They talked for more than two hours. She kept pouring out questions at him every time he would stop for breath. She fairly palpitated with that desire to hear little things—what Bob Horton did for a living, whether Helen Matthews still gave music lessons. She hung tremulous upon his words, laughing and often half crying as he told little stories about quarrels and jokes—about churches and cooks. In his profession he had many times seen a system craving a particular thing, but it seemed to him he had never seen any need more pitifully great than this of hers for laughing over the little drolleries of life. And then they sank into deeper channels—he found himself telling her things he had not told anyone: about his practice, about the men he was associated with, things he had come to think.
And she talked to him of Stuart's health, of their efforts at making a living—what she thought of dry farming, of heaters for apple orchards; the cattle business, the character of Western people. She told him of the mountains in winter—snow down to their feet; of Colorado air on a winter's morning. And then of more personal, intimate things—how lonely they had been, how much of a struggle they had found it. She talked of the disadvantage Stuart was at because of his position, how he had grown sensitive because of suspicion, because there were people who kept away from him; how she herself had not made friends, afraid to because several times after she had come to know the people around her they had "heard," and drawn away. She told it all quite simply, just that she wanted to let him know about their lives. He could see what it was meaning to her to talk, that she had been too tight within and was finding relief. "I try not to talk much to Stuart about things that would make him feel bad," she said. "He gets despondent. It's been very hard for Stuart, Deane. He misses his place among men."
She fell silent there, brooding over that—a touch of that tender, passionate brooding he knew of old. And as he watched her he himself was thinking, not of how hard it had been for Stuart, but of what it must have been to Ruth. That hunger of hers for companionship told him more than words could possibly have done of what her need had been. He studied her as she sat there silent. She was the same old Ruth, but a deepened Ruth; there was the same old sweetness, but new power. He had a feeling that there was nothing in the world Ruth would not understand; that bars to her spirit were down, that she would go out in tenderness to anything that was of life—to sorrow, to joy, with the insight to understand and the warmth to care. He looked at her: worn down by living, yet glorified by it; hurt, yet valiant. The life in her had gone through so much and circumstances had not been able to beat it down. And this was the woman Amy said it was insulting of him to ask her to meet!
She looked up at him with her bright, warm smile. "Oh, Deane, it's been so good! You don't know how you've helped me. Why you wouldn't believe," she laughed, "how much better I feel."
They had risen and he had taken her hand for goodnight. "You always helped me, Deane," she said in her simple way. "You never failed me. You don't know"—this with one of those flashes of feeling that lighted Ruth and made her wonderful—"how many times, when things were going badly, I've thought of you—and wanted to see you."
They stood there a moment silent; the things they had lived through together, in which they had shared understanding, making a spiritual current between them. She broke from it with a light, fond: "Dear Deane, I'm so glad you're happy. I want you to be happy always."
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Those words kept coming back to him after he had gone to bed: "I'm so glad you're happy—I want you to be happy always." Amy was asleep when he came home, or he took it for granted that she was asleep and was careful not to disturb her, for it was past midnight. He wished she would turn to him with a sleepy little smile. He wanted to be made to feel that it was true he was happy, that he was going to be happy always. That night was not filled with the sweetness of love's faith in permanence. He tried to put away the thought of how Amy had looked as she said those things about Ruth. Knowing the real Ruth, his feeling about her freshened, deepened, he could not bear to think of Amy as having said those things. He held it off in telling himself again that that was what the people of the town had done, that he himself had not managed well. He would try again—a little differently. Amy was really so sweet, so loving, he told himself, that she would come to be different about this. Though he did not dwell on that, either—upon her coming to be different; her face in saying those things was a little too hard to forget. He kept up a pretence with himself on the surface, but down in his heart he asked less now; he was not asking of love that complete sharing, that deep understanding which had been his dream before he talked to Amy. He supposed things would go on about the same—just that that one thing wouldn't be, was the thought with which he went to sleep, making his first compromise with his ideal for their love. Just as he was falling asleep there came before him, half of dreams, Ruth's face as it had been when she seemed to be brooding over the things life brought one. It was as if pain had endowed her with understanding. Did it take pain to do it?
He had an early morning call to make and left home without really talking to Amy. When he woke in the morning, yearning to be back in the new joy of her love, he was going to tell her that he was sorry he had hurt her, sorry there was this thing they looked at differently, but that he loved her with his whole heart and that they were going to be happy just the same, and then maybe some time they'd "get together" on this. It was a thing he would not have said he would do, but there are many things one will do to get from the shadow back into that necessary sunlight of love.