The Whirligig of Time Part 50

He flung himself across the room to an open window and stood there, resting his elbows on the sill and gazing out over the twinkling lights of the city. Beatrice sat immovable in her chair, but her bosom was heaving with the memory of certain things he had said. Another revulsion of feeling mastered her; she no longer thought of him as ranting; she felt his words too strongly for that. A pair of blind mice in a trap--yes, yes, she felt all that, but that was not what had stirred her so. What was that he had said about having nothing to hold her with?...

She watched him as he stood there trying to cool his tortured mind in the evening air. He was tremendously worked up; she wondered if he could stand this sort of thing physically; she remembered how ill he had been looking lately.... She watched him with a new anxiety, half expecting to see him topple over backward at any moment, overcome by the strain. Then she could help him; her mind conjured up a vision of herself running into the dining room for some whisky and back to him with the gla.s.s in her hand; "Here, drink this," and her hand under his head.... It was wicked of her to wish anything of the kind, of course; but if she could only be of some use to him! If he would but think of turning to her for help in getting out of his trap! He would not find his fellow-mouse cold or unsympathetic.

She could not overcome her desire to find out if any such idea was in his mind. She went over to him and touched him gently on the shoulder.

"James--"

"No, not now, please; I want to think."

And his shoulder remained a piece of tweed under her hand; he did not even bother to shake her off.

She sat down again to wait.

When at last he left the window it was to sit down by a lamp and take up a book. That was not a bad sign, in itself, as long as he made his reading an interlude and not an ending. But as she sat watching him it became more and more evident that he regarded their interview as closed.

And so they sat stolidly for some time, James determined that nothing should lead him into another humiliating exhibition of feeling and Beatrice determined that whatever happened she would make him stop ignoring her. And though she was at first merely hurt by his indifference she presently began to feel her determination strengthened by something else, something which, starting as hardly more than natural feminine pique shortly grew into irritation, then into anger of a slow-burning type and lastly, as her eyes tired of seeing him sit there so unaffectedly absorbed in his reading, into something for the moment approaching active dislike. We all know what h.e.l.l hath no fury like, and Beatrice, as she fed her mind on the thought of how often he had insulted and repelled and above all ignored her that evening, began to consider herself very much in the light of a woman scorned.

"Is that all, James?" she ventured at length.

He put down his book and looked up with the manner of one making a great effort to be reasonable.

"What do you want, Beatrice?"

Beatrice would have given a good deal to be able to say that what she really wanted was that he should take her to him as he had that day at Bar Harbor and never once since, but as she could not she made a subst.i.tute answer.

"We can't leave things as they are, can we?"

"Why not? Haven't we said too much already?"

"Too much for peace, but not enough for satisfaction. We can't leave things hanging in the air this way."

"Very well, then, if you insist. How shall we begin?"

"Well, suppose we begin with our bargain--see what its terms are and whether we can live up to them and whether it's for our benefit to do so."

"All right. What do you consider the terms of our bargain to be?"

They were both talking in the measured tones of people determined to keep control over themselves at all costs. They looked at each other warily, as though guarding against being maneuvered into a betrayal of temper or feeling.

"Well, in the first place, I a.s.sume that we want to present a good front to the world. Bold and united. We want to prevent people from knowing...."

"Certainly."

"And if we give the impression of being happy together we've gone a good way toward that end."

"Yes, that's logical."

"Well--?"

"What?"

"It's your turn now, isn't it?"

"Oh, no; you've begun so well you'd better go on."

"Well, I've only got one more idea on the subject, and that is just tentative--a sort of suggestion." She sat down on the sofa by him and strove to make her manner a little more intimate without becoming mawkish or intrusive. "It has occurred to me that we haven't given that impression very much in the past, and I think the reason for that may be that we--well, that we don't work together enough. Does it ever occur to you, James, that we don't understand each other very well? Not nearly as much as we might, I sometimes think, without--without having to pretend anything. We know each other so slightly! Sometimes it gives me the oddest feeling, to think I am married to you, who are stranger to me than almost any of my friends...."

She feared the phrasing of that thought was a little unfortunate, and broke off suddenly with: "But perhaps I'm boring you?"

"No, no--I'm very much interested. How do you think we ought to go about it?"

"It's difficult to say, of course. How do you think? I should suggest, for one thing, that we should be less shy with each other--less afraid of each other. Especially about things that concern us. Even if it is hard to talk about such things, I think we ought to. We should be more frank with each other, James."

"As we have been this evening, for example?"

The cynical note rang in his voice, the note she most dreaded.

"No, I didn't mean that, necessarily. I don't mind saying, though, that I think even our talking to-night has been a good thing. It has cleared the air, you know. See where we are now!"

"Yes, and it's cleared you too. But what about me?"

"I don't understand."

"Oh, you've come out of it all right! You've behaved yourself, vindicated yourself, done nothing you didn't expect to, nothing you have reason to be ashamed of afterward. I have! I haven't been able to open my mouth without making a fool of myself in one way or another...."

"Only because you're overtired, James...."

"I've said things I never thought myself capable of saying, and I've found I thought things that no decent man should think. It was an interesting experience."

"James, my dear, don't be so bitter! I'm not blaming you. I can forget all that!"

She laid her hand on his knee and the action, together with the quality of her voice, had a visible effect on him. He paused a moment and looked at her curiously. When he spoke again it was without bitterness.

"That's awfully decent of you, Beatrice, but the trouble is I can't forget. Those things stay in the memory, and they're not desirable companions. And as talking, the kind of frank talking you suggest, seems to bring them out in spite of me, I think perhaps we'd better not have much of that kind of talk. It seems to me that the less we talk the better we shall get on."

Beatrice was silent a moment in her turn. She had not brought him quite to where she wanted him, but she had brought him nearer than he had been before. She resolved to let things stay as they were.

"Very well, James," she said, leaning back by his side; "we won't talk if you don't want to. About those things, that is. There are plenty of other things we can talk about. And let's go to places more together and do things more together. I see no reason why we shouldn't get on very well together. After all, I do enjoy being with you, when you're in a good mood, more than with any one else I know--that I could be with--"

"Then why--Oh, Lord!" He stopped himself and sank forward in despair with his head on his hands.

"Well, go on and say it."

"No, no."

"Yes. It's better that way."

"I was going to say, why did you appear to enjoy yourself with Tommy so much more than--Oh, it's no use, Beatrice! I can't help it--it's beyond me!"