Part 7 (1/2)

”I escaped from that none too soon,” he congratulated himself. ”It wasn't nearly so one-sided as I thought.”

He had never been gregarious. Thus far he had not had a single intimate friend, man or woman. He knew many people and knew them well. They liked him and some of them sought his friends.h.i.+p. These were often puzzled because it was easy to get acquainted with him, impossible to know him intimately.

The explanation of this combination of openness and reserve, friendliness and unapproachableness, was that his boyhood and youth had been spent wholly among books. That life had trained him not to look to others for amus.e.m.e.nt, sympathy or counsel, but to depend upon himself.

As his temperament was open and good-natured and sympathetic, he was as free from enemies and enmities as he was from friends and friends.h.i.+ps.

Women there had been--several women, a succession of idealizations which had dispersed in the strong light of his common sense. He had never disturbed himself about morals in what he regarded as the limited sense.

He always insisted that he was free; and he was careful only of his personal pride and of taking no advantage of another. What he had said to Alice about marriage was true--as to his intentions, at least. A poor woman, he felt, he could not marry; a rich woman, he felt, he would not marry. And he cared nothing about marriage because he was never lonely, never leaned or wished to lean upon another, abhorred the idea of any one leaning upon him; because he regarded freedom as the very corner-stone of his scheme of life.

The nearest he had come to companions.h.i.+p was with Alice. With the other women whom he had known in various degrees from warmth to white-heat, there had been interruptions, no such constant freedom of access, no such intermingling of daily life. Her he had seen at all hours and in all circ.u.mstances. She never disturbed him but was ready to talk when he wished to listen, listened eagerly when he talked, and was silent and beautiful and restful to look at when he wished to indulge in the dissipation of mental laziness.

As she loved him, she showed him only the best that there was in her and showed it in the most attractive of all lights.

While he was still wavering or fancying that he was wavering, the Managing Editor sent him to ”do” a great strike-riot in the coal regions of Pennsylvania. He was there for three weeks, active day and night, interested in the new phases of life--the mines and the miners, the display of fierce pa.s.sions, the excitement, the peril.

When he returned to New York, Alice had ceased to tempt him.

One midnight in the early spring he was in his sitting room, reading and a little bored. There came a knock at the door. He hoped that it was some one bringing something interesting or coming to propose a search for something interesting. ”Come in,” he said with welcome in his voice.

The door opened. It was Alice.

She was dressed much as she had been the first time he talked with her--a loose, clinging wrapper open at the throat. There was a change in her face--a change for the better but also for the worse. She looked more intelligent, more of a woman. There was more sparkle in her eyes and in her smile. But--Howard saw instantly the price she had paid. As the German had suggested, she had ”got on up town.”

She was pulling at the long broad blue ribbons of her negligee. Her hands were whiter and her pink finger nails had had careful attention.

She smiled, enjoying his astonishment. ”I have come back,” she said.

Howard came forward and took her hand. ”I'm glad, very glad to see you.

For a minute I thought I was dreaming.”

”Yes,” she went on, ”I'm in my old room. I came this afternoon. I must have been asleep, for I didn't hear you come in.”

”I hope it isn't bad luck that has flung you back here.”

”Oh, no. I've been doing very well. I've been saving up to come. And when I had enough to last me through the summer, I--I came.”

”You've been at work?”

She dropped her eyes and flushed. And her fingers played more nervously with her ribbons.

”You needn't treat me as a child any longer,” she said at last in a low voice; ”I'm eighteen now and--well, I'm not a child.”

Again there was a long pause. Howard, watching her downcast face, saw her steadying her expression to meet his eyes. When she looked, it was straight at him--appeal but also defiance.

”I don't ask anything of you,” she said, ”we are both free. And I wanted to see you. I was sick of all those others--up there. I've never had--had--this out of my mind. And I've come. And I can see you sometimes. I won't be in the way.”

Howard went over to the window and stared out into the lights and shadows of the leafy Square. When he turned again she had lighted and was smoking one of his cigarettes.