Part 59 (1/2)

”Yes,” said Lydia. ”What is it?”

She stood there apart from him, a slim thing, her white scarf held tight, actually, to his quickened sense, as if she kept the veil of her virginity wrapped about her sternly. For the moment he did not feel the despair of his greater age, of his tawdry past or his fettered present.

He was young and the night air was as innocently sweet to him as if he had never loved a woman and been repulsed by her and dwelt for years in the anguish of his own recoil.

”Lydia,” he said, ”what if you and I should tell each other the truth?”

”We do,” said Lydia simply. ”I tell you the truth anyway. And you could me. But you don't understand me quite. You think I'd die for you. Yes, I would. But I shouldn't think twice about wanting to be happier with you.

I'm happy enough now.”

A thousand thoughts rushed to his lips, to tell her she did not know how happy they could be. But he held them back. All the sweet intimacies of life ran before him, life here in Addington, secure, based on old traditions, if she were his wife and they had so much happiness they could afford to be careless about it as other married folk were careless. There might not be daily banquets of delight, but cool fruits, the morning and the evening, the still course of being that seemed to him now, after his seething first youth, the actual paradise. But Lydia was going on, an erect slim figure in her enfolding scarf.

”And you mustn't be sorry I stole the necklace--except for Anne and Farvie, if she does anything to me.” ”She” was always Esther, he had learned. ”I'm glad, because it makes us both alike.”

”You and me?”

”Yes. You took something that makes you call yourself a thief. Now I'm a thief. We're just alike. You said, when you first came home, doing a thing like that, breaking law, makes you feel outside.”

”It isn't only feeling outside,” he made haste to tell her. ”You are outside. You're outside the social covenant men have made. It's a good righteous covenant, Lydia. It was come to through blood and misery. It's pretty bad to be outside.”

”Well,” said Lydia, ”I'm outside anyway. With you. And I'm glad of it.

You won't feel so lonesome now.”

Jeff's eyes began to brim.

”You little hateful thing,” he said. ”You've made me cry.”

”Got a hanky?” Lydia inquired solicitously.

”Yes. Besides, it isn't a hanky cry, unless you make it worse. Lydia, I wish you and Anne would go away and let father and me muddle along alone.”

”Do you,” said Lydia joyously. ”Then you do like me. You like me awfully. You think you'll tell me so if I stay round.”

”Do I, you little prying thing?” He thought he could establish some ground of understanding between them if he abused her. ”You're a good little sister, Lydia, but you're a terrifying one.”

”No,” said Lydia. ”I'm not a sister.” She let the enfolding scarf go and the breeze took its ends and made them ripple. ”Anne's a sister. She likes you almost as well as she does Farvie. But she does like Farvie best. I don't like Farvie best. I like you best of all the world. And I love to. I'm determined to. You ought to be liked over and over, because you've had so much taken away from you. Why, that's what I'm for, Jeff.

That's what I was born for. Just to like you.”

He took a step toward her, and the rippling scarf seemed to beckon him on. Lydia stepped back. ”But if you touched me, Jeff,” she said, ”if you kissed me, I'd kill you. I'm glad you did it once when you didn't think.

But if we did it once more----”

She stopped and he heard her breath and then the click of her teeth as if she broke the words in two.

”Don't be afraid, Lydia,” he said. ”I won't.”

”I'm not afraid,” she flashed.

”And don't talk of killing.”