She Buildeth Her House

by Will Levington Comfort

QUENTIN CHARTER AND SELMA CROSS JOIN ISSUE ON A NEW BATTLE-GROUND, EACH LEAVING THE FIELD WITH OPEN WOUNDS

Charter was seized with vertigo. It was his sorry thought that the old scar-tissues, however bravely they sufficed in the days of easy-going, could not endure a crux like this. But he was wrong. It was the shock to his spirit, which made of Selma Cross a giantess of vague outlines in a room filled with swimming objects. Need for the woman of his visions had culminated in the outer hall. In the substitution there was an inner wrench, which to one of Charter's intense concentration was like a stroke; and then, too, the horrible outburst of energy in adjusting the Skylark spirit to the eminent flesh of this old plaything of his, left him drained. He steadied himself into the music-room, and sank into a deep chair, where his heart pumped furiously, but light and empty, as if it could not grip the blood locked in his veins.

He sat in a sort of trance, glimpses of many thoughts running through his brain. He deserved punishment. That was all very well, but something was wrong here. The premonition became a reality in his consciousness that he had entered upon a great desert; that he was to endure again one of his terrible thirsts; not a throat-thirst alone, but a soul-thirst. In the atmosphere of the woman, in the very odor of the room, he felt the old impassioned lyric-maker crush back into the dominance of his mind with all the impish exultation of that lower self. Pride asserted itself now. What an idiot passage in the career of a rising writer! He should always remember with shame this coming to New York—a youthful Marius in whose veins was injected mid-summer madness—coming to this city (where dollar-work is king and plumaged-woman queen) with an abortive conception from garret dreams.... A strong white light fell upon the leather cover of her reading-table, but their faces were in shadow, like the hundred actor faces in photograph upon the wall and mantel. Selma Cross was studying him keenly. The emptiness of it all was so pervading—as his blood began to move again—that he laughed aloud.

"Do you know," Selma Cross said softly, "I thought at first you had been drinking too much. I hardly knew you otherwise, remember. Shall I tell you what added thought came to me, as you crossed the floor so unsteadily—looking so white?"

"Locomotor ataxia, I suppose. I hear it is getting quite the thing for middle-generation New Yorkers.... I expected to see you a little later in your new play, but not here—to-night——"

"That is what I thought—that incurable thing. You seem floored. I didn't know a woman could do that. In the old days, you were adaptable—if nothing else."

His collar felt tight, and he stretched it out, needing more air in his lungs and more blood in his brain. It was clear enough to him now how Skylark had been stricken. The real devastation was that she belonged to this sort of thing at all; that she could consent to this trick, this trap. It was all so different from the consummate fineness, the pervading delicacy, of all Skylark thoughts. Having consented to the trick, might she not be listening?... He did not mind her hearing; indeed, he might say things which were needful for her to know—but that she should listen! He writhed. This was not his Skylark at all.... It was hardly Charter's way now to plunge into the centre of things. There was a feline elegance in the manner and movement of Selma Cross; she seemed so delightfully at ease, that he was willing to make it a bit harder for her.

"I suppose I was more adaptable formerly," he said slowly. "It is something, however, suddenly to encounter an old friend who has made good so fearfully and tremendously in the past week. Of course, I had read all about it. Still, I repeat it was an experience to encounter your stardom actually on the boards; and more of an experience to find you here. I'm really very glad that you secured the one great vehicle. As for your work—few know its quality better than I."

She studied him long, her eyes glowing behind the narrowed lids. "As for that, you've been biting the flaky top-crust, too," she said finally. "I never doubted what you could do in your game, but I confess I feared that whiskey would beat you to it.... Do you know you are wonderfully changed—so white, so lean? Your work has come to me since you went away; what else have you been doing?—I mean, to change you so finely."

"Garret."