VII
On a mild, bright afternoon, Elaine and Wilfred ran down the steps of the Sturges house, and turned east. Wilfred had enjoined Elaine to dress plainly; and she was wearing a severe tweed coat, and an inconspicuous hat bound round with a veil. Thus clad, her brave air was more apparent than ever. Wilfred’s heart beat high. Leaving behind them the big house which typified Elaine’s crowded exotic life, he felt for the first time that he had her to himself. Looking at her, he thought: It is impossible that Joe could reach his grimy paw so high! As usual, I have been tormenting myself without reason.
“Now elucidate the mystery,” said Elaine. “Where are we going?”
“Into the East Side,” said Wilfred. “My stamping-ground.”
“Slumming?” she asked, running up her eyebrows.
“No, indeed!” said Wilfred quickly.
“Well, I’m thankful for that. I’m no slum angel. . . . But why should we go there then? It’s not done.”
“I haunt the East Side for my own benefit, not for the East-Siders’,” he said. “I want to show you something real for once.”
“You funny man!” said Elaine. “I suppose you think you are sincere in this nonsense.”
Wilfred laughed.
“I warn you it is useless to expect me to be born anew.”
“I don’t,” he said quickly. “This is no deep-laid plot. Your life suffocates me. I am never myself in it. I wanted to have you once where I could breathe: to drag you down to my level if you like. It’s only for an hour. It won’t injure you permanently.”
“I am not afraid of being injured,” she said a little affronted.
“You are afraid of being changed, though.”
“Not at all!” she said stiffly. . . . “Still, I don’t see why I have to be dragged through the slums. I shan’t like it.”
“Oh, your conventional nose will turn up at the smells, and your eyes avert themselves from the dirt,” said Wilfred; “but there is a grand streak of commonness in you if one could only get at it.”
Elaine looked at him a little startled.
“Instead of a young lady of fashion you ought to have been a camp follower of the Revolution,” he went on. “I can see you shaking the Tricolor and yelling for blood!”
She liked this picture, and showed her white teeth. “You have the silliest notions about me!” she said scornfully.
They made their way through St. Mark’s Place and East Tenth street to Tompkins Square. This neighborhood, still suggesting 1860, with its plain brick tenements of low height, and old-fashioned store-fronts was a favorite haunt of Wilfred’s. It was still Irish-American New York, with the descendants of the original be-Jasus bhoys standing on the corners. It had the appeal of something doomed; for the old stores here and there were erupting in showy modern fronts; and the Jews were creeping in from the South.
Elaine did not get the special character of the streets, but any comely individual interested her. There was a stalwart young teamster unloading his dray, who, confident of his manhood, glanced sideways at Elaine with daring, mirthful eyes.
“What charming, wicked eyes!” murmured Elaine, after they had passed.
Wilfred felt a little crushed. His eyes were not wicked.
Proceeding farther east, they turned up-town, following always the last street on the edge of the Island. Wilfred found these forgotten streets full of character; the utilitarian steam-roller had not flattened them out. Actually, in the summer-time, spears of grass could be seen pushing up between the cobble-stones. There was a group of deserted buildings falling into ruin; and a little general store whose aspect had not changed since the days when New York was pure American; there was a smithy, which, lacking only a spreading chestnut tree, might have been transported entire from up-state. There was a yard piled with junk, which would have been fascinating to pick over; and there were high board fences with padlocked gates concealing mysteries. The inhabitants of the scattered dwellings in these last streets stared at the intruders like mountain folk.
He tried enthusiastically to convey it all to Elaine.
Looking at him with a quizzical eye, she asked: “Would you like to live over here?”
“What’s that got to do with it?” demanded Wilfred. “Isn’t it refreshing after the awful sameness of the other streets?”
Elaine peered dubiously through a filthy archway leading into a dank, paved court. “Well, I don’t know,” she said; “I like a place that I know.”
Farther up-town, they came to a wide waterside street which had lately been laid off on made ground. On the river side a row of big new piers had been built, sticking out into the river. As yet no sheds covered them; and it was one of the few places in the water-engirdled town Wilfred pointed out, where one could see the water from the street. The great shipping interests had still to take possession of the piers; consequently a confused throng of humble craft were tied up there; including canal-boats; sailing-lighters (which had once been called periguas); little old steam-boats laid up for the winter; and a rigged ship or two, waiting for a charter. Many of these vessels revealed family life on board. The open piers were heaped with rough cargo that would take no damage from the elements. The whole made a scene irresistibly entangling to the eye.
