She smiled tearfully as she gazed out of the window. Why, she was making it appear like a case of duty!—and, of course, no one ought to marry for duty. Actually, it was not altogether a case of duty. Actually, she was alone—and afraid of her own loneliness. Indeed, the image of Paul came to her like a light shining through the darkness. He was forced upon her, by the strength of circumstances. Hanaré was gone now. Without Hanaré life could never be the same. Paul had become essential to her very existence. Love him or not, he was essential to her existence.
As the sun rose and the day wore on, and she went about her necessary tasks, it seemed to her almost as though she loved Paul. She had never had a feeling quite so compelling as this. Before her father’s death, she had never wished to marry. She had contemplated some sort of a career, with her painting and her sculpture, which she inherited from Hanaré. Besides, her father had needed her. He had been a solitary man, with few friends, a dreamy personality, and so absent-minded that he required her constant attention. Thus life had seemed to her best, close to her father’s side, managing the little household, and doing her art at her leisure. The thought of children to take care of revolted her. And as yet no passion had entered her life, sufficiently powerful to make this secluded existence seem trivial or repulsive. Nor was there anything about Paul Duval to attract her strongly. He was the nicest and kindest man in the world, and he loved Hanaré; but for a husband—well—what was the use of a husband, anyway?
She felt differently now. She wanted Paul. Yet all day he stayed away.
Toward evening there came to her again the sensation that she was going mad. It was simply inhuman of Paul to leave her alone like this. There had been, of course, the neighbors, who offered their sympathetic assistance, and who tried to comfort this strange, silent girl, whom none of them understood. But because of her yearning for Paul, the neighbors only aggravated her nervous sorrow. And although she had consented to sleep with an elderly woman in another part of the house, until her father should be buried, nevertheless, late that night, she felt herself irresistibly drawn to Hanaré’s stiff corpse; and she crept into the ghostly room, in her night-gown, to appease that unnatural craving. This was about ten o’clock. She sat for some minutes on the edge of the bed, but could find no consolation. Suddenly she jumped up with the wild resolve to go to Paul’s apartment and find out what had happened to him.
She reflected, as she slipped on her clothes, that this was a most unwomanly course of action. She was impelled toward it by the almost inhuman nature of her circumstances. She hoped Paul would understand. She hoped nothing had happened to him. Perhaps she could even be of some comfort to him, in this recent sorrow which so obviously depressed him.
In fact, as she made her away along the winding streets of Greenwich Village, Marie began to feel almost exultant. A new joy entered her heart, because she was relieving herself of intolerable burdens, and because, too, she was bringing to Paul a surprise-present for which he had been waiting many years. She began timidly to picture to herself Paul’s expression, first upon seeing her, and later—perhaps even days later—when he should realize what this new resolve of hers meant to both of them. She found herself immensely relieved at the thought of transferring her small belongings from her present dreary apartment to his own. Her collection of books, her pictures, yes, and even her paints and her sculptor’s tools—all these she would show to Paul as belonging to both of them together. In his eyes and in his mouth would come that look of appreciation for things which were such precious possessions. It would be inexpressible relief! A happy life! They were both dreamers—
She arrived, a trifle breathless, at his apartment, which was four stories up in a brick building that boasted of no elevator. She knocked several times on the thin, wooden door, but no one answered. So she tried the door knob, found that it was unlatched, opened the door timidly, and gazed in. There was a vestibule leading into the sitting-room, and since the latter was lighted, she proceeded on tip-toe toward it. Upon entering she perceived a long, narrow room, hazy with tobacco smoke and heavy with the odor of stale whiskey. The bric-a-brac and furniture were in a state of disorder. There were a couple of empty bottles on the table—glasses and books. She perceived a thin, sallow figure, sprawled out in the morris chair, staring at her in a glazed way, like a dead man.
“Paul!” she cried.
Paul moved slowly, blinked his eyes, shuddered. “Eh?”
“Paul!”