Fred nodded sympathetically and went on. “In my library in St. Louis, over the fireplace, I have a property spear I had copied from one in Venice,—oh, years ago, after you first went abroad, while you were studying. You’ll probably be singing Brünnhilde pretty soon now, and I’ll send it on to you, if I may. You can take it and its history for what they’re worth. But I’m nearly forty years old, and I’ve served my turn. You’ve done what I hoped for you, what I was honestly willing to lose you for—then. I’m older now, and I think I was an ass. I wouldn’t do it again if I had the chance, not much! But I’m not sorry. It takes a great many people to make one—Brünnhilde.”
Thea stopped by the fence and looked over into the black choppiness on which the snowflakes fell and disappeared with magical rapidity. Her face was both angry and troubled. “So you really feel I’ve been ungrateful. I thought you sent me out to get something. I didn’t know you wanted me to bring in something easy. I thought you wanted something—” She took a deep breath and shrugged her shoulders. “But there! nobody on God’s earth wants it, really! If one other person wanted it,”—she thrust her hand out before him and clenched it,—“my God, what I could do!”
Fred laughed dismally. “Even in my ashes I feel myself pushing you! How can anybody help it? My dear girl, can’t you see that anybody else who wanted it as you do would be your rival, your deadliest danger? Can’t you see that it’s your great good fortune that other people can’t care about it so much?”
But Thea seemed not to take in his protest at all. She went on vindicating herself. “It’s taken me a long while to do anything, of course, and I’ve only begun to see daylight. But anything good is—expensive. It hasn’t seemed long. I’ve always felt responsible to you.”
Fred looked at her face intently, through the veil of snowflakes, and shook his head. “To me? You are a truthful woman, and you don’t mean to lie to me. But after the one responsibility you do feel, I doubt if you’ve enough left to feel responsible to God! Still, if you’ve ever in an idle hour fooled yourself with thinking I had anything to do with it, Heaven knows I’m grateful.”
“Even if I’d married Nordquist,” Thea went on, turning down the path again, “there would have been something left out. There always is. In a way, I’ve always been married to you. I’m not very flexible; never was and never shall be. You caught me young. I could never have that over again. One can’t, after one begins to know anything. But I look back on it. My life hasn’t been a gay one, any more than yours. If I shut things out from you, you shut them out from me. We’ve been a help and a hindrance to each other. I guess it’s always that way, the good and the bad all mixed up. There’s only one thing that’s all beautiful—and always beautiful! That’s why my interest keeps up.”
“Yes, I know.” Fred looked sidewise at the outline of her head against the thickening atmosphere. “And you give one the impression that that is enough. I’ve gradually, gradually given you up.”
“See, the lights are coming out.” Thea pointed to where they flickered, flashes of violet through the gray tree-tops. Lower down the globes along the drives were becoming a pale lemon color. “Yes, I don’t see why anybody wants to marry an artist, anyhow. I remember Ray Kennedy used to say he didn’t see how any woman could marry a gambler, for she would only be marrying what the game left.” She shook her shoulders impatiently. “Who marries who is a small matter, after all. But I hope I can bring back your interest in my work. You’ve cared longer and more than anybody else, and I’d like to have somebody human to make a report to once in a while. You can send me your spear. I’ll do my best. If you’re not interested, I’ll do my best anyhow. I’ve only a few friends, but I can lose every one of them, if it has to be. I learned how to lose when my mother died.—We must hurry now. My taxi must be waiting.”
The blue light about them was growing deeper and darker, and the falling snow and the faint trees had become violet. To the south, over Broadway, there was an orange reflection in the clouds. Motors and carriage lights flashed by on the drive below the reservoir path, and the air was strident with horns and shrieks from the whistles of the mounted policemen.
Fred gave Thea his arm as they descended from the embankment. “I guess you’ll never manage to lose me or Archie, Thea. You do pick up queer ones. But loving you is a heroic discipline. It wears a man out. Tell me one thing: could I have kept you, once, if I’d put on every screw?”