On the landward side a raw building or two had been run up alongside the new street to house the inevitable saloon with its colored glass and gingerbread work; but for the most part the vista was of coal-yards, and yards for the storage of wagons at night. These were backed by the side walls of the tall new tenements in the cross streets—not so new but that the white paint was scaling off the bricks, and the fire-escapes rusting. From every floor of the tenements extended lines of flapping clothes affixed to tall poles in the rear. Looking through between the backs of the houses, one beheld a very blizzard of linen. The sun was preparing to descend behind the tenement houses, and over across the wide river, the ugly factories of the Greenpoint shore (no longer green!) were sublimated by his horizontal rays.
Wilfred looked around him with a kindling eye. Elaine, glancing at him askance, said:
“Interesting if not beautiful.”
“Oh, I’ve quit worrying about what constitutes beauty!” said Wilfred. “All I know is, this bites me. It’s because it sums up my town; the flapping clothes; the collection of queer craft; they could be of no other town; it’s New York!”
Crossing one of the streets leading away from the river, they saw a crowd assembling before the gates of a coal-yard. Little boys appeared from nowhere, running and crying in an ecstacy:
“Somep’n t’ matteh! Somep’n t’ matteh!”
“The rallying cry of New York!” murmured Wilfred. Anticipating ugliness, he took hold of Elaine’s arm to draw her on; but she resisted.
“Let’s see what it is,” she said.
Wilfred had no recourse but to follow her into the side street.
Two burly young men out of the coal-yard were fighting. It was a serious affair. Greasy with coal-dust, their faces dehumanized, there was nevertheless a dignity in the fighting look; hard, wary and intent. One was a mere lad; a young bull, with round head sunk between his brawny shoulders, and a remarkable mane of crisping black hair. The other, some years older, was cooler and warier; not without grace. How vain this one’s efforts! Though he was no older than Wilfred, on the plane of savagery his day was already passing; it was marked under his eyes. He might beat the lad now; but the lad would beat him next year. They were well-matched; they sparred smartly; and broke away clean; just the same there was a savage fury behind their blows.
Wilfred was a little sickened. Yet he had the envious feeling that these simple brutes possessed a key to life that had been taken from him, without any other being supplied. The younger man received a blow on the mouth that drew blood. He indifferently swept the back of his hand across his mouth, leaving a hideous smear. Had Wilfred been alone, he would have wished to see the affair to a conclusion, though he could not have borne to watch it continuously. His eyes would bolt, and have to be forced back. Now, with Elaine beside him, he was in distress, thinking of her womanhood exposed to such a sight.
“Come on! Come on!” he whispered urgently.
She turned a look of scorn on him. “You wanted me to see something real,” she said. “Can’t you stand it?”
“I was thinking of you,” he murmured.
She seemed to have increased in height; and her face wore a hard, bright look; in fact, a reflection of the look on the coal-blackened faces. She is of them; not of me! Wilfred thought sadly. She had not lost the simple key of life—the heroic key; and alas! he was no hero. He no longer saw the fight. Before his mind’s eye rose a picture of himself and Elaine yoked together and hopelessly opposed. Every advantage would be hers. It would be fatal for him to marry a woman with that strain in her, he thought; and at the same time his desire for her was increased tenfold, by reason of her savage, bright eyes.
There was no conclusion to the battle. A cry of “Cheese it, the cop!” was raised; and the two combatants, bolting through the ring that surrounded them, disappeared within the coal-yard. The spectators were left standing at a loss. A blue-coated officer approached with dignity from the river front.
“Hey! Move on there, youse!” he cried, disdaining to enquire into the cause of the gathering.
The people reluctantly made a pretence of moving this way and that; but scarcely left the spot. The bluecoat, with his Olympian air, went on a little way, and then came back again.
Still Elaine would not be drawn away. She saw a knot of people excitedly discussing the affair; and coolly elbowed her way in, leaving Wilfred to follow at her skirt.
