This boy’s hands were different: sturdier, less diaphanous, with blunter fingertips, though the fingers were long and flexible. A worker’s hand, she thought; a maker’s hand. She wondered what he would make.
The thought reminded her once more of the object of his visit—or at least of hers in sending for him, and she said: “But you’ve brought a lot of things with you, haven’t you? I hope so. I want so much to see them.”
“Manuscripts?” He shook his head. “No, not much. But I’m going to write a lot of new stuff here.” He got to his feet and stood leaning against the mantelshelf, looking down at her with eyes which, mortifyingly enough, seemed to include her as merely part of the furniture. “What is he really seeing at this moment?” she wondered. Aloud she said: “But my husband wrote you were to be sure to bring everything you’d written. He’s so much interested … we both think ‘One Day’ so wonderful. I understood he’d asked you to bring all the stories and articles The Hour had rejected. You see it’s in new hands—my husband’s—and he means to pursue a much broader policy. …” (Why was she talking like a magazine prospectus? she asked herself.)
Vance Weston shook his head. “I didn’t bring any of those old things; they’re no good. The Hour was dead right to refuse them.”
“Oh—” she exclaimed, surprised and interested. It was a new sound in that room—the voice of honest self-disparagement! She looked at him with a rising eagerness, noting again the breadth of his forehead, and the bold upward cut of the nostrils, and the strong planting of his thickish nose between the gray eyes, set so deeply and widely apart.
“Authors are not always the best judges. Perhaps what you think no good might be just what a critic would admire.”
“No, that man Frenside’s a critic, isn’t he? Anyhow, the objections he made were right every time; I know they were.” He spoke firmly, but without undue humility. “My head’s always full of subjects, of course. But he said I hadn’t accumulated enough life-stuff to build ’em with; and I know that’s right. And I know I can do a lot better now. That’s why I want to get to work at once.”
She felt disappointed, foreseeing her husband’s disappointment. It would have given him such acute satisfaction to reverse one of Frenside’s judgments! “You think by this time you’ve accumulated the life-stuff?” Her tone was faintly ironical.
“Well,” he said with simplicity, “I guess time keeps on doing that—the months and years. They ought to. I’m three years older, and things have happened to me. I can see further into my subjects now.”
She noticed the lighting up of his eyes when he began to speak of his writing, and felt herself more remote from him than ever. She longed to know if he remembered nothing of their talks and she rejoined more gently: “I suppose it seems a long time to you since you read your poems to me on Thundertop.”
“Yes, it does,” he said. “But you taught me a lot that day that I haven’t forgotten—and at the Willows too.” He paused, as if groping for the right phrase. “I guess you were the first to show me what there was in books.”
The joyous colour rushed to her face. At last he had recovered the voice of the other Vance! “Ah, I was young then too,” she said with a wistful laugh.
“Young? I guess you’re young still.” Relapsing into friendly bluntness, he added: “I’m only twenty-two.”
“And I’m old enough to be your mother!”
“Say—I guess you’re about twenty-five, aren’t you?”
She shook her head with a mournful grimace. “You must add one whole year to that. And such heaps and heaps of useless experience! I don’t even know how to turn it into stories. But tell me—haven’t you at least brought one with you today?”
“A story? No, I haven’t brought anything.”
She sat silent, inconceivably disappointed. “Shall I make a confession? I hoped you’d want me to see something of yours … after all our talks. …”
“Well, I do; but I want to be sure it’s good enough.” He moved away from the fire and held out his hand. “I want to go right home now and write something. This is generally my best hour.”
She put her hand reluctantly in his. “I suppose I mustn’t keep you then. But you’ll come back? Come whenever you feel that I might help.”
“Surely,” he said with his rare smile; she was not sure she had ever seen him smile before. It made him look more boyish than ever. “I suppose I can see your husband on Monday?” he added.
Yes, she thought he could; but she repeated severely that he must be sure to telephone and make an appointment. “Editors are busy people, you know, Vance,” she added rather maternally, slipping back into her old way of addressing him. “If you make another appointment you must be sure to keep it—be on the stroke, I mean. My husband was rather surprised at your not coming yesterday, at your not even sending word. His time is—precious.”
He met this with a youthful seriousness. “Yes, I presume he would be annoyed; but he won’t be when I’ve explained. I couldn’t help it, you see; I had to see the girl I’m going to marry before I did anything else.”
Halo drew back a step and looked at him with startled eyes. She felt as if something she had been resting on had given way under her. “You’re going to marry?”
“Yes,” he said, with illuminated eyes. “That’s the reason I’ve got to get to work as quick as I can. I guess your husband’ll understand that. And I’ll be sure to be at the office whatever time he wants me on Monday.”
When he had gone Héloïse Tarrant sat down alone and looked into the fire.
