12
“Mr. Grove to see you, miss.”
“Mr. Grove?”
“Yes miss; a dark gentleman.”
Miriam rose from her chair. James had gone after a moment of sympathetic waiting, back down the basement stairs to her dinner. Miriam felt herself very tall and slender—set apart and surrounded; healed of all fighting and effort. She went quickly through the hall thinking of nothing; herself, walking down Harriett’s garden path. At the door of the waiting-room she hesitated. Mr. Grove was the other side of the door, waiting for her to come in. She opened the door with a flourish and advanced with stiffly outstretched hand. Before she said “teeth?” in a cheerful breezy professional tone that exploded into the past and scattered it she saw the pained anxiousness of his face and the flush that had risen under his dark skin.
“No” he said recoiling swiftly from his limp handshake and sitting abruptly down on the chair from which he had risen. Miriam watched him go helplessly on to say in stiff resentfulness what he had come to say while she stood apologetically at his chair side.
“I meant to write to you—two or three times.”
“Oh why didn’t you?” she responded emphatically.... Why can’t I be quiet and hear what he has to say? He must have wanted to see me dreadfully to come here like this.
His eyes were fixed blindly upon the far-off window.
“Yes. I wanted to very much. How do you like your life here?” He was flushing again. His skin still had that shiny film over it, so unlike the clear snaky brilliance of the eyes. They were dreadful and all the rest flappy and floppy and somehow feverish.
“Oh—I like it immensely.”
“That is a very good thing.”
“Do you like your life?”
He drew in his lower lip on an indrawn breath and held it with his teeth. His eyes were thinking busily under a slight frown.
“That is one of the things I wished to discuss with you.”
“Oh do discuss it with me,” cried Miriam.
“I am very glad you are getting on here so well” he murmured thoughtfully, gazing through the window, to and fro as if scanning the opposite house-fronts.
“Oh, I like it immensely” said Miriam after a silence. Her head was beginning to ache. He sat quite still, scanning to and fro, his lip recaptured under his teeth.
“They are such nice people. I like it for so many things.”
He looked absently round at her.
“M-yes. On several occasions I thought of writing to you.”
“Yes” said Miriam sitting down opposite to him.
He shifted a little in his chair to keep his way clear to the window.
For a few moments they sat silent; then he suddenly took out his watch and stood up.
Miriam rose. “Have you seen the Ducaynes lately?” she asked hurriedly, moving nervously towards the door. Murmuring an indistinct response he led the way to the door and held it open for her.
James was coming forward with a patient. They stood aside for the patient to pass in, James waiting to escort Mr. Grove to the front door. They shook hands limply and silently. Miriam stood watching his narrow loosely knit clerical back as he plunged along through the hall and out. She turned as James turned from the door.... What it must have cost him to break in here and ask for me ... how silly and how rude I was.... I can’t believe he’s been; it’s like a dream. He’s seen me in the new life changed ... and I’m not really changed.