iii
In this state of suspense an enormous time elapsed, three weeks at least. For me Vera was non-existent in her father’s house. When I was there for dinner she never came down. There was a pretense that her absence was unnoticeable. Nobody spoke of it; nobody mentioned her name. In spite of this, or perhaps because of it, I could not rid myself of the notion that I had become an object of sympathy in the household.
One afternoon I had been in to see Galt, who was ill, and as I let myself out through the front door there was Vera at the bottom of the steps in conversation with a huge blond animal of the golden series, very dangerous for dark women. She saw me obliquely and turned her attention more to him with a subtle excluding gesture. Evidently she wished me to pass. Instead I waited, watching them, until he became conscious of the situation and cast off with a large various manner which comprehended me. As she came up the steps toward me, slowly, but with unblurred, definite movements, hard to the ache of desire yet soft and voluptuous to the forbidden sense of touch, with a kind of bird-like beauty, I could not for a moment imagine that I had ever kissed her, much less that she had responded to a ruffling caress. I forgot what I was going to do, or by what right I meant to do anything. I was cold and hopeless, with a sudden sense of fatigue, and might have suffered her to pass me in silence as she wished to do but for the look she gave me on reaching the top. That was her mistake. It was the old impersonal, trampling look, to which anger was the one self-saving reply. I took her by the arm and turned her face about.
“We are going for a walk,” I said, moving her with me down the steps.
I counted upon her horror of a scene to give me the brutal advantage, and it did. She came unresistingly. Yet it was in no sense a victory. She submitted to a situation she could not control, but contemptuously, with no respect or fear for the force controlling it. We walked in silence to a tea shop in Fifth Avenue; and when we were seated and the waiter came her respect for appearances made her speak.
“Just some tea, please,” she said, sweetly. And those were the only words she uttered.
Her defense was to stare at me as if I were reciting a tedious tale. It bored her. Once I thought she repressed a yawn. That was when I began to say the same things over again. She was without any vanity of self-justification. Not for an instant did she avert her eyes. She looked at me steadily, unblinkingly, with a kind of reptilian indifference. She could see into me; I could not see into her. At the end I became abusive. Then if at all there was a faint suspicion of interest.
“A fool there was who loved the basilisk,” I said. “He who plucks that icy flame will be destroyed but not consumed.... Shall we go?”
I like still to remember that she did not smile at this idiotic apostrophe. Every man, I suppose, says a thing like that once,—if he can. We rose at once. We walked all the way back in silence. I did not go in, but handed her up the steps and left her without good-night.
On the next day but one a note came. Would I meet her for tea at the same place?
She was prompt and purposeful. She waited until tea was served, then put it aside, and spoke.
“Why do all men, though by different ways, come to the same place?”
“I know nothing about all men,” I said. “It’s enough to know about myself. I’m not very sure of that.”
“They all do,” she said, reflectively.
“But I want to marry you,” I said, with emphasis on the personal pronoun.
“Yes; ... that, too,” she said, with a saturated air.
“Oh, weary Olympia!” I said. “How stands the score? How many loves lie beheaded in your chamber of horrors? Or do you bury them decently and tend their graves?”
“You try me,” she said, with no change of voice or color. “It is very stupid.... Man takes without leave the smallest thing and presumes upon that to erect preposterous claims. Take our case. I begin by liking you. I invite you to a friendship. You are free to accept or decline. You accept. Wherein so far have you acquired rights in me? We find this relation agreeable and extend it. All of this is voluntary. Nothing is surrendered under compulsion. We are both free. Then suddenly you overwhelm me by a sensuous impulse. It is a wanton, ravishing act. I resent it by the only peaceable means in my power. That is, I avoid you. Immediately you assail me with violent reproaches, as by a right. Is it the invader’s right of might? Is human relationship a state of war?... Don’t interrupt me, please.... And now, when I have come to say that under certain conditions I am prepared to make an exception in your forgiveness,—for Heaven knows what reason!—you taunt me of things you have no right to mention. They are mine alone.”
There was a retort, but I withheld it. How shall man tell woman she hath provoked him to it? If he tell her she will wither him. Yet if the sight, smell and sound of her provoke him not, then is she mortally offended. He shall see without looking and be damned if he looks without seeing. It is so. But she divined my thoughts.
“If a woman gives it is quite the same,” she went on. “Only worse, for in that case he presumes upon what he has received by favor to become lord of all that she has.”
“I lie in the dust,” I said.
“I know the pose,” she said, with a lighter touch. “Happily it is absurd. If it were not that it would be contemptible.”
“Well, pitiless woman, what would you have a man to be and do? Let us suppose provisionally that I ask out of deep, religious curiosity. I may not like the part. How should a man behave with you?”
“I dislike you very much at this moment,” she replied. “By an effort I remember that you have saving qualities. Did you hear me say that I was prepared to make an exception?”
“It may be too late,” I said. “What are the terms? You said under certain conditions.”
She frowned, hesitated and went on slowly.
“It is my castle. You may dwell there, you may come and go, you may make free of it in discretion, agreeably to our joint pleasure, provided you forego beforehand all rights accruing from use and tenure.”
We debated the contract in a high, ceremonious manner. It was agreed that the bargain, if made, should terminate automatically at the instant I should presume to make the slightest demand upon her.
“As if for instance I should demand the key to the chamber of horrors,” I said, whimsically.
“Exactly,” she replied.
I stipulated, not in earnest of course, that she should make no demands upon me.
“That was implied,” she said. “We make it explicit.”
When at last I accepted unreservedly she put forth her hand in a full, generous gesture; and the pact was sealed.
We walked homeward on a perfectly restored basis of friendship, changed our minds at the last minute, went instead to a restaurant, then to the theatre, and passed a joyous evening together.