Part 22 (1/2)

”You're having a chill,” he said. ”I wish you would take my coat. You don't want to get sick.”

She shook her head and chattered, ”No, no.”

”Then you'd better get out and walk up and down this bridge awhile.

There's not even a lap-robe here.”

”I should like to walk, I think.”

She stepped out, aided by his hand, a strong hand, and warm about her icy fingers. Her knees were weak, and he set her elbow in the hollow of his arm and guided her. They walked like the blind leading the blind through a sea of pitch. The only glimmer was the little scratches of light pinked in the dead sky by a few stars.

”'It's beautiful overhead, if you're going that way,'” Davidge quoted.

He set out briskly, but Marie Louise hung back timidly.

”Not so fast! I can't see a thing.”

”That's the best time to keep moving.”

”But aren't you afraid to push on when you can't see where you're going?” she demanded.

”Who can ever tell where he's going? The sunlight is no guaranty.

We're all bats in the daytime and not cats at night. The main thing is to sail on and on and on.”

She caught a little of his recklessness--suffered him to hurry her to and fro through the inky air till she was panting for breath and tired. Then they groped to the rail and peered vainly down at the brook, which, like an unbroken child, was heard and not seen. They leaned their elbows on the rail and stared into the m.u.f.fling gloom.

”I think I'll have another of your cigarettes,” he said.

”So will I,” said she.

There was a cozy fireside moment as they took their lights from the same match. When he threw the match overboard he said:

”Like a human life, eh? A little spark between dark and dark.”

He was surprised at stumbling into rhyme, and apologized. But she said:

”Do you know, I rather like that. It reminds me of a poem about a rain-storm--Russell Lowell's, I fancy; it told of a flock of sheep scampering down a dusty road and clattering across a bridge and back to the dust again. He said it was like human life, 'a little noise between two silences.'”

”H'm!” was the best Davidge could do. But the agony of the brevity of existence seized them both by the hearts, and their hearts throbbed and bled like birds crushed in the claws of hawks. Their hearts had such capabilities of joy, such songs in them, such love and longing, such delight in beauty--and beauty was so beautiful, so frequent, so thrilling! Yet they could spend but a glance, a sigh, a regret, a grat.i.tude, and then their eyes were out, their ears still, their lips cold, their hearts dust. The ache of it was beyond bearing.

”Let's walk. I'm cold again,” she whispered.

He felt that she needed the sense of hurry, and he went so fast that she had to run to keep up with him. There seemed to be some comfort in the privilege of motion for its own sake; motion was life; motion was G.o.dhood; motion was escape from the run-down clock of death.

Back and forth they kept their promenade, till her body refused to answer the whips of restlessness. Her brain began to shut up shop. It would do no more thinking this night.

She stumbled toward the taxicab. Davidge lifted her in, and she sank down, completely done. She fell asleep.