Ramsey kept himself desperately blind to the cause of this permeation.
He concentrated on the detached word "inferior" and belabored it with untiring fury. There was another secret, one that went deeper than the hidden conviction of impotency.
In the indignation which continually filled his mind, the hideous secret that lived almost within grasp of his understanding was conveniently clouded. It was the secret that his lack of vigor--a fact in itself that he sometimes contemplated--was caused by a still deeper thing--a thing that never reached any clearer articulation than a shudder.
They had called him "Sissy" as a boy and he had not changed with age. He had been able to repress the impulses that sought to turn him toward men instead of women for companionship. He had repressed them by the ruse of convincing himself he was an ascetic.
It was, moreover, an attitude which could find outlet. He could devote himself to the continual denunciation of others, developing into a sour, cynical choleric man of fifty. A vindictive, unpleasing personality.
Mrs. Basine herded her guests into the dining room. Ramsey's presence preoccupied her. She found herself watching him as a mother might look after a sickly child.
The intimacy that had grown between her and her dead husband's friend had been too gradual to trace. It had started when Mrs. Basine had sat one evening in the midst of a company similar to this and thought, "Poor man. He jumps around like that and acts queerly because he's ashamed of himself. He's ashamed of not being what he wants to be."
She did not quite understand what this meant but she felt herself suddenly close to the man after having thought it. He began to seek her company alone and more and more to use her as an audience for his ruse of transferring his self-rage into a critical indignation of others.
A realization of Ramsey's character had stirred a pity in her and out of this pity she was careful not to let him see it. She went to the extreme of pretending a blindness toward his shortcomings and of accepting him for the thing he tried to make himself out to be--a giant among pygmies.
She would agree with him in his attacks upon others, second his vicious caricaturing and appear always impressed by his desperate skepticism.
Ramsey as a result had come to regard her as the one person with whom he had ever felt at ease during his life. Mrs Basine was a woman who understood him, that is, one who was completely deceived by him. In her presence the creature he struggled unsuccessfully to become, the masquerade of magnificence which his inferiority sought futilely to assume--in her presence these became realities. He would swagger before her, deride her, browbeat her and the rage which bubbled everlastingly in him would have respite. His mind seemed to uncloud and his talk would grow actually clever, some of his caricatures bringing an authentic laugh from her.
But the widow as a rule would sit listening to him, watching his swagger, her heart lacerated by the poignant things it sensed. It was as if he were a little boy dressed up in an Indian suit and emitting war whoops and she must sit by and pretend real horror of his juvenile make-believe; as if he were someone who would drop dead with anguish in the midst of his laughter if she were to say aloud what was in her mind, "Oh you poor man, I'm sorry for you. I'm so ashamed for you."
She did not understand why, despite these things, she felt a thrill of pleasure when she found herself alone with him. Her pity for the man seemed a pleasant excitement. It gave her a sense of intimacy toward him. She admitted this to herself but wondered about it.
There had been one evening that remained confusedly in her mind. He had seemed unusually buoyant, she recalled, after it was over. His cleverness had actually diverted her--his caricatures of Judge Smith and Mrs. Gilchrist and even her own son. She had felt a certain truth in the distorted descriptions he gave of her friends.
Then without warning he had grown violently excited. She had watched him with a fear in her heart--a warning to her that he was going to say something. She remembered him walking up and down the room saying, "The trouble with you, like with most people, my dear lady, is that you don't understand things. You look at things through a fog. You don't see through the pretences of people. Your brain isn't active. It's merely receptive. It doesn't question. And what's the result?"
His voice had become high-pitched.
"You live your lives among lies. That's what you do. Lies, lies--you thrive on lies. Your friends are lies. Your thoughts, everything. Take me.... Now take me ... my case.... I'll tell you something you don't understand ... just by the way of proof.... I'll tell you something...."
His voice had broken off, overcome by excitement. He was walking up and down in front of her, his eyes staring wildly. He was going to say something, something about himself. And for a moment she had sat cringing inside. Why had she been afraid? Perhaps because he had looked so wildly around him, like someone trying to escape. But he had grown silent and dropped exhausted into a chair.
She tried not to look at him because he was trembling and he had gone away ten minutes later. He had kept away for two weeks and then returned and their relations had resumed as if nothing had happened. Her mind tingled with curiosity but a fear restrained her. She somehow had not dared ask the question, "What were you going to tell me about yourself."
But she remembered that it had seemed for a moment as if he were going to escape, that he had looked like a man on the verge of ridding himself of an incubus.
Her guests were getting along famously. Everyone seemed pleased, happy.
They were chattering and laughing for hardly no reason at all. Mrs.
Basine had no liking for the people at her table. She despised Mrs.
Gilchrist, resented Aubrey. The judge gave her a faint feeling of repulsion. Henrietta was a simpleton. Fanny irritated her with her continual blushes and sensitive innocence. Doris was too silent and always brooding. And even George--he somehow failed to convince her although she desired to be convinced.
But all of them together were nice, like a pleasing combination of colors. People belonged together. Alone they had faults. But when they came together and forgot themselves they were nice. She felt proud of having them at her table, because there were so many of them. They were nice people when they were like this--just talking, not arguing or saying things that convinced her somehow that they were wrong things.
