There they settled themselves to talk, lost in a throng which paid no heed to the middle-aged couple in the alcove. The Governor remained ill at ease, sitting forward upon the edge of his chair as if prepared to spring up and escape at the first opportunity. Lily, so calm, so placid, appeared only to inspire him with confusion. It may have been that she aroused a whole train of memories which he had succeeded in forgetting.
For a time, the conversation flowed along the most stiff and conventional of channels. There were polite inquiries after each other’s health. Lily told him of her mother’s death, of the fire at Cypress Hill, of the fact that she had severed the last tie with the Town and would never return to it.
“Never?” asked the Governor. “Never?”
“No. Why should I? It is not the same. I have nothing there to call me back. My life is here now. I shall probably die here. The Town is nothing to me.”
The Governor’s face lighted suddenly. He struck his thigh—a thigh which had once been so handsome and now was flabby with fat—a sharp blow.
“No, it is not the same. You’ve no idea how it has grown. I was there about six months ago. It’s twice as big as in the old days. You know, it’s now one of the greatest steel towns in the world. You’ve a right to be proud of it.”
But Lily said nothing. She was looking out of the tall window into the white square.
“And Ellen,” the Governor continued, “I hear she has become famous.” He laughed. “Who would have thought it? I remember her as a bad-tempered little girl with pigtails. Of course I know nothing about music. It’s not in my line. But they say she’s great.”
When she did not answer him, he regarded her silently for a time and presently he coughed as if to attract her attention. At last he leaned forward a little and said, “What are you thinking?”
For an instant, an unexpected note of tenderness entered his voice. He peered at her closely, examining her soft white skin, the soft hair that escaped from beneath her toque, the exquisite poise of her throat and head. To this scrutiny Lily put an end by turning with a smile to say, “Thinking? I was thinking that there is something hopelessly sad about having no happy realities in the place where you spent your childhood. You see, if I were to go back, I should find nothing. Cypress Hill burned.... My Uncle Jacob’s farm buried under new houses, each one like its neighbor, in ugly cheap rows ... the brook ruined by oil and filth. Why, even the people aren’t the same. There’s no one I should like to see except perhaps Willie Harrison, and it’s a long way to go just to see one person. I was thinking that if I’d been born in France, I would have had memories of a village and green country and pleasant stone houses. The people would be the same always.... I couldn’t go back to the Town now. I couldn’t.... I have memories of it. I wouldn’t want them spoiled.” For an instant the tears appeared in her eyes. She leaned toward him and touched his hand. “It’s not that I’m disloyal, Henry. Don’t think that. It’s that I have nothing to be loyal to ... nothing that I can cherish but memories. I couldn’t be happy there because there’s nothing but noise and ugliness. I suppose that somewhere in America there are towns full of realities that one could love, but they aren’t in my part of the country. There’s nothing there.” There was a little pause and she added, “It’s all happened so quickly. Think of it—it’s all happened since I was a little girl.”