“I don’t know—I couldn’t, because he doesn’t like me, but I might get some one else to do it, that is if he hasn’t forgotten all his old tricks. Eleven years is a long time, you know.”
“Oh, he hasn’t—” but she decided not to finish her sentence.
The restaurant was almost deserted now, and Terry bethought himself, with many apologies, of his resolve not to keep Ruth out too late. He would have hurried into another cab, but Ruth protested that it was such a short distance and she wanted to walk. In reality she thought that in the darkness when she could not see his face so clearly she might find the courage to tell him. Yet she walked silent by his side, unable to speak. She was lost in the wonder of being alone with him—he was so tall and wonderful. She looked up at the stars and gratitude filled her heart. It was good to love, even when love was unreciprocated. She pitied women who had never loved, as she did, unselfishly—a love more like adoration than earthly passion. She wanted to help Terry and Gloria. She would rejoice in their marriage. If she could only solve their problems, she would not care what life held for her after that. It was an exalted mood for a girl of nineteen years, some months and days, and Terry, all unsuspecting, broke into it with words:
“I wish we could arrange to have Gloria and Professor Pendragon meet again,” he said. “Pendragon was the big love of her life, and no man ever having once loved Gloria could possibly be quite free of her sway. She made the other marriages just for excitement, I think. I can’t imagine any other reason. I’d like to have them meet again. It would be interesting to say the least. I’m horribly unmodern, but I believe that men and women love once and once only.”
It seemed to Ruth that there was a note of sad resignation and generous resolve in his voice.
“But I’ve promised Gloria that I will not let him know anything about her. It’s very generous of you to want to—to bring them together.”
For a moment Terry did not speak. He seemed to be considering her words and looked at her in a curious way that she did not understand.
“It’s not generosity—perhaps only curiosity,” he said. “Gloria and I have been such good friends—and I am tremendously fond of her. She is so beautiful and charming and talented, but just now I think she needs something, some one, bigger than her work.”
They had reached home, Ruth in a state of exalted pain and happiness. Terry loved Gloria; that was evident, but for some reason he did not hope to win her. With noble generosity he was hoping only for Gloria’s happiness—planning to bring her and Professor Pendragon together. Somehow it seemed that she and Terry were sharing sacrifice—he his love for Gloria, she her love for him. It gave her a feeling of sweet comradeship with him, that almost compensated for the pain of knowing that he did not love her. Perhaps behind her thoughts too there was the faint hope that if Gloria went back to her first husband, Terry might change the object of his affections, but this thought was only half defined, for at nineteen the idea of a man loving twice is very inartistic. To Ruth all real love was of the Abelard and Heloise, Paul and Virginia type.
Thus she thought in silence while Terry waited for her to unlock the door. The door opened to her key and she turned to say good-night to him, when her nostrils caught the overpowering perfume of some strange incense, and in the hall she saw the same blue haze that she had seen that night when she found Amy on the stairs. Terry, too, had smelled the incense, and paused, looking at her for explanation. Her heart was beating at a tremendous rate. Here was the opportunity that she had been seeking to secure an unbiased witness. She put her finger to her lips in sign of silence, as Amy had done that night, and drew him with her into the hall. Then she closed the door silently behind them. Without knowing why he imitated her example in silence. Inside the hall was heavy with the blue smoke and the perfume that seemed to be smothering them.