“He must be a—a sort of prig.” Joan felt suspicious of a masculine that could stand out against the temptation of such a feminine as her adored Emily.
“See! Even you couldn’t be trusted. But no, he’s not a prig—just plain honourable and decent, in an old-fashioned way that exasperates me—and thrills me. That’s why I say he’s a man to lean upon and believe in.”
Emily felt better for having talked with some one about him and went away almost cheerful. But she was soon down again, and time seemed only to aggravate her unhappiness. “I must be brave,” she said. “But why? Why should I go on? He has Mary—I have nothing.” And the great dread formed in her mind—the dread that he was forgetting her. If not, why did he not seek her out, at least reassure himself with his own eyes that she was still alive? And she had to look steadily at her memory-pictures, at his eyes, and the set of his jaw, to feel at all hopeful that he was remembering, was living his real life for her.
Three weeks after Emily’s departure, on a Thursday night, Stilson left his assistant in charge and went home at eleven. As he entered his house—in West Seventy-third street near the river—he saw strange wraps on the table in the entrance-hall, heard voices in the drawing-room. He went on upstairs. As he was hurrying into evening dress he suddenly paused, put on a dressing-gown, and went along the hall. He gently turned the knob of a door at the end and entered. There was a dim light, as in the hall, and he could at once make out all the objects in the room.
He crossed to the little bed, and stood looking down at Mary—her yellow hair in a coil on top of her head, one small hand clinched and thrust between the pillow and her cheek, the other lying white and limp upon the coverlid. He stood there several minutes without motion. When he reappeared in the bright light of his dressing-room, his face was calm, a complete change from its dark and drawn expression of a few minutes before.
He was soon dressed, and descended to the drawing-room. Like the hall, like the whole house, like its mistress, this room was rather gaudy, but not offensive or tasteless. The most conspicuous objects in its decoration were two pictures. One was a big photograph of a slim, ethereal-looking girl—the dancer he had loved and married. She was dressed to reveal all those charms of youth apparently just emerging from childhood—a bouquet of budding flowers fresh from the garden in the early morning. The other was a portrait of her by a distinguished artist—the face and form of the famous dancer of the day. The face was older and bolder, with the sleepy sensuousness and sadness that characterised her now. The neck and arms were bare; and the translucent and clinging gown, aided by the pose, offered, yet refused, a view of every line of her figure.
Marguerite was sitting almost under the portrait; on the same sofa was Victoria Fenton, looking much as when Stilson first met her—on her trip to America in the autumn in which Emily returned from Paris. She still had to the unobservant that charm of “the unawakened”—as if there were behind her surface-beauty not good-natured animalism, but a soul awaiting the right conjurer to rouse it to conscious life.
Marlowe was seated on the arm of a chair, smoking a cigarette. He was dressed carefully as always, and in the latest English fashion. He had an air of prosperity and contented indifference. His once keen face was somewhat fat and, taken with his eyes and mouth, suggested that his wife’s cardinal weakness had infected him. Stilson was late and they went at once to supper—Marlowe and Miss Fenton had been invited for supper because that was the only time convenient for all these night-workers.
“You are having a great success?” said Stilson to Victoria. She was exhibiting at the Lyceum in one of Joan’s plays which had been partly rewritten by Marlowe.