A POTTER'S VESSEL
By a great effort Aunt Selina had kept a firm control over herself throughout her narrative, but now, the immediate need of composure being removed, she gave way completely to her natural grief. James, whose attitude toward her had been somewhat as toward a divine visitation, an emissary of Nemesis, suddenly found he had to deal with an old woman suffering under an overwhelming sorrow. This put an end for the present to the possibility of expanding on the Nemesis suggestion. He fetched her some more whisky, reflecting that it must be not unpleasant to have reached the age where grief wore itself out even partially in physical symptoms, to which physical alleviations could be applied. For the first time he found himself considering Aunt Selina as an old woman.
He could not help remarking, however, that even in age and even in grief Aunt Selina was rather magnificent. There was about her tears a Sophoclean, almost a Niobesque quality. It struck him that she must have been extremely good-looking in her youth.
Of course Aunt Selina, even in that extremity, knew enough to refrain from pointing a moral already sufficiently obvious. She said little after finishing her account, and that little was expressive only of her immediate sense of loss.
"Oh, James," she moaned, "I had always thought my life went out in a little puff of red flame forty years ago and more, but it seemed to me that if I could use my experience to mend her life I should be well repaid for everything. And now...."
They sat silent for the most part, both laboring under the terrific hopelessness of the situation, which certainty and uncertainty, together with the impossibility of action, combined to make intolerable. For a while each found a certain comfort in the other's mute presence, but at last even that wore off.
"Well, my dear, you don't want to be bothered by a hysterical old woman at this time," said Aunt Selina finally, and James obediently telephoned, for a taxi. Nemesis must be met, sooner or later....
Only once, as they sat side by side in the dark cab, did Aunt Selina give utterance to the one idea that animated her thoughts of the future.
"Well, I've lost my own life and I've lost her, and now you're the only thing I have left. Oh, James, for Heaven's sake don't let me lose you!"
"No, Aunt Selina, no," he replied, laying his hand on hers and speaking with a promptness and a fervor that surprised himself.