He took her hand.
"So you left him," he smiled. They sat in silence. He would wait for her to take the lead. She began talking as the park grew darker.
"I didn't intend coming," she said, "because I ... I know what you want."
Her voice quivered and her fingers tightened over his hand.
"But I came to tell you ... I can't. I'm not being foolish or anything.
But--it isn't worth it."
He looked at her and wondered. The invitation was clear. He must begin pleading now and making love. He hesitated because she had started crying. Tears were on her cheeks.
She was remembering Basine.
"Don't," he whispered. "I wouldn't ask you to do anything like that.
We've talked, of course. But that was just talk. Ruth, I love you."
"But love doesn't mean anything to you," she answered.
And the answer to that was marriage. He hesitated. Tears always stirred him. Now it was dark. He placed an arm around her. The stiffening of her body decided him.
"We'll get married," he said.
The assurance did not delight her. Marriage was something foreign. But she stood up when he asked her to and followed him. She walked along thinking of herself as if there were two Ruths. One was walking with a man--where? The other was thinking about things. But there was little to think about. If it had been Basine instead of this other, it would have been nicer. Basine was someone she knew. Paul was a stranger. But Basine had played with her. He had said nothing when she went away. Merely looked at her and nodded. His success had gone to his head. He didn't want her, even to flirt with anymore. He was too busy....
She put her arms around the stranger and wept.
It was minor tragedy. There was nothing to weep about. Nobody cared what happened to her. If there had been somebody who cared she would never have met him.
Schroder watched her and sighed.
"If you don't love me," he said.
"It's not that," she answered. She was forgetting about her tears. Her close presence to him was slowly preoccupying her. He loved her. And they would be married. It didn't matter much. But the idea made it a little easier. She kissed him, timidly at first. And then with passion.
Schroder grimaced inwardly. It was dark and she couldn't see his eyes.
They were worried. He had been in love for a few minutes in the park. He would have liked to remain in love. He sat before the window thinking, Why did women insist on climaxes. Their arguments made it necessary for men to plead. The culmination was a sort of logical gesture.
He walked toward her. He would take her hand and make love. He felt sad and making love out of sadness was always an interesting diversion.
"Ruth," he whispered, "do you love me?"
She answered by embracing him.
"Always the same," he murmured to himself, "it's no use."
22
The children were asleep and Henrietta was reading. Basine in his slippers and smoking-jacket sat unoccupied. Their new house worried him.
He had not yet familiarized himself with its shadows.
He smiled as he watched his wife. He was going to run for Senator but that made no difference to her. He was a husband to her, and everything else was incidental. He thought of Ruth. Her name no longer depressed him. During the first three or four months that followed her absence he had felt as if his career had ended. There was nobody to succeed for any more. Then through Doris he had learned that she was to marry Schroder.
The information had cured him. He had been despising himself for letting her go. Now he was able to pretend that he had been forced by her virtue to relinquish her. It would have been a dastardly thing to do--ruin her and prevent her from marrying and living a decent life. Her marrying vindicated his own virtue. He was able to think that he had done the right thing. Not only that, but he had done the only thing possible. She had fled from him because he was a married man. Then, too, she probably didn't love Schroder. Not as she had loved him. She was marrying him broken-heartedly. He sometimes played with this notion. It pleased him.
His sadness at the thought of her in another man's arms was mitigated by the two-fold thought that her heart was broken and that she was in reality embracing marriage and not a man.
He no longer desired her. He was too busy for one thing. Still, things were different. She had been an inspiration. Now he went on with his plans and his climb without feeling the excitement that had filled him during their year together. There was no one in front of whom to pose.
This made posing a rather thankless business. And he became practical in his thoughts, less dramatic in his lies.
Henrietta had put aside her paper and was looking at him.
"Are you tired?" she asked.
He shook his head. He began to think about her. What did she do all day?
Since Ruth had left, his desire to leave his wife had vanished. He paused, confused. She was weeping.
"What's the matter?" he asked. She lowered her head.
"Nothing," she said.
A vivid memory hurt him. He remembered kissing her for a first time in his mother's kitchen years ago. It seemed now that she had been alive and beautiful that evening. That was gone.
"Has anything happened," he asked softly.
Her head shook. He came to her side and looked at her. He felt helpless.
What was there to make her cry?
"I don't know, George," she said as if answering his silent question.
"Please forgive me. I just started to cry for nothing."
"Worried about something?" he pressed. He felt guilty. She was crying because of the things he had done. But what had he done? Nothing wrong.
He had put the wrong things out of his life. And for her sake. Why should she weep about that, then? He was the one to weep. And she had her children. Her father was alive. He remained silent, recounting what he tried to consider anti-weeping reasons.
"Nothing, George," she answered. "I'm ... I'm just getting old."
He frowned and turned away.
Later when they lay in bed he took her in his arms. She had apparently forgotten about her tears and their curious explanation. But he began to talk to her.
"Old," he whispered, "you're not getting old. Don't be silly. At least no more than I am. I'm older than you."
He held her close to him and his mind embraced a memory. This was not his wife he held, but someone else. A vivacious, happy girl ten years ago. No, more than that. Almost fourteen years ago. He lay remembering another Henrietta--a charming, delightful child. He had never been in love with her. This he knew. But the knowledge had slowly died. When he embraced her at night a dream obscured his memory. The dream was that he had once loved her, that she had once been beautiful, that his heart had once sung with desire for her.
He played with this dream. It was a make-believe that saddened him. Yet it made the moment more tolerable. Sometimes it even brought a curious happiness. His dream would pretend that the scrawny figure he was holding had once filled him with ecstasies. His dream would whisper to him that he had once idolized her and that once ... once. He would lie editing his sterile memories of her into glowing once-upon-a-times. And when his kisses sought her cold lips it would be to this dream-Henrietta they gave themselves, a Henrietta who had never been. It was sad to pretend in this way that his great love had died and that his beautiful one had faded. But it was not as sad as to remember when he kissed her that there had never been anything.