It was Lily Shane who moved first. The burnt cigarette dropped from her fingers; and she stamped on it. The action appeared to stir Naomi into life.
“Philip,” she said. “I came to tell you that your Pa has come home.”
14
It was Emma herself who saw him first. Returning flustered and upset from the call upon Mary Conyngham, she entered the slate-colored house closing the door stormily behind her. She would have passed the darkened parlor (where since Naomi’s departure the shades were always kept drawn to protect the carpet), but, as she explained it afterward, she “felt” that there was some one in the room. Peering into the darkness, she heard a faint sound of snoring, and, as her eyes grew accustomed to the darkness, she discerned the figure of a man lying on her best sofa, with his feet resting on the arm. He was sleeping with his mouth open a little way beneath a black mustache, waxed and curled with the care of a dandy.
As she stood there in the midst of the room, the figure in the shadows took form slowly, and suddenly she knew it ... the dapper, small body, dressed so dudishly, the yellow waistcoat with its enormous gold watch-chain, and cluster of seals. She knew, with a sudden pang, even the small, well-shaped hand, uncalloused by any toil, that lay peacefully at rest on the Brussels carpet. For a second she thought, “I’ve gone suddenly crazy from all the trouble I’ve had. What I’m seeing can’t be true.”
It took a great deal of courage for her to move toward the sofa, for it meant moving in an instant, not simply across the Brussels carpet, but across the desert of twenty-six years. It meant giving up Moses Slade and all that resplendent future which had been taking form in her mind only a moment before. It was like waking the dead from the shadows of the tomblike parlor.
She did not lack courage, Emma; or perhaps it was not courage, but the headlong thrust of an immense vitality which now possessed her. She went over to the sofa and said, “Jason! Jason Downes!” He did not stir, and suddenly the strange thought came to her that he might be dead. The wicked idea threw her into an immense confusion, for she did not know whether she preferred the unstable companionship of the fascinating Jason to the bright future that would be hers as the wife of Moses. Then, all at once, she saw that the gaudy watch-chain was moving up and down slowly as he breathed, and she was smitten abruptly by memories twenty-six years old of morning after morning when she had wakened, full of energy, to find Jason lying beside her sleeping in the same profound, conscienceless slumber.
“Jason!” she said again. “Jason Downes!” And this time there was a curious tenderness in her voice that was almost a sob.
He did not stir, and she touched his shoulder. He moved slowly, and then, opening his eyes, sat up and put his feet on the floor. He awakened lazily, and for a moment he simply sat staring at her, looking as neat and dapper as if he had just finished an elaborate toilet. Again memory smote Emma. He had always been like this: he had always wakened in the mornings, looking fresh and neat, with every hair in place. It was that hair-oil he persisted in using. Now that he’d come home, she would have to get antimacassars to protect the furniture against Jason’s oily head.
Suddenly he grinned and said, “Why! Hello! It’s you, Em.” It wasn’t a sheepish grin, but a smile of cocky assurance, such as was frozen forever upon the face of the enlarged portrait.