Part 54 (1/2)
The monoplane landed with a clean volplane. The aviator and his mechanicians were wheeling it toward the hangar. They glanced at him uninterestedly. Carl understood that, to them, he was a Typical Bystander, here where he had once starred.
The aviator stared again, let go the machine, walked over, exclaiming: ”Say, aren't you Hawk Ericson? This is an honor. I heard you were somewhere in New York. Just missed you at the Aero Club one night.
Wanted to ask you about the Bagby hydro. Won't you come in and have some coffee and sinkers with us? Proud to have you. My name 's Berry.”
”Thanks. Be glad to.”
While the youngsters were admiring him, hearing of the giants of earlier days, while they were drinking inspiration from this veteran of twenty-nine, they were in turn inspiring Carl by their faith in him. He had been humble. They made him trust himself, not egotistically, but with a feeling that he did matter, that it was worth while to be in tune with life.
Yet all the while he knew that he wanted to be by himself, because he could thus be with the spirit of Ruth. And he knew, subconsciously, that he was going to hurry back to Mineola and telephone to her.
As he dog-trotted down the road, he noted the old Dutch houses for her; picked out the spot where he had once had a canvas hangar, and fancied himself telling her of those days. He did not remember that at this hangar he had known Istra, Istra Nash, the artist, whose name he scarce recalled. Istra was an incident; Ruth was the meaning of his life.
And the solution of his problem came, all at once, when suddenly it was given to him to understand what that problem was.
Ruth and he had to be up and away, immediately; go any place, do anything, so long as they followed new trails, and followed them together. He knew positively, after his lonely night, that he could not be happy without her as comrade in the freedom he craved. And he also knew that they had not done the one thing for which their marriage existed. They were not just a man and a woman. They were a man and a woman who had promised to find new horizons for each other.
However much he believed in the sanct.i.ty of love's children, Carl also believed that merely to be married and breed casual children and die is a sort of suspended energy which has no conceivable place in this over-complex and unwieldy world. He had no clear nor ringing message, but he did have, just then, an overpowering conviction that Ruth and he--not every one, but Ruth and he, at least--had a vocation in keeping clear of vocations, and that they must fulfil it.
Over the telephone he said: ”Ruth dear, I'll be right there. Walked all night. Got straightened out now. I'm out at Mineola. It's all right with me now, blessed. I want so frightfully much to make it all right with you. I'll be there in about an hour.”
She answered ”Yes” so non-committally that he was smitten by the fact that he had yet to win forgiveness for his frenzy in leaving her; that he must break the sh.e.l.l of resentment which would incase her after a whole night's brooding between sullen walls.
On the train, unconscious of its uproar, he was bespelled by his new love. During a few moments of their lives, ordinary real people, people real as a tooth-brush, do actually transcend the coa.r.s.ely physical aspects of s.e.x and feeding, and do approximate to the unwavering glow of romantic heroes. Carl was no more a romantic hero-lover than, as a celebrated aviator, he had been a hero-adventurer. He was a human being. He was not even admirable, except as all people are admirable, from the ash-man to the king.
There had been nothing exemplary in his struggle to find adjustment with his wife; he had been bad in his impatience just as he had been good in his boyish affection; in both he had been human. Even now, when without reserve he gave himself up to love, he was aware that he would ascend, not on G.o.dlike pinions, but by a jerky old apartment-house elevator, to make peace with a vexed girl who was also a human being, with a digestive system and prejudices. Yet with a joy that encompa.s.sed all the beauty of banners and saluting swords, romantic towers and a fugitive queen, a joy transcending trains and elevators and prejudices, Carl knew that human girl as the symbol of man's yearning for union with the divine; he desired happiness for her with a devotion great as the pa.s.sion in Galahad's heart when all night he knelt before the high altar.
He came slowly up to their apartment-house. If it were only possible for Ruth to trust him, now----
Mingled with his painfully clear remembrance of all the sweet things Ruth was and had done was a tragic astonishment that he--this same he who was all hers now--could possibly have turned impatiently from her sobs. Yet it would have been for good, if only she would trust him.
Not till he left the elevator, on their floor, did he comprehend that Ruth might not be awaiting him; might have gone. He looked irresolutely at the grill of the elevator door, shut on the black shaft.
”She was here when I telephoned----”
He waited. Perhaps she would peep out to see if it was he who had come up in the elevator.
She did not appear.
He walked the endless distance of ten feet to their door, unlocked it, labored across the tiny hall into the living-room. She was there. She stood supporting herself by the back of the davenport, her eyes red-edged and doubtful, her face tightened, expressing enmity or dread or shy longing. He held out his hands, like a prisoner beseeching royal mercy. She in turn threw out her arms. He could not say one word. The clumsy signs called ”words” could not tell his emotion. He ran to her, and she welcomed his arms. He held her, abandoned himself utterly to her kiss. His hard-driving mind relaxed; relaxed was her body in his arms. He knew, not merely with his mind, but with the vaster powers that drive mind and emotion and body, that Ruth, in her disheveled dressing-gown, was the glorious lover to whom he had been hastening this hour past. All the love which civilization had tried to turn into Normal Married Life had escaped Efficiency's pruning-hook, and had flowered.
”It's all right with me, now,” she said; ”so wonderfully all right.”
”I want to explain. Had to be by myself; find out. Must have seemed so unspeakably r----”
”Oh, don't, don't explain! Our kiss explained.”