Part 17 (1/2)

”He is not thinking of marriage,” said Moya. ”Something weighs on him all the time. I cannot ask him questions. If he wanted to tell me he would. That is why I come downstairs and leave him. But he won't come down! Is it not strange? If we could believe such things I would say a Presence came with, him out of that place. It is with him when I find him alone. It is in his eyes when he looks at me. It is not something past and done with, it is here--now--in this house! _What_ is it? What do _you_ believe?”

The eyes she sought to question hardened under her gaze. Here, too, was a veil. Mrs. Bogardus sat with her hands clasped in her lap. She was motionless, but the creaking of her silks could be heard as her bosom rose and fell. After a moment she said: ”Paul's tray is on the table in the dining-room. Will you take it when you go up?”

Moya altered her own manner instantly. ”But you?” she hesitated. ”I must not crowd you out of all your mother privileges. You have handed over everything to me.”

”A mother's privilege is to see herself no longer needed. I can do nothing more for my son”--her smile was hard--”except take care of his money.”

”Paul's mother!”

”My dear, do you suppose we mind? It is a very great privilege to be allowed to step aside when your work is done.”

”Paul's _mother!_” Moya insisted.

Mrs. Bogardus rose. ”You don't remember your own mother, my dear. You have an exaggerated idea of the--the importance of mothers. They are only a temporary arrangement.” She put out her hands and the girl's cheek touched hers for an instant; then she straightened herself and walked calmly out of the room. Moya remained a little longer, afraid to follow her. ”If she would not smile! If she would do anything but smile!”

Paul was walking about his room, half an hour later, when Moya stopped outside his door. She placed the tray on a table in the hall. The door was opened from within. Paul had heard his mother go up before, heard her pause at the stairs, and, after a silence, enter her own room.

”She knows that I know,” he said to himself. ”That knowledge will be always between us; we can never look each other in the face again.” To Moya he endeavored to speak lightly.

”It sounded very gay downstairs to-night. You must have had a houseful.”

”I have been with your mother the last hour,” answered Moya, vaguely on the defensive. Since Paul's return there had been little of the old free intercourse in words between them, and without this outlet their mutual consciousness became acute. Often as they saw each other during the day, the keenest emotion attached to the first meeting of their eyes.

Paul was unnerved by his sudden recall from death to life. Its contrasts were overwhelming to his starved senses: from the dirt and dearth and grimy despair of his burial hutch in the snow to this softly lighted, close-curtained room, warm and sweet with flowers; from the gaunt, unshaven spectre of the packer and his ghostly revelations, to Moya, meekly beautiful, her bright eyes lowered as she trailed her soft skirts across the carpet; Moya seated opposite, silent, conscious of him in every look and movement. Her lovely hands lay in her lap, and the thought of holding them in his made him tremble; and when he recalled the last time he had kissed her he grew faint. He longed to throw off this exhausting self-restraint, but feared to betray his helpless pa.s.sion which he deemed an insult to his soul's wors.h.i.+p of her.

And she was thinking: ”Is this all it is going to mean--his coming home--our being together? And I was almost his wife!”

”So it was my mother you were talking to in the study? I thought I heard a man's voice.”

”It was the doctor. Your mother was not quite herself this evening. He came in to see her, but he does not think she is ill. 'Rest and change,'

he says she needs.”

Paul gave the words a certain depth of consideration. ”Are you as well as usual, Moya?”

”Oh, I am always well,” she answered cheerlessly. ”I seem to thrive on anything--everything,” she corrected herself, and blushed.

The blush made him gasp. ”You are more beautiful than ever. I had forgotten that beauty is a physical fact. The sight of you confuses me.”

”I always told you you were morbid.” Moya's happy audacity returned.

”Now, how long are you going to sit and think about that?”

”Do I sit and think about things?” His reluctant, boyish smile, which all women loved, captured his features for a moment. ”It is very rude of me.”

”Suppose I should ask you what you are thinking about?”

”Ah! I am afraid you would say 'morbid' again.”

”Try me! You ought to let me know at once if you are going to break out in any new form of morbidness.”

”I wish it might amuse you, but it wouldn't. Let me put you a case--seriously.”