The Whirligig of Time

by Wayland Wells Williams

Aunt Cecilia, politely reproachful, said that he had no idea what an American summer could be, and that anyway, the nights had been cool.

Tommy said oh yes, rather.

Inwardly he was chafing. He felt his case lamentably weakened by the presence of James. He had not bargained for an abduction from under the husband's very nose. The thought of what he would have to go through now made him feel quite uncomfortable and even a little, just a little, suspicious that the case of decency had not been decisively settled. Still, there was nothing to do but stay and go through with it.

But James, if he had but known it, was in reality his most powerful ally. Continued residence in sweltering New York had not tended to soften James, either in his attitude to the world in general or in his feeling toward his wife in particular. He now adopted a policy of outward affection. "When others were present he lost no opportunity of elaborately fetching and carrying for Beatrice, of making plans for her benefit, of rejoicing in her returning health. As she evinced a fondness for the evening air he made it a rule to sit with her on the verandah every night after dinner. Tommy could not very well oust him from this pleasant duty, and writhed beneath his calm exterior every time he watched them go out together."

He need not have worried, however. The contrast of James' warmth in public to his wholly genuine coldness in private, together with the change from Tommy's sympathetic chatter to James' deathly silence on these evening sojourns had a much more potent effect on Beatrice than anything Tommy could have accomplished actively. James literally seemed to freeze the blood in Beatrice's veins. She became subject to fits of shivering, she required twice as many wraps as before; she began going to bed much earlier than previously. Ten o'clock now invariably found her in her room.

One evening James was suddenly called upon to go out to dinner with Aunt Cecilia and fill an empty place at a friend's table, and Tommy took his place on the verandah. Tommy knew that this would be his best chance, possibly his last. The stars burned brightly in a clear warm sky, but there was no talk of tiger's eyes now. There was no talk at all for a long time; the pleasure of sheer propinquity was too great. Beatrice fairly luxuriated. She wondered why Tommy's silence affected her so differently from that of James....

"Beatrice," began Tommy, but she switched him off.

"No, please don't try to talk now, Tommy, there's a dear."

They were silent again. The night stretched hugely before and above them; it was very still. A little night-breeze arose and touched their cheeks, but its message was only peace. Land and sea alike slept; not a sound reached them save the occasional clatter of distant wheels. Only the sky was awake, with its hundreds of winking eyes. Oh, these stars! Beatrice knew them so well. Antares, glowing like a dying coal, sank and fell below the hills, leaving the bright clusters of Sagittarius in dominion over the southern heavens. Fomalhaut rose in the southeast, shining with a dull chaotic luster, now green, now red. Fomalhaut, she remembered, was the southernmost of all the great stars visible in northern lands; its reign was the shortest of them all. And yet who could tell what might happen before that star finally fell from sight in the autumn?...

"Beatrice!" at length began Tommy again, and this time she could not stop him. "Beatrice, we can't go on like this. We can't do it, I say, we can't! Don't you feel it?... That husband of yours.... Oh, Beatrice, I can't stand by and watch it any longer!"