Part 24 (2/2)
”A wife loves her husband always, doesn't she?”
”Do _you_?”
”I suppose I shall.... I haven't been married very long--long enough to feel as though I am really married. When I begin to realise it I shall understand, of course, that I love you.”
It was the calm and immature reply of a little girl playing house. He knew it. He looked at her pure, perplexed profile of a child and knew that what he had said was futile--understood that it was meaningless to her, that it was only confusing a mind already dazed--a mind of which too much had been expected, too much demanded.
He leaned over and kissed the cold, almost colourless cheek; her little mechanical smile came back. Then they remembered the chauffeur behind them and Brandes reddened. He was unaccustomed to a man on the rumble.
”Could I talk to mother on the telephone when we get to New York?” she asked presently, still painfully flushed.
”Yes, darling, of course.”
”I just want to hear her voice,” murmured Rue.
”Certainly. We can send her a wireless, too, when we're at sea.”
That interested her. She enquired curiously in regard to wireless telegraphy and other matters concerning ocean steamers.
In Albany her first wave of loneliness came over her in the stuffy dining-room of the big, pretentious hotel, when she found herself seated at a small table alone with this man whom she seemed, somehow or other, to have married.
As she did not appear inclined to eat, Brandes began to search the card for something to tempt her. And, glancing up presently, saw tears glimmering in her eyes.
For a moment he remained dumb as though stunned by some sudden and terrible accusation--for a moment only. Then, in an unsteady voice:
”Rue, darling. You must not feel lonely and frightened. I'll do anything in the world for you. Don't you know it?”
She nodded.
”I tell you,” he said in that even, concentrated voice of his which scarcely moved his narrow lips, ”I'm just crazy about you. You're my own little wife. You're all I care about. If I can't make you happy somebody ought to shoot me.”
She tried to smile; her full lips trembled; a single tear, br.i.m.m.i.n.g, fell on the cloth.
”I--don't mean to be silly.... But--Brookhollow seems--ended--forever....”
”It's only forty miles,” he said with heavy joviality. ”Shall we turn around and go back?”
She glanced up at him with an odd expression, as though she hoped he meant it; then her little mechanical smile returned, and she dried her eyes navely.
”I don't know why I cannot seem to get used to being married,” she said. ”I never thought that getting married would make me so--so--lonely.”
”Let's talk about art,” he suggested. ”You're crazy about art and you're going to Paris. Isn't that fine.”
”Oh, yes----”
”Sure, it's fine. That's where art grows. Artville is Paris' other name. It's all there, Rue--the Loove, the palaces, the Latin Quarter, the statues, the churches, and all like that.”
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