The Shadow of Life

by Anne Douglas Sedgwick

The hot air; the still flowers, not stirred by a breath of breeze; Miss Allen’s figure, motionless but for its monotonously moving hand, were harmonious in their quiet, and in contrast to them Grainger’s pervasive, restless, irritable presence was like a loud, incessant jangling.

He walked back and forth; he picked up the photographs on the mantel-shelf, the books on the table, flinging them down in a succession of impatient claps. He threw himself heavily into chairs,—so heavily that Miss Allen glanced round, alarmed for the security of the furniture,—and he asked her half a dozen times if Miss Gifford would be in at five.

“She is seldom late,” or, “I expect her then,” Miss Allen would answer in the tone of mild severity that one might employ toward an unseemly child over whom one had no authority.

But though there was severity in Miss Allen’s voice, the acute glances that she stole at the clamorous guest were not unsympathetic. She placed him. She pitied and she rather admired him. Even while emphasizing the dismay of her involuntary starts when the table rattled and the chairs groaned, she felt a satisfaction in these symptoms of passion; for that she was in the presence of a passion, a hopeless and rather magnificent passion, she made no doubt. She associated such passions with Eppie,—it was trailing such clouds of glory that she descended upon the arid life of the little square,—and none had so demonstrated itself, none had so performed its part for her benefit. She was sorry that it was hopeless; but she was glad that it was there, in all its Promethean wrathfulness, for her to observe. Miss Allen felt pretty sure that this was the nearest experience of passion she would ever know.

“In at five, as a rule, you say?” Grainger repeated for the fourth time, springing from the chair where, with folded arms, he had sat for a few moments scowling unseeingly at the pansies.

He stationed himself now beside her and, over her head, stared out at the square. It was at once alarming and delightful,—as if the Titan with his attendant vulture had risen from his rock to join her.

“You’ve no idea from which direction she is coming?”

“None,” said Miss Allen, decisively but not unkindly. “It’s really no good for you to think of going out to meet her. She is doing a lot of different things this afternoon and might come from any direction. You would almost certainly miss her.” And she went on, unemphatically, but, for all the colorless quality of her voice, so significantly that Grainger, realizing for the first time the presence of an understanding sympathy, darted a quick look at her. “She gets in at five, just as I go out. She knows that I depend on her to be here by then.”

So she would not be in the way, this little individual. She made him think, now that he looked at her more attentively, as she sat there with her trimly, accurately moving hand, of a beaver he had once seen swiftly and automatically feeding itself; her sleek head, her large, smooth front teeth, were like a beaver’s. It was really very decent of her to see that he wanted her out of the way; so decent that, conscious of the link it had made between them, he said presently, abruptly and rather roughly, “How is she?”

“Well, of course she has not recovered,” said Miss Allen.