Part 21 (1/2)

Delafield had not known that Jasper Wald was married. It was almost impossible for him to imagine anyone living with this man. He looked at the woman curiously. He had the feeling that her individuality had been stultified. It did not surprise him. Jasper Wald could have accomplished that. It would have been difficult to have matched him with as flagrantly material a person as he himself was. Only that sort of person would have stood a chance with him. Any other would have had to fall flat. She had fallen flat. Delafield knew that the moment he looked at her.

”Why, I didn't know;” Delafield took her hand in his. ”You never told me, Wald, that you were married.”

”Didn't I? No, of course not.--But, about the new book, Delafield.”

Delafield dropped her hand. He had never felt anything quite as inert as that hand. It impressed the nondescript quality of her upon him even more strongly than had her appearance.

”Your husband has promised me another book, Mrs. Wald.” He spoke slowly.

He felt he had to speak that way or she would not understand him. ”Your husband is a great author, Mrs. Wald.”

”Yes.”

”Why don't you say, genius, Delafield, and be done with it? Why don't you make a clean breast of it with--genius?”

”I've got to be going.”

Delafield felt a strange irritation. The man was a fool. For what reason under the sun could this woman with those half closed eyes let herself be dominated by him? The two of them got on his nerves.

”Won't you stay to dinner?”

Jasper Wald was obviously anxious for a chance to speak of himself.

”Sorry, Wald. I've got to be getting on.”

Delafield still watched the woman. She stood there quite silent.

”I thought you might have something to say about that book of mine.”

”No--There's nothing more.” Delafield started for the door. ”I've just told you that it's full of the sort of knowledge all of us are in need of. I can't say more, you know. I suppose that knowledge is what const.i.tutes genius; but--” He was staring now full into those bulging blue eyes--”Lord, man, where, where d'you get it from?”

Glancing at the woman, Delafield saw that she was looking straight at him. Her eyes met his in a way which he was completely at a loss to explain. There was something eerie about it.

”Where does he get it?”

She repeated his question stupidly and once again the heavy lids came down over those strange green eyes, hiding all expression.

Jasper Wald drew in his breath.

”I write it,” he said.

After that Delafield left them both severely alone. The woman puzzled him. He could not tolerate the man, Jasper Wald, and he could not for worlds have the genius of Jasper Wald hurt or slighted in any way. He knew how big it was. It often left him breathless. But the man; he would have liked to have hit him that day in the living room in the house on Peach Tree Road; to have kicked him into some sort of a realization as to what an utter little rat he was.

And so, because of his physical make-up, people stayed away from Jasper Wald. Not that he avoided people; not that he wanted to live the life of a recluse. He never made any attempt to conceal his living from the general public. He was too much of the egoist to attempt concealment of any kind. So his life was known to any man, woman or child who cared for the knowledge. His life of narrow selfishness, of tranquil complacency; of colossal conceit. And of genius.

He always wrote in the evenings, did Jasper Wald. And often he would keep at his writing well on into the morning.

He liked to sit there in the square, old-fas.h.i.+oned living room with its wide window that gave out upon Peach Tree Road.

When he had first moved into the house as an obscure, hard-working journalist he had placed the desk against the window ledge so that he could look directly out of the window without moving. And he had kept the desk there. He was just a bit insistent about it. Then, too, he liked the blind up so that he could stare out into the evening and at the house opposite.