“Hey! Move on! didn’t I tell yez!” commanded the officer, heading for the group; and dispersing it with strong outward thrusts of his forearms. The elegant Elaine was thrust aside with the rest. Up to this moment nobody had taken any particular notice of her; but the policeman, observing her dress, looked her up and down with amazement. He did not, however, address her. Wilfred suffered acutely. Elaine, ignoring the officer, fell into step beside a girl who seemed to be the source of information, and Wilfred walked beside Elaine, feeling as ineffective as a toddling child.
“What started it?” asked Elaine, avidly interested.
The girl was a meager little thing, not more than sixteen years old. Her thin jacket was mended crookedly; her shoes ran over at the heel. She wore a big black lace hat, which projected far beyond her pompadour like a fan. She was not at all averse to talking. It was her moment. Everybody was trying to walk alongside her, pressing close to hear; some in front walking with heads over their shoulders; all mouths open.
“T’at utter fella,” she said; “I mean t’ old fella; he’s too fresh, he is. He t’inks he’s t’ hull t’ing! Me guyl friend, she lives next door to t’ coal-yard, see? and he’s all a time flirtin’ wit’ her at t’ winda. Just to show off to t’ utter fellas in t’ yard what a hell of a fella he was, understand?”
“Sure, I understand,” said Elaine.
“Well, it was all right until he begun to holler up at her,” the girl went on. “Then me friend’s old woman, she got sore, see? If he’d come up to her respectable in the street, like, she’d a gone out wit’ him, maybe—but to holler up at t’ winda like t’at!”
“No,” said Elaine; “it’s not done!”
“You’re right! It ain’t done! . . . So I says to my friend, I says, I’d stop by the yard when he was in on his cart, and I’d tell him real nice, to cut it out, see? And I did ast him just as polite, to cut it out, and he begun to get fresh wit’ me. An t’en t’ black-headed young fella he come in on his cart, and he up and tells t’ utter fella to cut it out. And t’ utter fella, I mean t’ old fella, he begins to cuyse. Such language! And me standin’ right t’ere all a time! T’en t’ black-headed young fella, he soaked him one, and t’ey went outside to settle it. . . . T’at old fella, he’s t’ bully of t’ hull yard. But he’d a got hisn to-day if t’ cop hadn’t a come. T’ black-headed boy’ll lay him out cold, yet!”
“He’s a handsome lad,” said Elaine.
“He is so, lady! And strong! My! He ain’t but nineteen year old, neit’er.”
“Shall you see him again?”
“Oh, he kin allus find me if he wants me,” she said with a toss of the lace hat. “I don’t live far.”
At the corner, the group broke up, and Wilfred was able to draw Elaine away at last. In his mind he was confused and bitter. Elaine scorned these people; yet she was able to talk to them without self-consciousness; he loved them, and could not. All his explorations on the East Side were conducted in silence. Not only was his tongue tied, but he knew he had an aloof air which prevented people from addressing him.
Elaine guessed what was passing in his mind. She said with a smile: “You see I am closer to them than you are.”
Wilfred said nothing.
“These people interest you, because they are strange to you,” she presently went on. “They are not strange to me. Just people. . . . All the same, I’m glad my great-great-grandfather made a lot of money! . . . Wilfred, if you lived over here, you’d spend your time walking up and down Fifth avenue, looking in the rich peoples’ windows, and dreaming about their lives!”
It’s true! thought Wilfred. She has her own fire, and doesn’t have to bother; but I can only go about warming myself at the fires of others!
They reached one of the little terraces on the East River cliffs. Elaine swung herself up on the parapet that closed the end of a cross street; while Wilfred standing below her, leaned his elbows on the stone. Off to his left ran a little street of brownstone houses a block long, with back yards dropping over the cliff. Darkness was falling; no one was in sight. Elaine drew the tweed coat more closely around her.
“Light a cigarette for me,” she said. “If anybody comes, I’ll hand it back.”
Wilfred’s lips caressed the cigarette as it left them. Fascinated, he watched Elaine’s cool fresh lips close upon the same spot. How sweet that vicarious kiss! He ventured to move closer to her; and at the touch of her body, a momentary benediction descended on his agitated breast—momentary, because he had that to say which would destroy it forever.
