VI
On Saturday I was to lunch at the Henshawes’ and go alone with Oswald to hear Bernhardt and Coquelin. As I opened the door into the entry hall, the first thing that greeted me was Mrs. Henshawe’s angry laugh, and a burst of rapid words that stung like cold water from a spray.
“I tell you, I will know the truth about this key, and I will go through any door your keys open. Is that clear?”
Oswald answered with a distinctly malicious chuckle: “My dear, you’d have a hard time getting through that door. The key happens to open a safety deposit box.”
Her voice rose an octave in pitch. “How dare you lie to me, Oswald? How dare you? They told me at your bank that this wasn’t a bank key, though it looks like one. I stopped and showed it to them—the day you forgot your keys and telephoned me to bring them down to your office.”
“The hell you did!”
I coughed and rapped at the door . . . they took no notice of me. I heard Oswald push back a chair. “Then it was you who took my keys out of my pocket? I might have known it! I never forget to change them. And you went to the bank and made me and yourself ridiculous. I can imagine their amusement.”
“Well, you needn’t! I know how to get information without giving any. Here is Nellie Birdseye, rapping at the gates. Come in, Nellie. You and Oswald are going over to Martin’s for lunch. He and I are quarrelling about a key-ring. There will be no luncheon here to-day.”
She went away, and I stood bewildered. This delightful room had seemed to me a place where light-heartedness and charming manners lived—housed there just as the purple curtains and the Kiva rugs and the gay water-colours were. And now everything was in ruins. The air was still and cold like the air in a refrigerating-room. What I felt was fear; I was afraid to look or speak or move. Everything about me seemed evil. When kindness has left people, even for a few moments, we become afraid of them, as if their reason had left them. When it has left a place where we have always found it, it is like shipwreck; we drop from security into something malevolent and bottomless.
“It’s all right, Nellie.” Oswald recovered himself and put a hand on my shoulder. “Myra isn’t half so furious with me as she pretends. I’ll get my hat and we’ll be off.” He was in his smoking-jacket, and had been sitting at his desk, writing. His inkwell was uncovered, and on the blotter lay a half-written sheet of note paper.
I was glad to get out into the sunlight with him. The city seemed safe and friendly and smiling. The air in that room had been like poison. Oswald tried to make it up to me. We walked round and round the Square, and at Martin’s he made me drink a glass of sherry, and pointed out the interesting people in the dining-room and told me stories about them. But without his hat, his head against the bright window, he looked tired and troubled. I wondered, as on the first time I saw him, in my own town, at the contradiction in his face: the strong bones, and the curiously shaped eyes without any fire in them. I felt that his life had not suited him; that he possessed some kind of courage and force which slept, which in another sort of world might have asserted themselves brilliantly. I thought he ought to have been a soldier or an explorer. I have since seen those half-moon eyes in other people, and they were always inscrutable, like his; fronted the world with courtesy and kindness, but one never got behind them.
We went to the theatre, but I remember very little of the performance except a dull heartache, and a conviction that I should never like Mrs. Myra so well again. That was on Saturday. On Monday Aunt Lydia and I were to start for home. We positively did not see the Henshawes again. Sunday morning the maid came with some flowers and a note from Myra, saying that her friend Anne Aylward was having a bad day and had sent for her.
On Monday we took an early boat across the ferry, in order to breakfast in the Jersey station before our train started. We had got settled in our places in the Pullman, the moment of departure was near, when we heard an amused laugh, and there was Myra Henshawe, coming into the car in her fur hat, followed by a porter who carried her bags.
“I didn’t plot anything so neat as this, Liddy,” she laughed, a little out of breath, “though I knew we’d be on the same train. But we won’t quarrel, will we? I’m only going as far as Pittsburgh. I’ve some old friends there. Oswald and I have had a disagreement, and I’ve left him to think it over. If he needs me, he can quite well come after me.”
All day Mrs. Myra was jolly and agreeable, though she treated us with light formality, as if we were new acquaintances. We lunched together, and I noticed, sitting opposite her, that when she was in this mood of high scorn, her mouth, which could be so tender—which cherished the names of her friends and spoke them delicately—was entirely different. It seemed to curl and twist about like a little snake. Letting herself think harm of anyone she loved seemed to change her nature, even her features.
It was dark when we got into Pittsburgh. The Pullman porter took Myra’s luggage to the end of the car. She bade us good-bye, started to leave us, then turned back with an icy little smile. “Oh, Liddy dear, you needn’t have perjured yourself for those yellow cuff-buttons. I was sure to find out, I always do. I don’t hold it against you, but it’s disgusting in a man to lie for personal decorations. A woman might do it, now, . . . for pearls!” With a bright nod she turned away and swept out of the car, her head high, the long garnet feather drooping behind.
Aunt Lydia was very angry. “I’m sick of Myra’s dramatics,” she declared. “I’ve done with them. A man never is justified, but if ever a man was . . .”