Chapter XXIV

by Edith Wharton

　　They lunched slowly and meditatively, with muteintervals between rushes of talk; for, the spell oncebroken, they had much to say, and yet moments whensaying became the mere accompaniment to long duologuesof silence. Archer kept the talk from his ownaffairs, not with conscious intention but because he didnot want to miss a word of her history; and leaning onthe table, her chin resting on her clasped hands, shetalked to him of the year and a half since they had met.She had grown tired of what people called "society";New York was kind, it was almost oppressivelyhospitable; she should never forget the way in which it hadwelcomed her back; but after the first flush of noveltyshe had found herself, as she phrased it, too "different"to care for the things it cared about--and so she haddecided to try Washington, where one was supposed tomeet more varieties of people and of opinion. And onthe whole she should probably settle down in Washington,and make a home there for poor Medora, whohad worn out the patience of all her other relations justat the time when she most needed looking after andprotecting from matrimonial perils."But Dr. Carver--aren't you afraid of Dr. Carver? Ihear he's been staying with you at the Blenkers'."She smiled. "Oh, the Carver danger is over. Dr.Carver is a very clever man. He wants a rich wife tofinance his plans, and Medora is simply a goodadvertisement as a convert.""A convert to what?""To all sorts of new and crazy social schemes. But,do you know, they interest me more than the blindconformity to tradition--somebody else's tradition--thatI see among our own friends. It seems stupid to havediscovered America only to make it into a copy of anothercountry." She smiled across the table. "Do you supposeChristopher Columbus would have taken all that troublejust to go to the Opera with the Selfridge Merrys?"Archer changed colour. "And Beaufort--do you saythese things to Beaufort?" he asked abruptly."I haven't seen him for a long time. But I used to;and he understands.""Ah, it's what I've always told you; you don't likeus. And you like Beaufort because he's so unlike us."He looked about the bare room and out at the barebeach and the row of stark white village houses strungalong the shore. "We're damnably dull. We've nocharacter, no colour, no variety.--I wonder," he broke out,"why you don't go back?"Her eyes darkened, and he expected an indignantrejoinder. But she sat silent, as if thinking over what hehad said, and he grew frightened lest she should answerthat she wondered too.At length she said: "I believe it's because of you."It was impossible to make the confession moredispassionately, or in a tone less encouraging to thevanity of the person addressed. Archer reddened to thetemples, but dared not move or speak: it was as if herwords had been some rare butterfly that the least motionmight drive off on startled wings, but that mightgather a flock about it if it were left undisturbed."At least," she continued, "it was you who made meunderstand that under the dullness there are things sofine and sensitive and delicate that even those I mostcared for in my other life look cheap in comparison. Idon't know how to explain myself"--she drew togetherher troubled brows-- "but it seems as if I'dnever before understood with how much that is hardand shabby and base the most exquisite pleasures maybe paid.""Exquisite pleasures--it's something to have hadthem!" he felt like retorting; but the appeal in her eyeskept him silent."I want," she went on, "to be perfectly honest withyou--and with myself. For a long time I've hoped thischance would come: that I might tell you how you'vehelped me, what you've made of me--"Archer sat staring beneath frowning brows. Heinterrupted her with a laugh. "And what do you make outthat you've made of me?"She paled a little. "Of you?""Yes: for I'm of your making much more than youever were of mine. I'm the man who married onewoman because another one told him to."Her paleness turned to a fugitive flush. "I thought--you promised--you were not to say such things today.""Ah--how like a woman! None of you will ever seea bad business through!"She lowered her voice. "Is it a bad business--forMay?"He stood in the window, drumming against the raisedsash, and feeling in every fibre the wistful tendernesswith which she had spoken her cousin's name."For that's the thing we've always got to think of--haven't we--by your own showing?" she insisted."My own showing?" he echoed, his blank eyes stillon the sea."Or if not," she continued, pursuing her own thoughtwith a painful application, "if it's not worth while tohave given up, to have missed things, so that othersmay be saved from disillusionment and misery--theneverything I came home for, everything that made myother life seem by contrast so bare and so poor becauseno one there took account of them--all these things area sham or a dream--"He turned around without moving from his place."And in that case there's no reason on earth why youshouldn't go back?" he concluded for her.Her eyes were clinging to him desperately. "Oh, isthere no reason?""Not if you staked your all on the success of mymarriage. My marriage," he said savagely, "isn't goingto be a sight to keep you here." She made no answer,and he went on: "What's the use? You gave me myfirst glimpse of a real life, and at the same moment youasked me to go on with a sham one. It's beyond humanenduring--that's all.""Oh, don't say that; when I'm enduring it!" sheburst out, her eyes filling.Her arms had dropped along the table, and she satwith her face abandoned to his gaze as if in therecklessness of a desperate peril. The face exposed her asmuch as if it had been her whole person, with the soulbehind it: Archer stood dumb, overwhelmed by what itsuddenly told him."You too--oh, all this time, you too?"For answer, she let the tears on her lids overflow andrun slowly downward.Half the width of the room was still between them,and neither made any show of moving. Archer wasconscious of a curious indifference to her bodily presence:he would hardly have been aware of it if one ofthe hands she had flung out on the table had not drawnhis gaze as on the occasion when, in the little Twenty-third Street house, he had kept his eye on it in ordernot to look at her face. Now his imagination spunabout the hand as about the edge of a vortex; but stillhe made no effort to draw nearer. He had known thelove that is fed on caresses and feeds them; but thispassion that was closer than his bones was not to besuperficially satisfied. His one terror was to do anythingwhich might efface the sound and impression ofher words; his one thought, that he should never againfeel quite alone.But after a moment the sense of waste and ruinovercame him. There they were, close together and safeand shut in; yet so chained to their separate destiniesthat they might as well have been half the world apart."What's the use--when you will go back?" he brokeout, a great hopeless how on earth can I keep you?crying out to her beneath his words.She sat motionless, with lowered lids. "Oh--I shan'tgo yet!""Not yet? Some time, then? Some time that youalready foresee?"At that she raised her clearest eyes. "I promise you:not as long as you hold out. Not as long as we canlook straight at each other like this."He dropped into his chair. What her answer reallysaid was: "If you lift a finger you'll drive me back:back to all the abominations you know of, and all thetemptations you half guess." He understood it as clearlyas if she had uttered the words, and the thought kepthim anchored to his side of the table in a kind ofmoved and sacred submission."What a life for you!--" he groaned."Oh--as long as it's a part of yours.""And mine a part of yours?"She nodded."And that's to be all--for either of us?""Well; it is all, isn't it?"At that he sprang up, forgetting everything but thesweetness of her face. She rose too, not as if to meethim or to flee from him, but quietly, as though theworst of the task were done and she had only to wait;so quietly that, as he came close, her outstretched handsacted not as a check but as a guide to him. They fellinto his, while her arms, extended but not rigid, kepthim far enough off to let her surrendered face say therest.They may have stood in that way for a long time, oronly for a few moments; but it was long enough for hersilence to communicate all she had to say, and for himto feel that only one thing mattered. He must do nothingto make this meeting their last; he must leave theirfuture in her care, asking only that she should keep fasthold of it."Don't--don't be unhappy," she said, with a breakin her voice, as she drew her hands away; and heanswered: "You won't go back--you won't go back?"as if it were the one possibility he could not bear."I won't go back," she said; and turning away sheopened the door and led the way into the publicdining-room.The strident school-teachers were gathering up theirpossessions preparatory to a straggling flight to the wharf;across the beach lay the white steam-boat at the pier;and over the sunlit waters Boston loomed in a line of haze.