“Well, has it been a success?” he asked.
They had walked fast, and the flags were up in Elaine’s cheeks. “The walk, yes!” she said quickly. “But as for your East Side! . . . Well, I prefer the middle.” She shrugged good-naturedly. “I’m not a snob. I know these people are every bit as good as I am; but I don’t feel any call to herd with them.”
“Oh well, let them go!” said Wilfred, smiling. (How useless this ordeal! But he had resolved upon it. As soon as it was dark, he had vowed.)
Elaine, glancing at him through her lashes, moved away ever so slightly. The move was not lost on Wilfred, but he stubbornly held to his purpose.
Looking out over the river, Elaine said quickly: “This view makes up for any amount of East Side!”
Wilfred, thankful for the respite, followed her glance. The stream was like a magical beam of twilight in the dark. It seemed to be the source of its own blue, darkling radiance. The fading sky held no such poignancy. The river was both still and subtly perturbed; like a smooth breast swelling upon inaudible sighs; like a quiet face working with obscure passions. Out in the middle rose the crouching black rocks off the point of Blackwell’s Island; the island itself, appeared, pointing out of the obscurity like a gigantic black forefinger. On it rose the inhuman prison buildings. Architects are always successful in designing prisons, Wilfred thought. Further to the left, and high against the sky sprang the vast cantilever bridge, a rumbling portent of the Age of Machines.
Wilfred put his yearning hand upon hers. She snatched her hand away.
“Oh, Wilfred! not that!”
“Elaine, will you marry me?” he whispered.
“Oh!” she breathed crossly. “You know very well I don’t love you!”
“Yes, I know.”
“Then why on earth . . . ?”
“I wanted you to know that I loved you.”
“I knew it. I am not blind.”
“But I was forced to tell you . . . because it was so difficult.”
“Oh, you ridiculous man! . . . I couldn’t possibly fall in love with a man like you!”
“I know it,” he murmured, while the iron entered slowly into his soul.
“You knew it all along,” she said. “You are no fool. I was glad to have you come to see me, you’re so intelligent. But I wondered why you continued to come.”
“I couldn’t help myself.”
Elaine said no more, but looked out over the river, kicking her heel impatiently against the stone of the parapet. How deeply grateful Wilfred was, to be spared her pity. How prompt and honest had been her response—like all her responses to life. While he backed and filled! He was not even sure at this moment that he wanted to marry her. Was there not a feeling of relief amidst all his pain? . . . Ah! if he might only hold her close, close in his arms and stop thinking!
He said: “You’ll catch cold if you continue to sit here.”
Lifting herself on her hands, she sprang down.
“We’ll have to walk a bit before we can hope to find a taxi,” said Wilfred.
“What’s the matter with the car-line?”
“All right. The nearest is on Second Avenue.”
They walked away from the river in a constrained silence. This was harder for Elaine to bear than for Wilfred. After awhile she burst out crossly:
“Oh, bother! You’ve spoiled everything!”
Wilfred smiled. “No,” he said. “You get me wrong. I am not bitter, because I expected nothing.”
“I think that’s just an attitude,” she said, looking at him shrewdly.
“Oh well, you’ll see—if you don’t cast me off.”
She impulsively slipped her hand through his arm. “Oh, Wilfred, I do want you for a friend!” she said. “I have nobody to talk to but you.”
Wilfred was very happy. He thought without bitterness: I suppose I am a poor-spirited creature. Thankful for small favors. He said: “Why not? That thing is cleared away now. There are no bars between us. That’s why I spoke.”
“You have already given me three different reasons for speaking,” she remarked acutely.
Wilfred laughed. “All true! Life is not so simple!”
“You’re a funny man!”
“You know nothing about men,” said Wilfred. “You only recognize one quality in men. You want me for your friend, yet you despise me because I am willing to come in on that basis.”
“Not despise!” she said quickly.
“Well, supply your own word.”
“I don’t mind if you scold me,” she said with unexpected humility.
Wilfred laughed again, not very mirthfully. “I can be honester with you now,” he said. “I have nothing to lose.”
She stopped. “I’ll put your friendship to the test at once,” she said abruptly. “Let’s not go home. Let’s walk for miles and miles. Have dinner out.”
