"Don't put a pergola on the Auditorium."
In the past weeks Gregory had heard Jean's last words until sometimes it had seemed to him that he would go mad. They were such ridiculous words to have marked the end.
And here she was. So close that almost without a motion he could reach and touch her hand—the firm, large hand that he could see without looking at it—crumbling the bread beside her plate. With his eyes on his own plate, he could see the outline of her throat, the even throb of the strong pulse that beat at the base. Night after night, during the last ten weeks, he had shut it away, forced it out of his vision and gone on reading, while across the table Margaret sat embroidering clothes for Puck.
He had closed and locked a door. Margaret had opened it. His brain beat in a chaos of anger and gratitude and pity for Margaret.
"Gregory, just listen to this." They had reached the dessert without Gregory's noticing that the maid had brought things or taken them away, and without his uttering a word. Margaret's patience had reached its limit, and she turned to him now with the same controlled impatience with which she disciplined Puck.
"Mrs. Herrick believes that there are spiritual forces, just as real as physical ones, like gravity and cohesion and all that, that are going to waste because nobody has tried to channel them. Isn't that right, Mrs. Herrick?"
Gregory was looking up now. Like a humming-bird Margaret flitted aside to let the stronger force sweep him into the current.
"Yes, I believe that what we call personality is almost a concrete thing. You can feel it, just as you can feel any force. It seems to me there is a lot of this vital undercurrent in women."
And Gregory felt again the hall, packed with Jewish workers, and Rachael leaning from the edge of the platform.... "How is Rachael?"
Jean wondered whether the words she was trying to grasp would ever come within reach. Margaret looked with a puzzled frown from one to the other. But she didn't care much what he said as long as he said something.