She Buildeth Her House

by Will Levington Comfort

"When did you see her last?" The voice was Reifferscheid's.

"Day before yesterday she was in and out. Miss Cross, the lady who lives in this other apartment, said she called on Miss Linster yesterday morning."

"The point is that she left no word—either with you or with us—before going away. We are very good friends of hers. I'll ring for luck——"

The bell rang long and loudly. Paula imagined the thick thumb pressed against it, and the big troubled face. She wanted to answer—but facing Reifferscheid was not in her that moment.... The elevator was called from below.

"No use," Reifferscheid said finally. "Here's a coin for your trouble. I'll call up the first thing in the morning——"

She heard the click of the elevator-door, and the quick whine of the car, sinking in the shaft. She recalled that she had not been at The States for four or five days. She had intended going down-town yesterday.... She thought long of Reifferscheid's genuine and changeless kindness, of his constant praise for sincerity anywhere and his battling for the preservation of ideals in all work. His faith in Charter recurred to her—and his frequently unerring judgments of men and women she had known. All about him was sturdy and wholesome—a substance, this, to hold fast.... Reifferscheid had come in the crisis. Paula fell asleep, thinking of snails and stickle-backs, flowers and Sister Annie, big trees and solid friends.

She awoke in a different world—at least, a world in which tea and toast and marmalade were reckonable. Her thoughts went bravely down into the depression for salvage; and a mind that can do this is not without hope. It was only eight. Reifferscheid had not yet 'phoned.... Charter would have her letter now, or soon—that letter written seven eternities ago in the first hysteria, while she could yet weep. She could not have written in the ice-cold silence of yesterday. She wished that she had not let him see that she could weep. When the tragedy had risen to high-tide in her soul—there had been no words for him. Would she ever write again?...

Her mind reverted now to the heart of things. In the first place, Selma Cross would not intentionally lie. She asked so little of men—and had asked less a few years ago—that to have her call one "cad" with an adjective, was a characterscape, indeed. That she had intimately known Quentin Charter three years before, was unsettling in itself.... True, he made no pretensions to a righteous past. All his work suggested utter delvings into life. He had even hinted a background that was black-figured and restlessly stirring, but she had believed that he wrote these things in the same spirit which prompted the ascetic Thoreau to say, "I have never met a worse man than myself." She believed that the evils of sense were not so complicated, but that genius can fathom them without suffering their defilement. His whole present, as depicted in his letters, was a song—bright as his open prairies, and pure as the big lakes of his country.... Could she become reconciled to extended periods of physical abandonment in the Charter-past? Faintly her heart answered, but quickly, "Yes, if they are forever nameless...." "Specific abandonments?" Her mind pinned her heart to this, with the added sentence, "Is it fair for you not to hear what Selma Cross has to say—and what Quentin Charter may add?..."

The elevator-man was at the door with further letters. He did not ring, because it was so early. Softly, she went into the hall. There was an accumulation of mail upon the floor—two from The States; one from Charter.... This last was opened after a struggle. It must have been one of those just brought, for it was dated, the day before yesterday, and she usually received his letters the second morning. Indeed, this had been written on the very afternoon that she had penned her agony.

I know I shall be sorry that I have permitted you to find me in a black mood like this, but I feel that I must tell you. A sense of isolation, altogether new, since first your singing came, flooded over me this afternoon. It is as though the invisible connections between us were deranged—as if there had been a storm and the wires were down. It began about noon, when the thought of the extreme youth of my soul, beside yours, began to oppress me. I perceived that my mind is imperiously active rather than humbly wise; that I am capable of using a few thoughts flashily, instead of being great-souled from rich and various ages. Ordinarily, I should be grateful for the gifts I have, and happy in the bright light from you—but this last seems turned away. Won't you let me hear at once, please?