III
In the morning Helen was again worried by his appearance.
“What time did you come in, Gage?”
“About midnight.”
“You look as if you’d slept wretchedly. Did you?”
“Well, enough.” His tone was surly. He could not bear to look at her, shining haired, head held high, confidence, strength, balance of mind, justice, radiating from her. He knew what a contrast he made—she did not need to tell him of his heavy, encircled eyes, his depressed mouth.
She pushed his hair back from his forehead, standing beside his chair. It was a familiar gesture between them.
“Gage, you mean more than anything else to me. You know that?”
He mumbled an answer.
“But don’t resent it so awfully because I can’t believe that loving is a woman’s only job. We mustn’t absorb each other.”
Quoted, he thought bitterly, from Margaret Duffield. Quite reasonable too. Very reasonable. He suddenly hated her for her reasoning which was denied to his struggling instincts. All desire, all love in his heart had curdled to a sodden lump of resentment.
He picked up the paper. There was Helen, marching across the page, smiling into the camera’s eyes. Curious men with hats and crowding women showed in the blurred background. He looked from the picture to the real Helen.
“Very good picture.”
His tone was disagreeable. And he had not answered her appeal.
“Be fair, Gage.”
Very well, he would be fair.
“I haven’t the smallest sympathy with all this, Helen. I know you regard that as unreasonable. It may be that I am. But I don’t believe you’re bigger or better because of all this. You’ve done it from no spirit of conviction but because you were flattered into doing it. The Duffield girl is simply using you for her own convictions. With her they at least are convictions. But with you they’re not.”
“That’s quite enough, thanks, Gage.”
He was cruelly glad he had hurt her. How it helped the ache in his own heart!
Helen thought: “He’s jealous of Margaret. Terribly jealous. It’s abnormal and disgusting. What has happened to him?” She let him leave the house with what was almost a little life of spirits when he had gone. She had not time to sift these feelings of Gage now. Later, if they persisted. She wondered if he should see a doctor, thought for a moment of psycho-analysis, speculating as to whether that might set him straight. But the telephone began ringing frantically.