“Oh, will you!” cried Wilfred in delight.
“Well! . . . you’re easily consoled,” she said dryly.
“I can’t help but be happy when you are beside me!”
She dropped his arm.
They turned Northward again. They went down hill under the bridge approach, and alongside the towering gas tanks. The next stage was marked by East River Park, with its row of fancy little brick houses, circa 1888; then through Pleasant avenue, a raw thoroughfare, belying its name; and finally through the secluded streets around the Northeast corner of the island, lined with gaily-painted wooden dwellings like a village. Not until they had reached the plaza where the red trolley cars start for the Bronx, did Elaine confess to being tired and hungry.
“Have you got enough money?” she asked like a boy.
Wilfred nodded. “We’ll get on the El. and ride back to Sixty-Seventh street,” he said. “There is a restaurant on Third avenue called Joe’s, famous in its way; I expect it’s like no place you have ever been in.”
The neighborhood was not prepossessing; and neither was Joe’s; a common-looking place with two rows of long tables, ended against the wall, like a Bowery restaurant.
Elaine looked about her with bright eyes. “I have never eaten in such a place,” she said. “I shall love it!”
“It’s not really as bad as it looks,” said Wilfred. “The commonness is deliberate. It is designed to attract those who appreciate good food, but do not like to put on style.”
“What a good idea!” said Elaine.
“Well, I don’t know,” said Wilfred. “Joe is a little discouraged. Style seems to be in the ascendant; and good living on the wane!”
“I can plant my elbows on the table, and slump down anyhow,” said Elaine. “Do you think they will allow me to smoke?”
“We’ll hazard it.”
Wilfred insisted on ordering champagne.
“How silly in such a place!” objected Elaine.
“Oh, no!” he said. “Joe is prepared for it. . . . Besides champagne has a special virtue. It puffs one up.”
Elaine pushed her plate away. “Wonderful food!” she said. “I’m as full as a tick!”
She lit a cigarette. There was no interference. Nearly all the other diners had left now. Wilfred was sitting opposite her with a smile etched around his lips; gazing at her with half-veiled eyes of pleasure. Elaine’s look at him became quizzical.
“Why shouldn’t I be happy?” he said reading her thought. “To-night I have had the best of you. Our walk together in the dark; our confidence in each other. If I were your husband I could have nothing better.”
Elaine’s smile broadened; and he perceived that she regarded this as mere sentimentalizing. Well, it didn’t matter now. He smiled on. He made no attempt to explain that his exquisite happiness was due to the fact that his heart was big and soft with pain. Impossible to convey such things in words.
“Besides, I have confessed myself to you,” he added. “I need hide no longer.”
“You are hiding things from me now!” she said.
“Things, but not myself.”
While she quizzed him, something was working behind it. Her eyes fell. “I wish I could be happy . . . like that,” she murmured.
An apprehension of worse to come struck through Wilfred. “You must feel something the same as I,” he said quickly.
“Something,” she said. “You’re a dear!”
The word chilled Wilfred. He hastened past it. “But not content?” he asked.
“Happiness seems to me to leave a bad taste in the mouth,” said Elaine, affecting lightness.
An exclamation of dismay was forced from Wilfred. “Oh!” Obscurely he had felt that Elaine was unhappy; but this forced it on his consciousness. He was thrown into confusion. He could scarcely conceive the possibility of pitying the glorious Elaine. She suffering too—but not for him! Still . . . fellows in pain! Compassion welled up in his breast. Compassion is most due to the strong, he felt.
“That’s just a phase,” he said quickly. “You knew the feeling of ridiculous happiness when you were a child.”
“Oh yes,” she said, “and later than that. That feeling is natural to me.”
“It will come back.”
“I wonder!”
“There’s a cloud over your sun at the moment; that’s all.”
“What do you mean?” she asked with a hard look, jealous of her secret.
It intimidated Wilfred. “I was only speculating,” he said, his eyes trailing away. Inwardly he was in a panic. Was it Joe? . . . It could not be Joe. . . . But he knew that it was Joe! The thought was like the recurrence of a madness. He fought against it blindly. . . . She had not succumbed. She was fighting. Something must be done to help her! . . .
Elaine said, gloomily resting her chin on her palm: “Nobody can help anybody else, really. Each of us has his own particular hell.”
