Whenever she could persuade herself to work she still had the faculty of becoming engrossed in what she was doing, and the hours hurried by as she struggled with the mystery of mass and values. At that moment, really, she believed she was on the eve of learning how to paint. “Perhaps Lewis is right,” she thought.
Just as the light was failing the maid appeared. There was a gentleman downstairs—young gentleman, yes; his name was Weston. Halo dropped her brushes and wiped her hands hurriedly. She had forgotten all about young Weston! But she was glad that, now it was too dark to paint, he was there to fill in the end of the day.
Would she find him the same? Or had he changed? Would she still catch the shadow of the laurel on his forehead? As she entered the library her first impression was that he was shorter—smaller, altogether—than she had remembered; but then she had lived in the interval with a man of dominating height. This youth—how young he still looked!—met her eyes on a level. He had broadened a little; his brown hair with the slight wave in it had grown darker, she thought. This was all she had time to note, for before she could even greet him he had exclaimed: “There must be more books here than at the Willows!” Ah, how that brought him back—that way of going straight to his object, dashing through all the customary preliminaries, yet so quietly, so simply, that it seemed the natural thing to do.
She looked at him with a faint smile. “You care for books as much as ever?”
Instead of answering he said: “Can I borrow some of these, do you think? I’ve got to buckle down to work at once. I see they’re classed by subjects; ah, here’s philosophy. …” Half annoyed, half amused at being treated like a librarian (an assistant librarian, she ironically corrected herself) she asked him if philosophy were what he was studying, and he said, yes, chiefly; that and Italian—so as to be able to read Dante.
“Dante?” she exclaimed. “We lived in Italy a good deal when I was a child. Perhaps I could help you with Dante.”
His face lit up. “Oh, could you? Say, could I come round evenings, three or four times a week, and read him with you after supper?”
A little taken aback she said she was not sure she could be free as often as that in the evening. They went out a good deal, she and her husband, she explained—to the theatre, to concerts … in a big place like New York there were always so many things to do in the evening. She forbore to mention that frequent dining-out was among them. Couldn’t he, she suggested, come in the early afternoon instead—she was often free till four. But he shook his head, obviously disappointed. “No, I couldn’t do that. I’ve got to stick to my own writing in the daytime.”
Ah, to be sure—his own writing! That was what he’d come about, she supposed, to see her husband? Her husband unluckily was away on business. He had expected Mr. Weston at the office the morning of the day before; she believed Mr. Weston had fixed his own hour for coming. And her husband had waited all the morning, and he hadn’t turned up. Her tongue stumbled over the “Mr. Weston”; it sounded stiff and affected; she remembered having called him “Vance” as a matter of course the first time she had seen him, at the Willows. But something made her feel that she was no longer in his confidence, or perhaps it was that he had simply forgotten what friends they had been. … The idea disconcerted her, and made her a little shy. It was as if their parts in the conversation had been reversed. “My husband expected you, but you never came,” she repeated, gently reproachful.
No, he said, he hadn’t come. He’d meant to, the day before, as soon as his train got to New York; but he hadn’t been able to. He stated the fact simply, without embarrassment or regret, and left it at that. Halo felt a slight flatness, an uncertainty as to how to proceed.
“And this morning—?”
“This morning I couldn’t either. I called round at the office half an hour ago, but it was closed, and the janitor told me to come here instead.”
“Yes, I left word—as my husband’s away.”
She suddenly perceived that they were still in the middle of the room, exchanging their explanations on the particular figure of the rug where he had been standing when she entered. She signed to him to take one of the armchairs by the fireplace, and herself sank into the other. Twilight had gathered in the corners of the bookwalled room, and the fire flowed more deeply for the shadows. Her visitor leaned to it. “I never saw such a beautiful fire—why, that’s real wood!” he exclaimed, and fell on his knees on the hearth, as if to verify the strange discovery.
“Of course. We never burn anything else.”
This seemed to surprise him, and he lifted his firelit face to hers. “Because it’s so much more beautiful?”
“Because it’s alive.”
His gaze returned to the hearth. “That’s so; it’s alive. …” He stretched his hands to the flame, and as she watched him she remembered, a
