“I wonder if I remind him of her in lots of ways,” she mused.
Oliver’s thoughts leaped backward a score of years and more. “I used to think she was the most wonderful person in all the world,” he said. “I was very desperately in love with your mother when I was six or seven, Jane.” He hesitated and then went on clumsily, almost fatuously: “I am beginning to think that you are like her in a lot of ways.”
She gave him a quick, startled look. His face was turned away, and so he did not see the tender, wistful little smile that flickered on her lips, nor was he aware of the long, deep breath she took. From that moment a queer, uneasy restraint fell upon them. There were long silences, dreamy on her part, moody on his. He left shortly after ten; his “good night” was strangely gruff and unnatural.
He was jealous. He knew it for a fact, he confessed it to himself for the first time openly and unreservedly. He was jealous of young Lansing. There was no use trying to deny it. He did not go so far as to think of himself as being in love with Jane—that would be ridiculous, after all the years they had known each other—but he bitterly resented the thought that she might be in love with some one else. Especially with the superior, supercilious, cocksure Lansing!
Why, if she were in love with Lansing—and married him!—good Lord, what a fool he had been to think it would make no difference to him! It would make a difference—an appalling difference. All nonsense to think she wouldn’t go out of his life if she married Lansing or any one else. Of course she would. He felt a cold, clammy moisture break out all over him; a sickening sensation assailed the pit of his stomach. She would have a home in which he could be nothing more than an old friend; he would have to submit to being governed by certain conventions and by an entirely new set of conditions; her husband would have a lot to say about all that; it would mean that he couldn’t drop in every night or so for an intimate chat, that he couldn’t go strolling freely and contentedly into familiar haunts with Jane, that he couldn’t take her off for rides in his car, or up to the city to see the plays. Lansing wouldn’t stand for that! Nor would any one else! It would be the end of everything, his life would have to be reordered, his very thoughts subjected to a drastic course of inhibitions, he would have to stand afar off and wait for some other man to beckon for him to approach! Unbearable!
What was it that Sammy said—in jest, of course, but now heavy with portent? “This isn’t your night to call on Jane,” or something like that. It was Lansing’s night! The whole town knew it was Lansing’s night—and he was calling on Jane because Lansing happened to be off in the country seeing a patient.
This was what all his good offices had come to, this was what had come of his idiotic, vainglorious desire to do the right thing by Jane! He had simply let himself in for a lot of unhappiness. Strange, though, that he should be so consumed with jealousy when he wasn’t the least bit in love with Jane himself. It was absurd! Why, he had known her since the day she was born—how could he possibly be in love with her when he had known her all her life? He knew what love was—yes, indeed, he knew. He had been in love half a dozen times. He ought to know what love was—and certainly his feelings toward Jane were nothing like those he had experienced in bygone affairs of the heart. Gee whiz! What had suddenly got into him?
Suddenly it came to him that he was selfish. That’s what it was—selfishness. He did not want her himself and yet he couldn’t bear the thought of letting some one else have her. Utter selfishness! Having arrived at this conclusion he smote his conscience heroically and proclaimed to the night that he would no more be jealous. Not even of Lansing. He would go on being Jane’s friend, and Lansing’s friend, and the friend of their children, and—This brought him up with a blinding jolt. Jane’s children! And Lansing’s! Something red and strangely sustained blurred his vision.
He was oppressed by a feeling of almost intolerable loneliness as he strode down the dimly lighted street; a soft breeze blowing through the leaves of the young maples overhead suggested subdued, malicious laughter; automobile horns sounded like raucous guffaws; some blithering idiot was sounding taps on a mournful cornet far off in the night. He was going to lose Jane—he was going to lose Jane—he was going to lose Jane. Over and over again: he was going to lose Jane. Taps!
Clay Street was almost deserted. The stores were closed for the night. A few pedestrians strolled leisurely along the sidewalks; a small group of loafers in front of Jackson’s cigar store, a detached policeman, three young girls waiting on a corner, widely separated automobiles drawn up to the curb, a man studying the billboards outside the closed door of the Star Moving Picture Palace. The town clock began to strike eleven.