Under the table the little comedies of the day were playing a furtive sequel. Henrietta sitting next to Basine was shyly pressing her knee against his. Fanny had reached out her foot until it rested against an ankle she fancied belonged to Aubrey. For a few minutes she failed to connect the attentiveness of Judge Smith, his paternal banter, with her activity under the table. But the suspicion slowly arrived. Her eyes calculated the position of the judge's legs and, blushing, she withdrew her foot. She noticed that Aubrey sought her face when she wasn't looking and that Keegan was talking with a blurred politeness to Mrs.
Gilchrist.
Doris sitting next to Mr. Ramsey felt annoyed. He was continually asking her what she wanted, passing her salt-shakers and bread-plates and conducting himself as if she were a helpless child under his care. Mrs.
Gilchrist, as the first conversational flush inspired by the food subsided, launched into a detailed description of the plans for the coming fete, talking in a precise, emotionless voice.
"I was saying," Basine's voice emerged in a silence that followed Mrs.
Gilchrist's talk, "I was saying that people are easy to get along with if you understand them and they understand you. I had a case in court the other day where a woman was suing a man for breach of promise. He had proposed marriage to her and then without reason broke his pledge.
The woman was my client."
Murmurs of "how awful"; "that must have been interesting" arose. Basine nodded sagely. He had without knowing why started improvising the narrative, inventing its details with a creditable dramatic and legal talent. There had been no such case, client or denouement but he continued unconscious of this fact in his desire to tell the story. "The man of course was a rascal. An unscrupulous rascal. The girl--my client--a charming, innocent young thing--had believed him. He had courted her passionately,--er, I should say--assiduously. I couldn't understand how any man after giving his word and asking a girl to marry him could possibly be rogue enough to do what he had done. So during a recess in the case I sought the fellow out. His name was Jones. We had quite a talk."
Basine paused.
"What happened?" Fanny exclaimed. "I wish you'd tell us more about your work than you do, George. It's so interesting."
"Yes, go on," Mrs. Gilchrist commanded.
Basine hesitated. His improvisation seemed to have come to an end. He was, mysteriously, at a loss as to how to make the lie turn out. But inspired by the attention of the table he resumed:
"Well, of course a lawyer must be first of all faithful to his client."
He paused again. He had almost decided to end the fiction by explaining that on investigation he had found the man to be right and that the defense the man had given him privately of his actions had caused him to withdraw from the case. But this would sound quixotic, unreal. There would have to be explanations. Why had he started the lie? To give it that ending so that.... He smiled a sudden appreciation of what he was doing--trying to excuse his jilting of Henrietta--an event not far off if she persisted in holding him to the thingumabob foolishness. But he went on:
"This sometimes prejudices an attorney against his opponent. But I found this time that all prejudice was warranted. The man was a thorough rascal. It had been his practise to propose marriage to girls--innocent girls of course, and he had several times managed to take advantage of their faith in him and--ruin them."
Fanny averted her eyes. Mrs. Gilchrist stared with an uncomprehending frown at the talker. The judge permitted a grimace of distaste to pass over his face as he murmured, "The cad. Yes sir, men are cads."
"My client won," resumed Basine with modesty, "and was awarded five thousand dollars by the jury. But the law could not give her back the happiness this scoundrel had snatched from her...."
"Had he ... had he accomplished his purpose with her?" Aubrey inquired, aloofly interested in the plot details of the narrative.
"No, fortunately," Basine answered. "But look at him now. Free, although found guilty, free to continue his tactics."
He paused confused. Henrietta was beaming at him, her eyes wide with admiration. He felt he should have given it the other ending and cursed himself silently for what he had done. He had only made it worse when he had meant to tell a story that would help matters and make her understand....
Mrs. Basine regarded her son unhappily. She was convinced he was lying because he usually mentioned the big cases he had and he had never before referred to any Jones suit. But she was unable to understand why anyone should lie without cause and after a moment of doubt her son's stern face and positive manner managed to convince her again. He wasn't lying.
Basine, as the others took up the discussion of the narrative, dropped his hand to his side and furtively pressed it against Henrietta's knee.
At this sensation of physical contact a feeling of relief came to him.
In the sensual thrill this contact aroused he buried the discomfort of the words running through his head--"she thinks I'm going to marry her.
Damn it ... damn it...."
He was startled when, glancing at her in the midst of his daring excursion under the table, he noticed her smiling coolly and primly at Aubrey who was talking.
"Will you have some of this?" Mr. Ramsey's voice protruded through the silence. Several eyes turned toward him as if he were about to take up the burden of the talk. Mrs. Basine interrupted quickly.
"What was that book you told me about, Mr. Gilchrist, last month?" she asked. Aubrey looked up inquiringly. "I mean your father."
The elder Gilchrist blinked and seemed to peer into the depths of his memory.
"I don't remember," he said clearing his throat. They were the first words he had spoken since he had said, "Thank you ... thank you...." and sat down in a corner of the Basine library. His wife stared at him as if he were a phenomenon unexpectedly revealed to her gaze.
"It must have been," stammered Mr. Gilchrist, "Suetonius, I think. Or ... or the Chevalier de Boufflers...."