The Swing of the Pendulum

by Frances Mary Peard

It was difficult to shake off Hugh’s good-will. Wareham had no inclination for sleep, but imperative need to be alone, to meet these disjointed fancies which had neither sense nor sequence, yet threatened mastery. Kviknaes, smiling hospitably as though four o’clock in the morning were the usual hour for receiving guests, showed him his little room, the same as he had had there once before. It looked out on the great fjord, now lying in sunniest radiance. Evidently Hugh, from the next room, had spied the boat coming over the waters, and timed his own departure to the landing-place. Wareham decided, with a grim smile, that Anne doubtless credited him with a night watch on the shore.

This was the first consolatory reflection, and it was petty enough.

It allowed entrance, however, to others. His mind was like an American house with the valves for hot and cold air both open; cold and heat rushed in in brisk emulation. Out of sight of Hugh, out of hearing his transports, with the shining waters before him across which he and she had floated, he wondered at his own sudden dejection, and rated it as cowardly. The world’s veriest fledgeling would have borne himself more bravely. Say that Hugh was there, say that Anne encountered him without displeasure, what did that prove? Did he expect her to frown, to hurl reproach? He eluded that second speech of hers in the boat, which had fallen icily; he went back to her confession that Hugh bored her. That had seemed to him decisive. A woman does not marry the man who bores her, except for cogent reasons, which he would not hold of possible weight with Anne. He bored her, she had flung up her engagement and fled. There was the long and short of it. Nothing was altered, and out jumped a hundred excellent little arguments protesting that nothing ever should alter.

But the worst of these Jack-in-the-box puppets is that a very little sends them in again. Opportunity—golden opportunity—had been his, when his hands were tied; would she ever come again? How was Anne to know what point of honour checked words, looks? If she did know—there was the rub!—would she accept it as valid reason? Down, dismally down, went the poor puppets, one after the other. She would not, she could not!

If that had been all! But he knew that he was turning his back upon the worst difficulty.

What would happen when the unconscious Hugh received that letter which was off on its travels after him, and which sooner or later must come into his hands. What should he do? Forestall it? Stand aside and wait?

Regrets, forebodings scourged him. If he had spoken he might have won her. Faith to his friend—which he could not have failed in without being false to himself—had probably lost her. And in spite of all, there was that in the situation which might cause Hugh to think him a traitor.

The varying sensations of the day had battered him into a condition more nearly approaching exhaustion than he knew. Sleep came before he had formed plans for his waking, and he was only aroused by Hugh thundering at his door.

“Slept well? So have I. Like a top. Come along down to the bath-house.”

Wareham dispatched him with promise to follow. Waking, as often happens, had brought decision, so that he shook himself free of the foggy doubts which beset him a few hours before. There could be no question of Hugh’s prior rights. He had nothing to do but to stand aside, and hold his tongue. As for the letter, it must be left to its fate. Long before it reached Hugh, that impetuous young man would have carried or lost the day, and Wareham had sufficient faith in his friend’s warm-heartedness to believe that he would understand, too. That, for the moment, was of greater consequence. He walked slowly down to the pier of black piles, where a red-tiled building is picturesquely perched, revolving other people’s possible actions. They are wheels which we can drive with fewer jolts than our own. And the pure fresh air, the sparkling gaiety of the morning had their effect. They intoxicated Hugh. Wareham, who had a stronger head, felt their influence more subtly. Thoughts of escape had fluttered before him; now he would have none of them. Stand aside he must, but from where he stood he could see and measure, and that alone was an incalculable advantage.