XXXVI
Darrow continued to stand by the door after it had closed. Anna feltthat he was looking at her, and sat still, disdaining to seek refuge inany evasive word or movement. For the last time she wanted to let himtake from her the fulness of what the sight of her could give.
He crossed over and sat down on the sofa. For a moment neither of themspoke; then he said: "To-night, dearest, I must have my answer."
She straightened herself under the shock of his seeming to take the verywords from her lips.
"To-night?" was all that she could falter.
"I must be off by the early train. There won't be more than a moment inthe morning."
He had taken her hand, and she said to herself that she must free itbefore she could go on with what she had to say. Then she rejected thisconcession to a weakness she was resolved to defy. To the end she wouldleave her hand in his hand, her eyes in his eyes: she would not, intheir final hour together, be afraid of any part of her love for him.
"You'll tell me to-night, dear," he insisted gently; and his insistencegave her the strength to speak.
"There's something I must ask you," she broke out, perceiving, as sheheard her words, that they were not in the least what she had meant tosay.
He sat still, waiting, and she pressed on: "Do such things happen to menoften?"
The quiet room seemed to resound with the long reverberations of herquestion. She looked away from him, and he released her and stood up.
"I don't know what happens to other men. Such a thing never happened tome..."
She turned her eyes back to his face. She felt like a traveller on agiddy path between a cliff and a precipice: there was nothing for it nowbut to go on.
"Had it...had it begun...before you met her in Paris?"
"No; a thousand times no! I've told you the facts as they were."
"All the facts?"
He turned abruptly. "What do you mean?"
Her throat was dry and the loud pulses drummed in her temples.
"I mean--about her...Perhaps you knew...knew things abouther...beforehand."
She stopped. The room had grown profoundly still. A log dropped to thehearth and broke there in a hissing shower.
Darrow spoke in a clear voice. "I knew nothing, absolutely nothing," hesaid.
She had the answer to her inmost doubt--to her last shameful unavowedhope. She sat powerless under her woe.
He walked to the fireplace and pushed back the broken log with his foot.A flame shot out of it, and in the upward glare she saw his pale face,stern with misery.
"Is that all?" he asked.
She made a slight sign with her head and he came slowly back to her."Then is this to be good-bye?"
Again she signed a faint assent, and he made no effort to touch her ordraw nearer. "You understand that I sha'n't come back?"
He was looking at her, and she tried to return his look, but her eyeswere blind with tears, and in dread of his seeing them she got up andwalked away. He did not follow her, and she stood with her back to him,staring at a bowl of carnations on a little table strewn with books. Hertears magnified everything she looked at, and the streaked petals of thecarnations, their fringed edges and frail curled stamens, pressed uponher, huge and vivid. She noticed among the books a volume of verse hehad sent her from England, and tried to remember whether it was beforeor after...
She felt that he was waiting for her to speak, and at last she turned tohim. "I shall see you to-morrow before you go..."
He made no answer.
She moved toward the door and he held it open for her. She saw his handon the door, and his seal ring in its setting of twisted silver; and thesense of the end of all things came to her.
They walked down the drawing-rooms, between the shadowy reflections ofscreens and cabinets, and mounted the stairs side by side. At the end ofthe gallery, a lamp brought out turbid gleams in the smoky battle-pieceabove it.
On the landing Darrow stopped; his room was the nearest to the stairs."Good night," he said, holding out his hand.
As Anna gave him hers the springs of grief broke loose in her. Shestruggled with her sobs, and subdued them; but her breath came unevenly,and to hide her agitation she leaned on him and pressed her face againsthis arm.
"Don't--don't," he whispered, soothing her.
Her troubled breathing sounded loudly in the silence of the sleepinghouse. She pressed her lips tight, but could not stop the nervouspulsations in her throat, and he put an arm about her and, opening hisdoor, drew her across the threshold of his room. The door shutbehind her and she sat down on the lounge at the foot of the bed. Thepulsations in her throat had ceased, but she knew they would begin againif she tried to speak.
Darrow walked away and leaned against the mantelpiece. The red-veiledlamp shone on his books and papers, on the arm-chair by the fire, andthe scattered objects on his dressing-table. A log glimmered on thehearth, and the room was warm and faintly smoke-scented. It was thefirst time she had ever been in a room he lived in, among his personalpossessions and the traces of his daily usage. Every object about herseemed to contain a particle of himself: the whole air breathed of him,steeping her in the sense of his intimate presence.
Suddenly she thought: "This is what Sophy Viner knew"...and with atorturing precision she pictured them alone in such a scene...Had hetaken the girl to an hotel...where did people go in such cases? Whereverthey were, the silence of night had been around them, and the things heused had been strewn about the room...Anna, ashamed of dwelling on thedetested vision, stood up with a confused impulse of flight; then a waveof contrary feeling arrested her and she paused with lowered head.
Darrow had come forward as she rose, and she perceived that he waswaiting for her to bid him good night. It was clear that no otherpossibility had even brushed his mind; and the fact, for some dimreason, humiliated her. "Why not...why not?" something whispered in her,as though his forbearance, his tacit recognition of her pride, were aslight on other qualities she wanted him to feel in her.
"In the morning, then?" she heard him say.
"Yes, in the morning," she repeated.
She continued to stand in the same place, looking vaguely about theroom. For once before they parted--since part they must--she longed tobe to him all that Sophy Viner had been; but she remained rooted to thefloor, unable to find a word or imagine a gesture that should expressher meaning. Exasperated by her helplessness, she thought: "Don't I feelthings as other women do?"
Her eye fell on a note-case she had given him. It was worn at thecorners with the friction of his pocket and distended with thicklypacked papers. She wondered if he carried her letters in it, and she puther hand out and touched it.
All that he and she had ever felt or seen, their close encountersof word and look, and the closer contact of their silences, trembledthrough her at the touch. She remembered things he had said that hadbeen like new skies above her head: ways he had that seemed a part ofthe air she breathed. The faint warmth of her girlish love came backto her, gathering heat as it passed through her thoughts; and her heartrocked like a boat on the surge of its long long memories. "It's becauseI love him in too many ways," she thought; and slowly she turned to thedoor.
She was aware that Darrow was still silently watching her, but heneither stirred nor spoke till she had reached the threshold. Then hemet her there and caught her in his arms.
"Not to-night--don't tell me to-night!" he whispered; and she leanedaway from him, closing her eyes for an instant, and then slowly openingthem to the flood of light in his.