However much he was deluded, it was by himself, for I always told him that I was the last woman in the world he should have selected.
CHAPTER XVII
During this winter the distress in Mr. Saltus' legs increased to such a degree that it took him ten minutes to walk from the Arizona to the corner of Amsterdam Avenue, a distance of only a few yards. Most of the time he went in a taxi, but even getting out of one and walking the length of the hall to the elevator, was so tiresome and so painful that he had to sit in the lobby for fifteen minutes or more before coming upstairs.
Speaking of elevators, brings back Mr. Saltus' chronic objection to meeting people. It had increased with the years so as to become almost an obsession. He would wait any length of time in the lobby of the Arizona, rather than get in an elevator if there was anyone else in it. He was afraid someone might speak to him. When I had visitors (which, owing to my illness and his aversion, was infrequent) he would shoot past the living-room and down the hall to his study, forcing his tortured legs to such activity that it often took him hours to recover from the effects of it.
A year passed after the death of our beloved Toto,—a year so like inferno, that even to think of it makes me shudder. With Mr. Saltus' helplessness it was a toss-up which of us was in the worse condition. I looked up one day to find him weeping. When questioned he said:—
"I wish we could die together, before you lose your reason entirely. While I live I can take care of you no matter what happens, but after——? It's killing me to watch you open bureau drawers and stand there striving to think why you opened them: to see you grasp the top of your head trying to remember. All these years you have surmounted everything. Now only, you cannot make the grade, poor child. Death should be meaningless to one who understands it as you do. Cannot you make your philosophy concrete?"
It was hard, but it made me take notice. A strait-jacket and a padded cell sprang into the perspective with his words, and the selfishness of sorrow stared me in the face. For the first time I realized what, in my indifference to everything, I had become, and it stunned me. While this was sinking in he spoke again:—
"I will be with little Toto so soon, and we will wait together until you come over. You know as well as I do that your tears are vitriol on her spirit, retarding her evolution. For God's sake never agonize over me, unless you want to keep me earthbound and in prison."