she said. "Oh George."

She hid her face against his coat. Basine was careful not to embrace her. Her "yes" had given him an inexplicable moment. He had felt himself expand under it. In her unexpected submission--he had never dreamed of such a thing ten minutes ago--she became suddenly someone who was very rare and sweet. He was still utterly oblivious of her and had it turned out to be Marion in his arms instead of Henrietta the difference would have made no change in him. The thing that was rare and sweet was the exhilaration in his senses--a purely spiritual exhilaration. He enjoyed it as one might enjoy some unforeseen and startling gift.

He grew tender. He wanted to kiss the eyes and hair of her who had given this gift to him--the thing which felt so warm in his heart and tingled so pleasantly in his thought. He must reward her somehow for having stirred in him this delicious excitement, reward her for the sweet surfeit her surrender had given his vanity. For a moment bewildered by this inner desire to express the gratitude he felt, he stood trembling.

"Oh, I love you so, my darling," he whispered. "You're so beautiful."

It was her reward for having surrendered to his unspoken demand. It was an expression of the overwhelming generosity that choked him. He found in the saying of the words a sweetness almost as keen as her surrender had afforded him. To hear himself say to someone, "I love you," was mysteriously exhilarating. The thrill that accompanied his bestowal of largesse excited him to further experiment. He was not carried away but he relished the emotions between them, the sense of having triumphed and the provoking sense of bestowing grandiose reward.

"Darling, tell me ... please tell me--will you marry me?"

"Oh George!"

"Tell me ... tell me...."

He was acting now, making his voice dramatic, pretending uncontrollable longings. She must say "Yes." He wanted her to and she must. He did not want to marry her. The thought had never occured to him. But it would be unbearable now unless she said "Yes." He must pretend and act and make the thing end by her saying "Yes."

"Oh, I can't tell you, George dear."

"You must, please...."

He had decided now finally to make her. A contest of wills. If he wanted a yes there must be a yes. Because he wanted it. His arms crushed her. He fastened against her. He felt her resisting. There was still no desire in him. His arms were still dead. But he could brook no resistance. The fact of resistance was unimportant but the idea of being resisted fired him with a passion entirely cerebral. He would warm her into saying yes, stir her senses, make her yield and her head swim until she said yes.

"I love you. Please say it. Say yes."

Yes to what? Henrietta for an instant awoke from the confusions of the past few minutes. Her morality, training, code of life and all sat up like a wary censor and surveyed the scene. The censor nodded an affirmation. It was all right. Go ahead. With this affirmation her body took fire. The weakness she had been struggling against became a beautiful enervation--a lassitude that swept her unresistingly forward.

She had never done this before. She struggled for a moment to recall the censor--the thing that had always directed her. But she seemed to have been deserted. She was alone with sensations.

Her virginal mind was unable to identify the excitement rising in her. She waited while his caresses grew bolder. Then in a panic, born of a dim realization, she flung her arms passionately around Basine and sobbed.

"Yes.... Yes.... Oh George.... I will...."

She felt at once that she had said it just in time--that it would have been sinful to continue another moment without promising she would marry him.

Basine released her slowly. The incident abruptly was over. He had in fact lost interest in it immediately before she had spoken. The thrill had come, developed and gone--a spiritual exaltation which he had enjoyed to the utmost.

But now it was over. His vanity, surfeited, had withdrawn from the situation. He was surprised to find himself looking at the girl with utter dispassion, as if nothing had happened.

Inwardly he was amused. Such things were amusing, in a way. Moments in which one saw oneself as an outrageous actor, doing something ridiculous. It was like that now. Absurd. But it had been pleasant. Curious, how pleasant. However, that was over. Henrietta would of course forget about it. And he, he was prepared to return to the library and go on popping corn as if nothing had happened, absolutely nothing.

But Henrietta leaned weakly against his arm.

"Oh George, darling. Do you really love me?"

He answered out of a social respect for consistency and nothing else. He thought the question rather tactless. Of course he didn't love her and she should have known better than to ask it. It had just been a game they had played while looking for the thingumabob.

"Yes, Henny, of course."

Her eyes were wide and her lips quivered. She was looking at him as if he were doing something remarkable and she overcome with astonishment. For an instant Basine wondered why the deuce she looked that way. Then he felt an unexpected chill that he dismissed promptly with an inwardly reassuring smile as he heard her saying.

"Oh, we'll be so happy together when we're married. Isn't it wonderful, just too wonderful for words to be married--together. Oh George! I'm so happy.... I love you so much. And father will be so...."

6

They had not expected Mr. Gilchrist to come. Mr. Gilchrist was an undersized, mild little man with greying sideburns. When he was alone he read a great deal.