“People could help one another if they were sufficiently honest,” Wilfred insisted. “It requires a terrifying honesty. Once or twice in a lifetime, maybe . . . I’ve been helped.”
Elaine’s look upon him was scarcely flattering. It said: Your case is hardly the same as mine!
Something must be done! Something must be done! the panic-stricken voice cried within Wilfred. He despaired of finding the right words to say. He said nothing.
“When you’re faced by a serious problem, should you listen to your heart or your head?” asked Elaine, flicking the ash off her cigarette.
“To both,” he answered.
“That’s merely silly,” she said with curling lip. “If they’re warring voices.”
Wilfred flushed. “I was wrong,” he said. “It’s confusing. . . . I never can speak without thinking. You should listen to your heart always.”
“Ah!” she said, with the air of one who had caught him out. “Then you believe that passion should override everything; all considerations of prudence; everything!”
Wilfred felt his lips growing tight. “Passion does not always come from the heart,” he said. “As I understand it.”
“What do you mean?”
“There is infatuation.”
At that word Elaine ran up her eyebrows in two little peaks; but Wilfred somehow found the courage to face her out. A silence succeeded, which shook him badly. A gush of foolish, emotional speech filled his mouth like warm blood. He grimly swallowed it, waiting.
“Suppose one experienced a violent passion,” asked Elaine, with a casual air which concealed nothing from the man who loved her, “how on earth would one know whether it was love or infatuation?”
“By the quality of the object,” he said quickly. “If it was worthy. . . .”
“That’s nonsense!” she said scornfully. “If you were infatuated you would think the object was glorious anyhow.”
Wilfred shook his head. “That’s where the heart comes in. No matter how blinded we may be, we each have a voice in our breasts that whispers the truth. Only we don’t want to listen.”
“You must have a well-trained little prompter!” said Elaine.
He looked at her. He could bear her gibes. He held his tongue, waiting for the right word.
She said: “I’d have to have some surer guide than mysterious inner voices.”
“That’s easy,” said Wilfred quickly. “If your passion is for a worthy object you feel proud; if it is not worthy, you suffer like the devil.”
“I wasn’t talking about my passion,” said Elaine laughing; but her long-lashed eyes were dreadfully haunted.
“Oh, sure!” said Wilfred, grinning like a man on the rack. “That’s just the clumsy English language!” . . . Why can’t we speak out! he cried to himself; I love her so!
“Well, having got thus far,” said Elaine with a sprightly air that was almost more than he could bear; “having recognized that one is the victim of an infatuation, how is one to set about curing oneself?”
Wilfred shook his head helplessly.
“What! has the doctor no remedy to offer?”
“Leave it to time,” he murmured.
“That might work in the case of an elastic nature,” said Elaine. “One of those natures that snaps easily in and out of entanglements. But there’s another kind; stubborn.”
Wilfred could not speak. Something inside him was pressing up, and he could not force it back. It was stopping his throat; he struggled for breath. . . .
“Anyhow,” said Elaine, raising her chin, “I don’t admit your absolutes of love and infatuation. What’s the difference between them? It’s all in the point of view. It’s not the object that matters, but the feeling!”
The constriction within Wilfred suddenly broke. He heard with a feeling of surprise, a low, shaken voice issuing from between his lips. “Oh, Elaine! you couldn’t! He’s rotten! I am not quick to discover evil in people. But this man is altogether evil. . . . Never mind about his life. I expect he’s told you; he always does. What he’s done doesn’t matter. It is what he is! Your nature is clear and open; you must feel it . . . !”
Elaine after a quick glance of astonishment, listened with curving lips. “Of whom are you speaking?” she asked.
“You know,” he said, suddenly dashed.
There it was out! He need not have been so terrified, because Elaine was equal to the situation. She shrugged. “Oh well, it’s no secret that Joe and I are pals. I should hardly come to you for a testimonial of his character.”
Her remote glance, full of pain, assured him that her inner self was listening to his words. It enabled him to bear her scorn. “Worse than positive evil,” he said. “It’s a sort of ghastly sterility. He’s a monster! He cannot feel anything.”
“Oh, I assure you, you are wrong about that,” said Elaine with her tormented and contemptuous smile.
