Part 21 (1/2)
”The end,” she echoed, in a strange and smothered voice. ”Is this it?
But not yet.”
Lee's gaze rested on the magazine lying spread half on the Eastern symbolism of a rug and half on the bare polished flooring. ”Your story is far more interesting than any in that,” he commented, with a gesture.
”It's a pity you haven't turned your imagination to a better use.” This, he recognized, could not go on indefinitely. f.a.n.n.y added:
”But I was wrong--you'd kiss her before you said Savina. That, I believe, is the way it works. It is really screaming when you think what you went to New York for--to protect Claire, to keep Peyton Morris out of Mina Raff's hands. And, apparently, you succeeded but got in badly yourself. What a pair of hypocrites you were: all the while worse than the others, who were at least excused by their youngness, ever could dream of being. What was the good of your contradicting me at first? I knew all along. I felt it.”
”What was it, exactly, that you felt?” he asked with an a.s.sumption of calmness.
”I don't understand,” she acknowledged, for the moment at a loss. ”It was inside me, like lead. But, whatever happened, it will come out; it always does; and you'll be sorry.”
Did the truth, he wondered, always appear, and triumph over the false; was that precept of morality secure for those who depended on it? And, as f.a.n.n.y threatened, would he be sorry? But most a.s.suredly he would, for three reasons--Savina, f.a.n.n.y, and himself; there might, even, be two more, Helena and Gregory; yes, and William Loyd Grove. What a stinking mess it was all turning out to be. Why wasn't life, why weren't women, reasonable? But he could not convince himself that anything final--a separation--threatened them. f.a.n.n.y couldn't force an admission from him, nor speak of this, investigate it, anywhere else. Savina was well able to take care of herself. There was nothing to do but wait. In the process of that he once more picked up the magazine. f.a.n.n.y said unexpectedly:
”I ordered your Christmas present. It took all the money I had in the Dime Savings Bank.” He muttered a phrase to the effect that Christmas was a season for children. This recalled his own--they wouldn't be asleep yet--and, to escape temporarily from an impossible situation, to secure the paper knife, he went up to see them.
They greeted him vociferously: before he could turn on the light they were partly out of the covers, and the old argument about whose bed he should sit on in full progress. Helena's was by the door, so, returning her to the warmth of her blankets, he stopped beside her. The room, with the windows fully open, was cold, but he welcomed the white frozen purity of its barrenness. More than ever he was impressed by the remoteness of the children's bed-room from the pa.s.sionate disturbances of living; but they, in the sense f.a.n.n.y and he knew, weren't alive yet. They imitated the accents and concerns, caught at the gestures, of maturity; but, even in the grip of beginning instincts, they were hardly more sentient than the figures of a puppet show. Or, perhaps, their world was so far from his that they couldn't be said to span from one to the other. Gregory, in mind, was no more like him than a slip was like a tree bearing fruit--no matter how bitter. Helena more nearly resembled her mother; that had never occurred to him before.
It was undoubtedly true--her posturing recalled the feminine att.i.tude in extreme miniature. In that he felt outside her sympathy, she belonged with her mother; to Gregory he was far more nearly allied. Gregory, anyhow, had the potentialities of his own dilemma; he might, in years to come, be drawn out of a present reality by the enigma, the fascination, of Cytherea. Lee Randon hoped not; he wanted to advise him, at once, resolutely to close his eyes to all visions beyond the horizon of wise practicability. Marry, have children, be faithful, die, he said; but, alas, to himself. Gregory, smiling in eager antic.i.p.ation of what might ensue, was necessarily ignorant of so much. Something again lay back of that, Lee realized--his occupation in life. There he, Lee, had made his first, perhaps most serious, mistake. While the majority of men turned, indifferent, from their labor, there were a rare few--hadn't he phrased this before?--lost in an edifice of the mind, scientific or aesthetic or commercial, who were happily unconscious of the lapsing fretful years.
That was the way to cheat the sardonic gathered fates: to be deaf and blind to whatever, falsely, they seemed to offer; to get into bed heavy with weariness and rise hurried and absorbed. Over men so preoccupied, spent, Cytherea had no power. It was strange how her name had become linked with all his deepest speculations; she was involved in concerns remote from her apparent sphere and influence.
”Gracious, you're thinking a lot,” Helena said.
”What are you thinking about?” Gregory added.
”A doll,” he replied, turning to his daughter.
”For me,” she declared.
”No, me,” Gregory insisted.
Lee Randon shook his head. ”Not you, in the least.”
”Of course not,” Helena supported him. ”I should think it would make you sick, father, hearing Gregory talk like that. It does me. Why doesn't he ask for something that boys play with?”
”I don't want them, that's why,” Gregory specified. ”Perhaps I'd like to have a typewriter.”
”You're not very modest.” It was Helena again.
”It's father, isn't it? It isn't you.”
”Listen,” Lee broke in, ”I came up here to be with two good children; but where are they?”
”I'm one.” Helena, freeing herself definitely, closed her arms in a sweet warmth about his neck. ”I'm one, too,” Gregory called urgently.
”No,” his father pressed him back; ”you must stay in bed. They are both here, I can see.”
He wondered if, everything else forgotten, his children could const.i.tute a sufficient engagement; but the sentimental picture, cast across his thoughts, of himself being led by a child holding each of his hands defeated it. He was turned in another direction.
Yet, tonight, they were remarkably engaging.... He had lost a great deal. For what? He couldn't--as usual--answer; but the memory of Savina, stronger than f.a.n.n.y, metaphorically took Helena's arms away from his neck and blurred the image of Gregory. ”Have you said your prayer?” he asked absent-mindedly making conversation. Oh, yes, he was informed, they did that with Martha. ”I'll say mine again,” Gregory volunteered.