He had made money in the selling of expensive furniture. He was part owner of a store in Wabash Avenue. It was generally understood that people with taste patronized the Gilchrist-Warren establishment.

He arrived at the Basines' with his wife and his son Aubrey. Keegan and Fanny had returned from a long walk. They and the judge, Henrietta, Basine and his mother and sister Doris all expressed surprise at seeing Mr. Gilchrist. There was always about Mr. Gilchrist the air of a museum piece--a quaint museum piece such as a keen but sentimental collector might delight in.

The exclamations of surprise embarrassed the little man and he stood fingering his sideburns and trying to smile in just the correct way. Mr. Gilchrist's arrival anywhere always precipitated this air of surprise. People said, "Why, Mr. Gilchrist! Awfully glad to see you! Haven't seen you for an age. Well! How are you?"

This was as if they were extremely surprised. But they weren't. They were merely annoyed, upset, vaguely hostile and condescending. And these emotions inspired by the innocent Mr. Gilchrist could be best concealed by the feigning of a correct social astonishment.

To the queries shot at him Mr. Gilchrist answered, "Very well, thank you. Thank you. Very well, thank you."

After greeting him with these exclamation points, people immediately forgot he was present. Mr. Gilchrist would sit the rest of the evening ignored by everybody and trying to the end to smile in just the correct way.

Inside Mr. Gilchrist were many little lonelinesses. His head was full of things he had read, of plots, of great characters, even of epigrams and biting iconoclasms. When people talked he did his best to be attentive. And if they talked about things that interested him--the Kings of France, the Italian wars of the fifteenth century, the topography of early London and kindred subjects--his face would tremble with enthusiasms.

He would listen, his eyes questing eagerly for epigrams, for illuminating sentences he might contribute. But his unegoistic love for the subject would make him inarticulate. His eyes that had seemed about to speak of themselves, that had seemed laden with excited informations would close and a chuckle would come from his lips. The Caesars, the Borgias, the Medicis, the Bourbons, the Valois, Savonarola, Richelieu, the various Charles, Phillips, Williams, Henrys, the plumed headliners of history around whom had centered the hurdy-gurdy intrigues, the circus romances and wars of vanished centuries--these were the hail-fellows of his imagination.

But people seldom talked of these names. People were more interested in contemporary topics. He did his best to be attentive. But his thought played truant and before he knew it he would be going over secretly certain things in his head. Villon, Marlowe, Balzac, Dumas, Gautier, Suetonius--there was a rabble of them continually arguing and declaiming in Mr. Gilchrist's head.

He liked to half close his eyes and imagine what the great names used to have for breakfast, what the great names would say if he were to enter their presence or if they were to come into this room. He liked to bring up in his mind pictures of old Paris, London, Florence, Avignon, Vienna with their lopsided roofs, winding alleys, night watchmen and king's guards. He could sit a whole evening this way thinking, "then he came to an old Inn and there were lights inside. People drinking inside, telling stories and laughing. The inn-keeper was a man named Simon. The curious stranger looked about him with an imperious eye...."

These words murmuring in his head would conjure up the picture and there would be no further need for words. He was content to sit in the old inn, noticing its quaint decorations, its quaint but romantic inmates. Adventures would follow, strange episodes, denouements, climaxes--all without words as if he were watching a cinemategraph. His attempted smile would remain--a smile that concealed the fact he was neither smiling at those around him nor aware of what they were saying. For he would only half hear the chatter of the room and now and then nod his head vaguely at some question that people were answering--as if he too were answering it.

He was almost sixty, and lonely because he knew of no one to whom he could talk. His wife in particular was a person to whom he never dreamed of talking. He had only a dim idea of what he wanted to say to someone. But all his life he had been hoping to meet this one who would be like himself. This someone would be a friend whom he could take with him into places like the old inn and the crazily twisting streets of old London or Paris.

His days and years passed however without bringing him this companion. And outwardly he remained a mild little figure with sideburns, kindly tolerant toward everyone.

When his dreams left him long enough to enable him to notice closely those about him, a feeling of sadness would come. He would feel sorry for the men and women he saw gesturing and heard talking and laughing. He thought they must be like himself--looking for something. His faded eyes would peer caressingly from behind his glasses and he would make simple little remarks in an apologetic voice. He would ask what they had been doing and when they answered in their careless, matter-of-fact ways he would nod hopefully and appear pleased.

To see Mr. Gilchrist in the midst of his family was to be convinced of the plausibility of immaculate conception. It was difficult imagining Mr. Gilchrist ever having done anything which might have resulted in fatherhood. But more than that, it was impossible even suggesting to oneself that his wife had ever received the embraces of a man, had ever so far forgotten the proprieties as to permit herself to be trapped alone with a man.