“Lust,” he said very low, not able to look at her then.
“Well?” she said simply.
Wilfred was struck dumb by that query. Why not lust? Well . . . why not . . . ?
In a moment he went on: “You must not think that I am merely jealous. I have no hopes. If Joe had never existed, you would not have cared for me. Remember too, that I’ve known him for ten years. This is not something that has sprung into my mind since I learned that you. . . . You must believe that I am honest! I love you! If it was anybody else but him. . . . I haven’t seen Joe but about half a dozen times in my life. From the first he has represented to me the principle of evil; that which destroys us! I have seen how he debauches everyone with whom he comes in contact. He calls to the evil in the natures of others. He goes on unharmed because he feels nothing. The thought that he might obtain a hold on you, a permanent hold. . . . Oh God! it won’t bear speaking of! It is too horrible. . . .”
He jumped up as if he were about to run out of the place.
“Steady!” whispered Elaine. “People are looking. . . .”
He dropped into his chair; his startled eyes darting around.
After a silence, she said sullenly: “This is just emotional stuff.” She turned her cheek on her palm, half averting her face from him. “. . . Anyhow, I’m not engaged to him.”
“I know the nature of the spell he exerts over you,” Wilfred went on more calmly. “I have seen it working; I have felt it myself in a different way. It is horrible and irresistible—yes, and delicious, too. Delicious! I say this, because I must force you to see that I understand. I don’t blame you for feeling it. . . . You think that I’m something less than a man—Oh, well, never mind about me! . . . But I want you to know that I never put you on any silly pedestal. I love you because you’re warm and human, and of the same flesh as me. I don’t blame you. . . .”
“Thanks!” drawled Elaine. Her eyes were hidden from him.
“. . . I don’t see how you’re going to resist it. A pure and passionate woman! But marriage. . . . Oh, God! . . .”
“What’s the alternative?” she murmured.
“Give yourself to him,” said Wilfred quickly.
Elaine jerked her head up, staring at him in pure amazement.
“That startles you?” he asked somberly.
“Not the suggestion,” she said. “I’m no bread and butter miss. But that it should come from you . . . !”
“Oh, leave me out of it! Look on me as a sort of disembodied voice. . . . It would be better than marriage, wouldn’t it?”
No answer from Elaine.
“This thing is strong only when you oppose it. Give in to it, and you’ll discover its insignificance. . . .”
Elaine looked at him startled; then closely hid her eyes again.
“. . . Bad morality, but good commonsense,” said Wilfred with a jangling laugh.
Elaine said in her casual voice: “They say that infatuation grows on what it feeds upon.”
“I don’t mean for a night,” he said bluntly. “Go away with him. Stay with him as long as you want. He could not take anything from you that mattered, if you were not bound. . . .”
She gave no sign.
“He might reject your offered sacrifice,” Wilfred went on grimly. “Marriage with you is what he wants. It would be a fine thing for him. You’d have to insist. . . .” Wilfred’s voice began to shake. “Ah, do not fight yourself until you are worn out! Beware of that fatal moment of weariness, when you are willing to give into anything!”
“Would you take me when I came back?” asked Elaine in an ironical voice without looking at him.
“Like a shot!—if you wanted me. However, I have no illusions about that. . . .”
Elaine laughed shakily, and bestirred herself. “What a lot of nonsense I’m letting you talk!” she said in an insincere voice. “One would think I only had to get on a train with a man to solve all problems! The Lord knows, I’m not squeamish; but after all, society is organized on a certain basis; and I’m not prepared to. . . .”
“Now who’s a coward!” cried Wilfred, facing her down. “You have accused me of it often enough—by implication. But at least I will face things . . . even this! . . . What do you want? The sanction and blessing of society on such a thing?”
She shook her lowered head. “Not really,” she said very low. “It’s just that I doubt the efficacy of your remedy. . . .” Then lower still: “I think . . . that you underrate the strength of such a feeling . . . in a woman . . . well, in me!”
“Perhaps I do,” he said with a dreadfully sinking heart. “I am not pure. I never was pure. . . . But, Elaine, not marriage! . . . Oh, not marriage . . . !”
“Come on,” she said. “The waiters are fidgeting. They want to close.”