One could not have everything. She had him. He was not a man who would work slowly, day by day, toward a petty job and a small house bought on the instalment plan. He was brilliant, clever, daring. He would one day do great things, and she must help him by giving him all her love and faith and trust. Suddenly it appeared monstrous that she should be struggling against him, troubling him with her commonplace desires for a commonplace thing like a home, at the very moment when he needed all his wit and skill to handle a big deal. She was ashamed of the thoughts with which she had been playing; they seemed to her an infidelity of the spirit.
CHAPTER XII
Bert was not in the apartment when she reached it; she knew her disappointment was irrational, for she had told herself he would not be there. However, he might telephone. She curled up in the big chair by the window, the book in her lap, and read with a continual consciousness of waiting. She felt that his coming or the sound of his voice would rescue her from something within herself.
At six o'clock she told herself that he would telephone within an hour. Experience had taught her that this way of measuring time helped it to pass more quickly. With determined effort she concentrated her attention upon her book, shutting out voices that clamored heart-shaking things to her. At seven o'clock she was walking up and down the living-room, despising herself, telling herself that nothing had happened, that he did these things only to show her his hold on her, that at any moment now his message would come.
For another hour she thought of many things she might have done differently. She might have walked past the office of Clark & Hayward, meeting him as if by accident when he came out. But that might have annoyed him. She might have gone to some of the cafés for tea on the chance of meeting him there. But there were so many cafés! He must be dining in one of them now, and she could not know which one. She could not know who might be dining with him.
"Helen Davies Kennedy, stop it! Stop it!" she said aloud. She was a little quieter then, walking to the window, and standing there, gazing down at the street. Her heart beat suffocatingly at the sight of each machine that passed; she thought, until it went by, that he might be in it.
It was the old agony again, and weariness and contempt for herself were mingled with her pain. So many times she had waited, as she was waiting now, and always he had come back to her, laughing at her hysteria. Why could she not learn to bear it more easily? She might have to wait until midnight, until later than midnight. She set her teeth.
The sudden peal of the telephone-bell in the dark room startled a smothered cry from her. She ran, stumbling against the table, and the receiver shook at her ear; but her voice was steady and pleasant.
"Yes?"
"Helen? Bert. I'm going south to-night on the Lark. Pack my suitcases and ship 'em express to Bakersfield, will you?"