The novel, on the contrary, did not make demands enough. It was the story of a Belle of Philadelphia, loyal to the Revolution during the British Occupation. It was very plain that the lovely American was to win valuable secrets of war from the vicious British officer who loved her: would give them after hazardous adventure to Washington’s aide-de-camp who was her true love and so help win the war. Sure enough, there she was galloping the dangerous country to Valley Forge. Cornelia’s mind wandered as she idly turned pages. She put down the book. Her mind was a weary woman stumbling with dead feet across the snow. She ached. The snow had stopped. A gentle pall came in from the muffled world. The elevated trains were a memory, life stirred like a larval city hidden from her eyes. She lay in a blue night, and the name of David fell across her night in livid snow. The name of David and the eyes of David and the thoughts of him, cutting her face and melting. Cornelia was on horseback, although she could not see her horse; she was hurrying to Valley Forge with an important secret. Her horse stumbled: he was forever turning, forever turning back. He was trying to carry her into the snare of the British officer. The officer was a short, slim man, he was Tom. Cornelia was lifted up. Her eyes seemed to peer through a viscous film and part it. She lay there prostrate, now, and conscious, neither asleep nor awake; she felt the weariness within her body and the great strain of how she lay, like a wrack upon her. She was tired, tired! Could she not sleep? Could she not have rest? Let her but stretch out and relax and fall away, deeper down where the hectic grays were black.
She remained as she was. She felt that she was tied in a hard knot. She was caught in the vice of her nerves. She could not swing herself free: she could not hold herself fast. She lay there and suffered. Though she was half asleep, she could feel her energy fall away in her strain, and her thoughts bound and strike her like iron balls.
When it was time, she got up and prepared the tea things.
The day was low and away. Where had it gone? It seemed to have left her behind. She had the haunted instinct of having been abandoned. Looking back on the day, it seemed a vivid thing, swift and heavy with laughter and paint-smudged children: it had rolled over her body and left her behind. She was bruised by its passage. Day of Thanksgiving!... And here about her now, where the Day had been, a void gray like her sleep: within it just such scant scatter of life—herself.
Each little thing that stirred—a teacup against a saucer, the tick of the clock—had a thousand jagged echoes.
The bell rang. It jangled against her nerves.
Cornelia gripped herself. She had a sense of her head careening.
The door opened. She went forward and smiled.
A stately woman with a gentle face came in, behind her a little dapper man. She kissed Cornelia. Seeing Cornelia she stood on the threshold of some passionate understanding. But her husband broke the warming silence. He ran about the room and chattered. He was very gay. Cornelia smiled wanly at him.
It was Sylvain Purze, maker of fashionable portraits: and his wife, maker of Sylvain Purze.