The Bent Twig

by Dorothy Canfield Fisher

And Sylvia was not to be outdone. She turned her own eyes away from it as sedulously as they. She never let a conscious thought dwell on it—and like all other repressed and strangled currents of thought, it grew swollen and restive, filling her subconsciousness with monstrous, unformulated speculations. She was extremely absorbed in the luxury, the amenity, the smooth-working perfection of the life about her. She consciously concentrated all her faculties on her prodigious opportunity for aesthetic growth, for appreciation of the fine and marvelous things about her. She let go the last scruple which had held her back from accepting from Aunt Victoria the shower of beautiful things to wear which that connoisseur in wearing apparel delighted to bestow upon an object so deserving. She gave a brilliant outward effect of enjoying life as it came which was as impersonal as that of the two men who looked at her so frequently, and this effect went as deep as her will-power had command. But beneath—unacknowledged waves beating on the shore of her life and roughly, irresistibly, rudely fashioning it—rolled a ground-swell of imperious questionings….

Was Felix' perfect manner of impersonal interest solely due to the delicacy of his situation? Did he feel now that he was as rich as Austin …? But, on the other hand, why did he come now and put himself in a situation which required the utmost efforts for unconsciousness on everybody's part if not because Austin's being there had meant he dared not wait? And Austin's change of manner since the arrival of the other man, the film of ceremony which had slid imperceptibly over the tender friendliness of his manner, did that mean that he would not take advantage of Morrison's temporarily tied hands, but, with a scrupulousness all his own, would wait until the race was even and they stood foot to foot on the same level? Or had he noticed at once, with those formidably clear eyes of his, some shade of her manner to Felix which she had not been able to command, and was he waiting for some move from her? And how could she move until she had some sign from Felix and how could he give a sign? There was nothing to do but to wait, to hope that the thin ice which now bent perilously under the pleasant ceremonies of their life in common, would hold them until…. Even the wildest up-leaping wave of that tossing tide never went beyond the blank wall which came after the "until…."

There were other moments when all that surge swung back and forth to the rhythm of the poisoned recollection of her unacknowledged humiliation in Lydford; when, inflamed with determination to avoid another such blow in the face, Sylvia almost consciously asked herself, self-contemptuously, "Who am I, an obscure, poverty-stricken music-teacher out of the West, to fancy that I have but to choose between two such men, two such fortunes?" but against this counted strongly the constantly recurring revelations of the obscure pasts of many of the women whom she met during those days, women who were now shining, acknowledged firsts in the procession of success. The serene, stately, much-admired Princesse de Chevrille had been a Miss Sommers from Cleveland, Ohio, and she had come to Paris first as a governess. The beautiful Mrs. William Winterton Perth, now Aunt Victoria's favorite friend, who entertained lesser royalty and greater men of letters with equal quiet dignity, had in her youth, so she chanced casually one day to mention, known what it was to be thrifty about car-fares. There was nothing intrinsically impossible in any of the glittering vistas down which Sylvia's quick eye cast involuntary glances.

But inevitably, when the heaving dark tide rose as high as this, there came a swift and deadly ebbing away of it all, and into Sylvia's consciousness (always it seemed to her with the most entire irrelevance) there flared up the picture of Molly as she had seen her last, shimmering like a jewel in her white veil—then the other picture, the over-turned car, the golden head bruised and bloody and forever stilled—and always, always beyond that, the gaunt, monstrous possibility, too awful ever to be put into words, too impossible for credence …

From that shapeless, looming, black mass, Sylvia fled away actually and physically, springing to her feet wherever she was, entering another room, taking up some other occupation.

Just once she had the faintest sign from beyond the wall that she was not alone in her fear of this horror. She was sitting near Austin Page at a tea, one of the frequent, small, richly chosen assemblages which Mrs. Marshall-Smith gathered about her. Part of the ensuing chatter on one of these occasions turned, as modern chatter frequently does, on automobiles. The husband of Mrs. William Winterton Perth was an expert on such matters, having for some years diverted by an interest in mechanics the immense enforced leisure of a transplanted male American. He was talking incessantly that day of the wonderful improvement in steering mechanism the last few years had brought about. "I tell you what, Miss Marshall!" he insisted, as though she had disputed the point with him, "I tell you what, there used to be some excuse for piling your car up by the side of the road, but nowadays any one who doesn't keep in the road and right side up must be just plain looking for a chance to use his car like a dose of cold poison." For a moment Sylvia could not conceive why she felt so sickening a thrust at her heart. She turned her eyes from the speaker. They fell on a man's hand, on the arm of the chair next hers. It was Austin's hand and it was shaking uncontrollably. As she gazed at it, fascinated, he thrust it deep into his pocket. She did not look at him. In a moment he rose and crossed the room. The husband of Mrs. William Winterton Perth asked for another petit four, confessing his fondness for chocolate éclairs,—and embarked upon demountable rims.

CHAPTER XXXVII

"… His wife and children perceiving it, began to cry after him to return; but the man put his fingers in his ears and ran on, crying, 'Life! Life Eternal!'"

They had been in the Louvre, had spent an hour with Felix in that glowing embodiment of the pomp and majesty of human flesh known as the Rubens Medici-Room, and now, for the sheer pleasure of it, had decided to walk home. Mrs. Marshall-Smith, endowed with a figure which showed as yet no need for exercise, and having passed youth's restless liking for it, had vetoed the plan as far as she went, and entering her waiting ear, had been borne smoothly off, an opulent Juno without her peacocks.

The three who were left, lingered for a moment in the quiet sunny square of the Louvre, looking up at the statue of Lafayette, around at the blossoming early shrubs. Sylvia was still under the spell of the riotous, full-blown splendor of the paintings she had seen. Wherever she looked, she saw again the rainbow brilliance of those glossy satins, that rippling flooding golden hair, those ample, heaving bosoms, those liquid gleaming eyes, the soft abundance of that white and ruddy flesh, with the patina of time like a golden haze over it. The spectacle had been magnificent and the scene they now entered was a worthy successor to it. They walked down through the garden of the Tuileries and emerged upon the Place de la Concorde at five o'clock of a perfect April afternoon, when the great square hummed and sang with the gleaming traffic of luxury. Countless automobiles, like glistening beetles, darted about, each one with its load of carefully dressed and coiffed women, looking out on the weaving glitter of the street with the proprietary, complacent stare of those who feel themselves in the midst of a civilization with which they are in perfect accord. Up the avenue, beyond, streamed an incessant parade of more costly ears, more carriages, shining, caparisoned horses, every outfit sumptuous to its last detail, every one different from all the others, and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of them, till in the distance they dwindled to a black stream dominated by the upward sweep of the Arc de Triomphe, magnified to fabulous proportions by the filmy haze of the spring day. To their left flowed the Seine, blue and flashing. A little breeze stirred the new leaves on the innumerable trees.