"Many times, dear, as if one must snatch hat and gloves and get into the street at any cost."
* * * * *
Beth came in alone about ten, sighed as the latch clicked, and sat down in the dark. But she rose again in a moment, for she didn't like the dark. She was worn out, even physically; and yet it was different now from the first reaction. Bedient had not continued to fit so readily to commonness, as in those first implacable moments in the little room. He had never judged anyone in her presence; had spoken well of everyone, even of Mrs. Wordling. He was no intimidated New Yorker, who felt he must conduct himself for the eyes of others.
Mrs. Wordling had not shown the quality to hold the fancy position she aspired to, in the little circle of artists at the Club; and retaliated by showing her power over the lion of this circle. She had challenged him to cross the street, knowing they would be locked in and that the Club would hear. She had desired this, having nothing to lose. For fear the Grey One had not heard, she had told the story. The recent agony in the little room was great, above the Wordling's expectations…. And now Beth faltered. Had Andrew Bedient asked her to join him somewhere on the shore? She could not see him asking this; and yet, regarded as a fiction plunge, it seemed bigger and more formidable than Wordling could devise.
This must wait. This must prove. If he went away—enough! She had been hasty and implacable once—this time she would wait.
Beth would have liked to talk with David Cairns, but she could not bring up such a subject. This was not her sort of talk-material with him. Plainly he would not mention it, in the hope that her ears had missed it entirely.
She had even felt a rage against the Grey One for bringing the news. This helped to show how maddened and unjust she was, in those first terrible moments. Piece by piece she had drawn the odious thing from her caller, who was by no means inclined to spread and thicken the shadow of an evil tale. Marguerite Grey was not a weigher of motives, nor penetrative in the chemistry of scandal. So many testimonies had come to her of the world's commonness that she had become flexible in judgment. What had been so terrible at first was to identify Andrew Bedient with these sordid things, so obvious and shallow. But was he identified with them? Rather, did he not feel himself sufficiently an entity to be safe in any company? Did he not trust her, and worth-while people, to grant him this much?… This was the highest point in the upsweep of her thoughts.
So the story extracted from the Grey One was held free from its fatal aspect, until time should dissolve the matter of the shore…. After all, the lamplight, usually soft and mellow in the gold-brown room, held an alien, unearthly glitter for Beth's strained eyes…. Was it that which kept the Shadowy Sister afar, as the light from the colored pane in the hall of his boyhood had frightened him?