“Yes——”
“Oh, but I wasn’t ready,” he said at last, as if goaded by pain. “I had so much to learn. Why, I had to learn this—how little this means——”
He pointed out of the windows to the city streets.
“You mean New York?”
“Yes——”
“It really seems as if men must learn that, first of all. You have done well to learn so soon.”
“It’s so different now. I must have been half-unconscious that day when you came. You were like an angel. I didn’t know until afterward what it really meant to me.... You remember the men who came—newspaper men? They showed me what I could do in New York—how I could make the magazines and the big markets. I was knocked-out. You must see it—all I wanted to do in coming years—to make what seemed the real literary markets—all was to be done in a few weeks.... It was not until I was on the train that night that I remembered you were a living woman, and had come to me.... Then I didn’t know what to do.... But ever since I have thought of that afternoon, every day....”
They boarded the ferry and moved away from the rest of the people.
“I hate to have you go,” he said. The words were wrung from him. They were such poor and common words, but his every process of thought repeated them. He looked back the years, and found a single afternoon in the midst of passionate waste—the single afternoon in which she came.... She was everything to him. He wanted to go on and on this way, carrying her ’cello. He could ask no more than to have her beside him. He had learned the rest—it was trash and suffering. He wanted to tell her all he knew—not in the tension of this momentary parting—but during days and years, to tell his story and have her sanction upon what was done, and to be done. She was dear; peace was with her.... She would tell him all that was mysterious; together they would be One Who Knew. Together they would work—do the things that counted, and learn faith....
She took the ’cello from him, so that he could carry to the Pullman her large case checked in the Jersey station.... It was very quiet and dark in the coach. All the berths were made up but one, in which they sat down.... They were alone. It was perfect.