XIX
The shortcake was a triumph when she set it, steaming hot and oozing amber juice, on the table between them. “You certainly are a wonder, Helen!” Paul said, struck by its crumbling perfection. “Here we haven’t been in the house an hour, and with a simple twist of the wrist you give a fellow a dinner like this! Lucky we aren’t living a couple of centuries ago. You’d been burned for a witch.” His eyes, resting on her, were filled with warm light.
Already he seemed to irradiate a glow of contentment; the hint of sternness in his face had melted in a joy that was almost boyish, and all day there had been a touch of possessive pride in his contemplation of her. It intoxicated her; she felt the exhilaration of victory in her submission to it, and a sense of her power over him gave sparkle to her delight in his nearness.
Her bubbling spirits had been irrepressible; she had flashed into whimsicalities, laughed at him, teased him, melted into sudden tendernesses. Together they had played with lighthearted absurdities, chattering nonsense while they explored a rocky canyon in Alumn Rock Park, a canyon peopled only with bright-eyed furtive creatures of the forest whisking through tangled underbrush and over fallen logs. They had looked at each other with dancing eyes, smothering bursts of mirth like children hiding some riotous joke, when they came down into the holiday crowd around the hotdog counters at the park gate, and side by side with Portuguese and Italians, they had bought ice-cream cones from a hurdy-gurdy and listened to the band.
Now she looked at him across her own dinner-table, and felt that the last touch of perfection had been given a happy day. She laughed delightedly.
“It’s a funny thing when you think of it,” he went on, pouring cream over the fruity slices. “Here you’re working all week in an office—just about as good a little business woman as they make ’em, I guess—and then on top of it you come home and cook like mother never did. It beats me.”
“Well—you see I like to cook,” she said. “It’s recreation. Lots of successful business men are pretty good golf players. Besides I’m not a business woman any more. I’ve left the office. Shall I pour your coffee now?”
“Left the office!” he exclaimed. “What for? When?”
“The other day. I don’t know why. I felt—oh, I don’t know. I just quit. Why, Paul!” She was startled by his expression.
“Well—it would rather surprise anybody,” he said. “A sudden change like this. You didn’t give me any idea—” There was a shade of reproach in his tone, which shifted quickly to pugnacity. “That partner of yours—what’s-his-name? He hasn’t been putting anything over on you?”
“Why, no, of course not! I just made up my mind to stop selling land. I’m tired of it. Besides, it looks as though there’d be a slump in the business.”
“Well, you can’t tell. However, you may be right,” he conceded. He smiled ruefully. “It’s going to be pretty hard on me, though—your quitting. It’s a long way to Masonville.”
“To Masonville?” she repeated in surprise.
“Aren’t you going there?”
“Why on earth should I go to Masonville?” She caught at the words, not quite quickly enough to stop them. “Oh, I know—my mother. Of course. But, to tell the truth, Paul, I’m fond of her and all that, you know I’ve been up to see her a good many times—but after all we’ve been apart a long time, and my life’s been so different. She doesn’t exactly know what to make of me. I honestly don’t think either of us would be very happy if I were to go back there now. She has Mabel, you know, and the baby. It isn’t as though—” Floundering in her explanations, she broke through them, with a smile, to frankness. “As a matter of fact, I never even thought of going back there.”
There was bewilderment in his eyes, but he repressed a question.
“Just as you like, of course. Naturally I supposed—but I’m glad you aren’t going. Two lumps, please.”
“As though I wouldn’t remember!” she laughed. But as she dropped the sugar into his cup and tilted the percolator, a memory flashed across her mind. She saw him sitting at a little table in a dairy lunchroom, struggling to hide his embarrassment, carefully dipping two spoonsful of sugar from the chipped white bowl, and the memory brought with it many others.
The iridescent mood of the afternoon was gone, and reaching for the deeper and more firm basis of emotion between them, she braced herself to speak of another thing she had not told him.
Constraint had fallen upon them; they were separated by their diverging thoughts, and uneasily, with effort, they broke the silence with disconnected scraps of talk. Time was going by; already twilight crept into the room, and looking at his watch, Paul spoke of his train. Helen led the way to the porch, where the shade of climbing rose-vines softened the last clear gray light of the day. There was sadness in this wan reflection of the departed sunlight; the air was still, and the creaking of the wicker chair, when Helen settled into it, the sharp crackle of Paul’s match as he lighted his after-dinner cigar, seemed irreverently loud. With a sudden keen need to be nearer him, Helen drew a deep breath, preparing to speak and to clear away forever the last barrier between them.
But his words met hers before they were uttered.
“What are you going to do, then, Helen?—If you aren’t going home?” he added, before her uncomprehension.
“Oh, that! Why—I haven’t thought exactly. I’d like to stay at home, stay here in my own house. There’s so much to do in a house,” she said, vaguely. “I’ve never had time to do it before.”
His voice was indulgent.
“That’ll be fine! It’s just what you ought to have a chance to do. But, see
