Fidelity: A Novel

by Susan Glaspell

He knew that that way had been hard, that the years had not spared her; and yet there had been a little shock when he saw Ruth that afternoon; he knew now that his fears for her had rather given themselves a color of romance. She looked worn, as if she had worked, and, just at first, before she saw him, she looked older than it would seem that number of years should make her.

But when she heard him and turned, coming to him with outstretched hand, it was as it used to be—feeling illumining, transforming her. She was the old flaming Ruth then, the years that lined her defied. Her eyes—it was like a steady light shining through trembling waters. No one else ever gave him that impression Ruth did of a certain deep steadiness through changing feeling. He had thought he remembered just how wonderful Ruth's eyes were—how feeling flamed in them and that steady understanding looked through from her to him—that bridge between separateness. But they were newly wonderful to him,—so live, so tender, so potent.

She had been very quiet; thinking back to it, he pondered that. It seemed not alone the quiet that comes with the acceptance of death, the quiet that is the subduing effect of strange or moving circumstances, but an inner quiet, a quiet of power. The years had taken something from Ruth, but Ruth had won much from them. She was worn, a little dimmed, but deepened. A tragedy queen she was not; he had a little smile for himself for that subconscious romantic expectation that gave him, just at the first, a little shock of disappointment when he saw Ruth. A tragedy queen would hold herself more imposingly—and would have taken better care of her hands. But that moment of a lighted way between Ruth and him could let him afford to smile at disappointed romantic expectation.

He had been there for only a few minutes, having the long trip out in the country to make. Ruth and Ted seemed to be alone in the house. He asked her if she had seen Harriett, and she answered, simply, "Not yet."

She had said, "You're married, Deane—and happy. I'm so glad." That, too, she had said very simply; it was real; direct. As he thought of it now it was as if life had simplified her; she had let slip from her, like useless garments, all those blurring artificialities that keep people apart.

As usual he would go over again that evening to see his patient; and then he would remain for a visit with Ruth. And he wanted to take Amy with him. He would not let himself realize just how much he wanted to do that, how much he would hate not doing it. He was thinking it out, trying to arrive at the best way of putting it to Amy. If only he could make it seem to her the simple thing it was to him!

He would be so happy to do this for Ruth, but it was more than that; it was that he wanted to bring Amy within—within that feeling of his about Ruth. He wanted her to share in that. He could not bear to leave it a thing from which she was apart, to which she was hostile. He could not have said just why he felt it so important Amy become a part of what he felt about Ruth.

When at last they were together over their unusually late dinner the thing he wanted to say seemed to grow more difficult because Amy was so much dressed up. In her gown of that afternoon she looked so much the society person that what he had in mind somehow grew less simple. And there was that in her manner too—like her clothes it seemed a society manner—to make it less easy to attempt to take her into things outside the conventional round of life. He felt a little helpless before this self-contained, lovely young person. She did not seem easy to get at. Somehow she seemed to be apart from him. There was a real wistfulness in his desire to take her into what to him were things real and important. It seemed if he could not do that now that Amy would always be a little apart from him.

Her talk was of the tea that afternoon: who was there, what they wore, what they had said to her, how the house looked; how lovely Mrs. Lawrence and Edith were.

What he was thinking was that it was Ruth's old crowd had assembled there—at Edith's house—to be gracious to Amy that afternoon. She mentioned this name and that—girls Ruth had grown up with, girls who had known her so well, and cared for her. And Ruth? Had they spoken of her? Did they know she was home? If they did, did it leave them all unmoved? He thought of the easy, pleasant way life had gone with most of those old friends of Ruth's. Had they neither the imagination nor the heart to go out in the thought of the different thing it had been to her?