X.
Richard's promotion came sooner than he had dared hope. The art critic was to take a trip to Europe, and Derring was offered the position. Something in the quality of his articles had attracted attention; and he had even handed in several specials on his own account, that were accepted with some show of interest.
He owed his rapid advancement partly, too, to something that, for want of a better name, we call personality. Those who came near him felt its influence. The office boy approved of him; the managing editor stood ready to help him. That he gave no return to the liking he inspired seemed to make no difference. His unsatisfied heart was a magnet, drawing to itself the particles of humanity and holding them.
His new work took him to the Art Institute and into the world of artists, and he saw his new friend often. Sometimes they stopped for a word in the halls; sometimes he sought her studio in the intervals of work. Their relation had become that of good-comradeship. Derring supposed that he felt towards her as he would have felt towards a man—if there were such a man. He turned to her with each new interest. They discussed every subject in the range of art, literature, and life. But their intercourse was free from even a hint of love-making. She had only the grays and browns of her apparel.
With his promotion and increase of salary Derring had changed his boarding-place to a pleasanter part of the city. He had not thought to ask her where she lived. It had not occurred to him that he might happen on the same place, until the first night at dinner when he raised his eyes from his plate and found her on the opposite side of the table, smiling quietly at his surprise.
That she saw the surprise was evident. But that she divined the accompanying vexation could be guessed only from the care she took to put him at ease. It was like her. She would not be so stupid as to misunderstand him any more than a man would have done.
It was three months after the beginning of their acquaintance that he hurried into the studio one morning to ask her to lend him a book he had seen in her book-case. He was short of material, he explained. He wanted to work up the Arundel collection. If she would lend him that book, it would save him a trip to the library.
In his haste he did not notice—though he remembered afterwards—the slight hesitation with which she took the book from the case and handed it to him. It was a small, leather-bound pocket edition, such as tourists carry, and bore in gilt, on the side, “The Masterpieces of Europe and England.”
“Yes, that is it.” He opened it at random, running the leaves through his fingers. “I will bring it back soon.”
With the book still open in his hand he hurried from the room.
Five minutes later he appeared again in the doorway.
“I shall have to go to the library after all,” he said, abruptly. “I have brought back your book.”
“I am sorry you did not find what you wanted.” She did not look up from her work. She could not have seen the color in his face and she may not have noticed the slight tremor in his voice as he replied,—
“It's no matter. I can find it at the library.”
It had become a matter of course that he should come and go in this easy way, with no ceremony; but it had not become a matter of course that he should leave the studio with his pulses thundering in his ears. Yet nothing had happened. He had turned the leaves carelessly in his hand as he went down the stairs.
It had stared at him from the white page: “To John Dalton, with love. Helen Gordon.” .
It ran in his ears as he hurried on his hat and coat and hastened to the library. It danced before his eyes between the pages of books. “With love.” That meant a history. And she had the book now. There had been either a parting or a death. Stupid! He had not guessed or dreamed. The restful quiet of her life covered a dead secret.
He found himself, through the day and as he walked home at night, repeating over and over, as if it were a refrain, “The ashes of a dead love.” Yes, that was what it was like,—that restfulness of hers,—passion burned to ashes. Why had he never guessed? And was it dead? Would she love again?
The question stung him. He quickened his pace. He had not thought of her before as a woman. And yet it was strange that he had not. It came to him now that her womanliness was her chief charm. But it was so a part of her that he had never separated it from her. That she should be thoughtful for others, that her voice should be low and sweet, that she should be graceful in every motion—all this was—Helen. He said the name half under his breath. He stood bewildered before his own consciousness. He loved her!
During his college years Derring had come to know that in love he was an idealist. Love in its true sense could not exist on the earth. It was a vision of poets—impossible of realization. Long since he had come to know that his boyhood love was such a vision, and that its realization would have been a kind of tragic comedy. But always the ideal flitted before him, making him fancy that he was in love, now here, now there, and each time he had wakened to the knowledge that he was in love with an ideal. When he had been invited to the homes of his classmates he had fancied that he should find in one of these homes the fulfilment of his dreams. But the sisters who met him with cordial welcome, who danced, flirted, and played tennis with him, had seemed to him too young to understand even the alphabet of love as he would read it. He had felt very old and experienced and out of place. The love that he might perhaps have won from them seemed to him pale and insipid. He wrote poems, but he dedicated them to the ideal. She was a glowing presence—more real to him than any woman. Now this ideal had paled and faded and a quiet figure in grays and browns filled its place.
He was passing a florist's, and he stopped to purchase a bunch of violets. He did not tell himself they were for her. He was not quite steady yet from the shock that had come to him. He could hardly have been more startled if the quiet wood-road at home had suddenly assumed a woman's face and form and claimed his love. But deep in his heart was a longing to make her reparation. He had invaded her secret. He could not undo that. But he could let her know that he was sorry. Sorry! Was he?
She was not home from the studio. But the door of her room, which was warmed from the hall, stood open. Without crossing the threshold he laid the violets on a chair inside the door. Would she understand? Yesterday he would have said, yes. To-day he could not tell. She might not understand, or she might understand too well.
She greeted him as quietly as usual when she came in to dinner that night. She wore the violets tucked carelessly into the lace that filled her dress. One that had fallen apart from the others rested lightly against her throat. His heart stopped for a second, and then leaped forward with a bound.
Not till they were leaving the dining-room, when he held the curtain aside for her to pass, scanning her face, did her glance meet his. The next moment he could not have told what he saw in her eyes, but he no longer questioned their color. Blue—blue and deep—slumbering fire. Fool! Had he expected her to wear her heart on her sleeve for daws to peck at?
He had not intended to see her again that night, but he found that he could not rest. It would make no comment, even in this gossipy boarding-house, if he stopped at her door a minute. But he found that he had suddenly grown careful, overly conscious of remark. He would put on his hat and coat and go for a walk. He might see her as he passed her door.
She was seated in a low chair by the table, sewing, the light falling softly across her brown hair and on the work in her hands. His violets were still in her dress. She was the embodiment of home, he thought, as he stood for a minute across the threshold. She looked up quietly—not as if she were startled to see him there.
“You have brought me the paper?” she said, catching sight of the newspaper in his hand. “You are very good.” She laid down her sewing and came to take it.
A sudden daring seized him. “Will you not be good too?” He lifted his hand to the violet at her throat and drew it from its place—watching her face, to obey its lightest wish. She did not stay him. She stood with her hands clasped, her figure swaying a little forward and her eyes following the flower as he placed it in his coat. In another minute she might have raised her eyes to his. A door opened below—a step sounded on the stair.
“You are not angry?” he pleaded.
“No.” It was half-breathed, half-spoken, hardly audible, but it set his pulses thrilling. He passed into. the cool night air with new joy in his heart. She had understood. It was to be, not only comradeship, but love. He raised his flushed face to the quiet stars.
They stretched away into infinite space. But only love could make life worth the living.