The Greater Inclination Part 19

_Oberville_. I was a d.a.m.ned coward, Isabel. That's about the size of it.

_Isabel_. Ah--I had thought it so much larger!

_Oberville_. What did you say?

_Isabel_. I said that you have forgotten to drink your tea. It must be quite cold.

_Oberville_. Ah--

_Isabel_. Let me give you another cup.

_Oberville (collecting himself)_. No--no. This is perfect.

_Isabel_. You haven't tasted it.

_Oberville (falling into her mood) _. You always made it to perfection.

Only you never gave me enough sugar.

_Isabel_. I know better now. (_She puts another lump in his cup_.)

_Oberville (drinks his tea, and then says, with an air of reproach)_.

Isn't all this chaff rather a waste of time between two old friends who haven't met for so many years?

_Isabel (lightly)_. Oh, it's only a _hors d'oeuvre_--the tuning of the instruments. I'm out of practise too.

_Oberville_. Let us come to the grand air, then. (_Sits down near her_.) Tell me about yourself. What are you doing?

_Isabel_. At this moment? You'll never guess. I'm trying to remember you.

_Oberville_. To remember me?

_Isabel_. Until you came into the room just now my recollection of you was so vivid; you were a living whole in my thoughts. Now I am engaged in gathering up the fragments--in laboriously reconstructing you....

_Oberville_. I have changed so much, then?

_Isabel_. No, I don't believe that you've changed. It's only that I see you differently. Don't you know how hard it is to convince elderly people that the type of the evening paper is no smaller than when they were young?

_Oberville_. I've shrunk then?

_Isabel_. You couldn't have grown bigger. Oh, I'm serious now; you needn't prepare a smile. For years you were the tallest object on my horizon. I used to climb to the thought of you, as people who live in a flat country mount the church steeple for a view. It's wonderful how much I used to see from there! And the air was so strong and pure!

_Oberville_. And now?

_Isabel_. Now I can fancy how delightful it must be to sit next to you at dinner.

_Oberville_. You're unmerciful. Have I said anything to offend you?

_Isabel_. Of course not. How absurd!

_Oberville_. I lost my head a little--I forgot how long it is since we have met. When I saw you I forgot everything except what you had once been to me. (_She is silent_.) I thought you too generous to resent that. Perhaps I have overtaxed your generosity. (_A pause_.) Shall I confess it? When I first saw you I thought for a moment that you had remembered--as I had. You see I can only excuse myself by saying something inexcusable.

_Isabel (deliberately)_. Not inexcusable.

_Oberville_. Not--?

_Isabel_. I had remembered.

_Oberville_. Isabel!

_Isabel_. But now--

_Oberville_. Ah, give me a moment before you unsay it!

_Isabel_. I don't mean to unsay it. There's no use in repealing an obsolete law. That's the pity of it! You say you lost me ten years ago.

(_A pause_.) I never lost you till now.

_Oberville_. Now?

_Isabel_. Only this morning you were my supreme court of justice; there was no appeal from your verdict. Not an hour ago you decided a case for me--against myself! And now--. And the worst of it is that it's not because you've changed. How do I know if you've changed? You haven't said a hundred words to me. You haven't been an hour in the room. And the years must have enriched you--I daresay you've doubled your capital.

You've been in the thick of life, and the metal you're made of brightens with use. Success on some men looks like a borrowed coat; it sits on you as though it had been made to order. I see all this; I know it; but I don't _feel_ it. I don't feel anything... anywhere... I'm numb. (_A pause_.) Don't laugh, but I really don't think I should know now if you came into the room--unless I actually saw you. (_They are both silent_.)

_Oberville (at length)_. Then, to put the most merciful interpretation upon your epigrams, your feeling for me was made out of poorer stuff than mine for you.

_Isabel_. Perhaps it has had harder wear.

_Oberville_. Or been less cared for?

_Isabel_. If one has only one cloak one must wear it in all weathers.

_Oberville_. Unless it is so beautiful and precious that one prefers to go cold and keep it under lock and key.

_Isabel_. In the cedar-chest of indifference--the key of which is usually lost.

_Oberville_. Ah, Isabel, you're too pat! How much I preferred your hesitations.

_Isabel_. My hesitations? That reminds me how much your coming has simplified things. I feel as if I'd had an auction sale of fallacies.

_Oberville_. You speak in enigmas, and I have a notion that your riddles are the reverse of the sphinx's--more dangerous to guess than to give up. And yet I used to find your thoughts such good reading.

_Isabel_. One cares so little for the style in which one's praises are written.

_Oberville_. You've been praising me for the last ten minutes and I find your style detestable. I would rather have you find fault with me like a friend than approve me like a _dilettante_.

_Isabel_. A _dilettante_! The very word I wanted!

_Oberville_. I am proud to have enriched so full a vocabulary. But I am still waiting for the word _I_ want. (_He grows serious_.) Isabel, look in your heart--give me the first word you find there. You've no idea how much a beggar can buy with a penny!

_Isabel_. It's empty, my poor friend, it's empty.