She shook her head at my solemn words which, I judged, tickled her as the prickings of a poignard might titillate an elephant. She went out with my tray, and the thought “Rome” came to me as I watched her perfect carriage: the low spacing of her feet, the swing of her hips, the breadth of her back, and the little head so rightfully proportioned, like a rudder steering the life that dwelt within her body.
—Rome. How far I am from Rome. How sweet Rome would be, with its sure shallow strength.
I lit a pipe. Melancholy and the hint of an old anguish wiped out Mrs. Mahon.—This anguish is what moves me, moves me toward what seems the cause of the anguish. A paradox that is a common law. Look at love: how pain of unfulfillment moves us upon the loved one, and as we come ever closer, ever deeper and more absolute grows the pain of unfulfillment. If I could analyze what this is that has taken me: if I could only know where it began.... But I know that it must first fill out its life ere my mind measure it. What did my poor analysis avail me? How wisely I announced: “Your anguish moves you toward the source of your anguish. You cannot stay still because you must fulfill your own beginning.” And how blindly I moved!
I reached into my pocket and took out the envelope that I had not yet examined, and that Mrs. Mahon had helped me to forget. It was addressed
Philip LaMotte, Esquire
By Bearer
and it was in the straight high script of Mildred Fayn!
It was empty.
I tapped it against my open palm and wondered why I felt that it had any bearing on the case. There was no proof that this was the alleged letter of the fatal messenger. On the contrary, how could I entertain a thought that would implicate Mildred in this horrible affair? What was I trying to find, or to think? I was abhorrent to myself. Doubtless, Mildred had written more than once to a man so close. My reason flayed my miserable thoughts: but did not break them: did not avail against their issuance in deed.
I telephoned to Mildred.
“Yes?” she answered and her frail voice bloomed out of the wire, drenching my sense in a languor of desired peace.