“It sounds very complicated, like some subtle game.”
A deep febrile light came into Martha’s eyes. “It is a game, and the hardest game in the world for a woman, but the most fascinating; the hardest in which to strike a happy medium. You see, you have to be careful not to withhold too much and yet to give very little. If we don’t give enough we lose them. If we give too much we lose ourselves. Oh, Angèle, God doesn’t like women.”
“But,” said Angela thinking of her own mother, “there are some women who give all and men like them the better for it.”
“Oh, yes, that’s true. Those are the blessed among women. They ought to get down on their knees every day and thank God for permitting them to be their normal selves and not having to play a game.” For a moment her still, proud face broke into deeps of pain. “Oh, Angèle, think of loving and never, never being able to show it until you’re asked for it; think of living a game every hour of your life!” Her face quivered back to its normal immobility.
Angela walked home through the purple twilight musing no longer on her own case but on this unexpected revelation. “Well,” she said, “I certainly shouldn’t like to love like that.” She thought of Anthony: “A woman could be her true self with him.” But she had given him up.
If the thing to do were to play a game she would play one. Indeed she rather enjoyed the prospect. She was playing a game now, a game against public tradition on the one hand and family instinct on the other; the stakes were happiness and excitement, and almost anyone looking at the tricks which she had already taken would prophesy that she would be the winner. She decided to follow all the rules as laid down by Martha Burden and to add any workable ideas of her own. When Roger called again she was still unable to see him, but her voice was a shade less curt over the telephone; she did not cut him off so abruptly. “I must not withhold too much,” she reminded herself. He was quick to note the subtle change in intonation. “But you’re going to let me come to see you soon, Angèle,” he pleaded. “You wouldn’t hold out this way against me forever. Say when I may come.”
“Oh, one of these days; I must go now, Roger. Goodbye.”
After the third call she let him come to spend Friday evening. She heard the blue car rumbling in the street and a few minutes later he came literally staggering into the living-room so laden was he with packages. Flowers, heaps of spring posies had come earlier in the day, lilacs, jonquils, narcissi. Now this evening there were books and candy, handkerchiefs—“they were so dainty and they looked just like you,” he said fearfully, for she had never taken an article of dress from him—two pictures, a palette and some fine brushes and last a hamper of all sorts of delicacies. “I thought if you didn’t mind we’d have supper here; it would be fun with just us two.”
How much he pleased her he could not divine; it was the first time he had ever given a hint of any desire for sheer domesticity. Anthony had sought nothing better than to sit and smoke and watch her flitting about in her absurd red or violet apron. Matthew Henson had been speechless with ecstasy when on a winter night she had allowed him to come into the kitchen while she prepared for him a cup of cocoa. But Roger’s palate had been so flattered by the concoctions of chefs famous in London, Paris and New York that he had set no store by her simple cooking. Indeed his inevitable comment had been: “Here, what do you want to get yourself all tired out for? Let’s go to a restaurant. It’s heaps less bother.”
But tonight he, too, watched her with humble, delighted eyes. She realized that he was conscious of her every movement; once he tried to embrace her, but she whirled out of his reach without reproach but with decision. He subsided, too thankful to be once more in her presence to take any risks. And when he left he had kissed her hand.
She began going about with him again, but with condescension, with kindness. And with the new vision gained from her talk with Martha she could see his passion mounting. “Make him want you,”—that was the second rule. It was clear that he did, no man could be as persevering as this otherwise. Still he did not speak. They were to meet that afternoon in front of the school to go “anywhere you want, dear, I’m yours to command.” It was the first time that he had called for her at the building, and she came out a little early, for she did not want any of the three, Martha, Paulette, nor Anthony, to see whom she was meeting. It would be better to walk to the corner, she thought, they’d be just that much less likely to recognize him. She heard footsteps hurrying behind her, heard her name and turned to see Miss Powell, pleased and excited. She laid her hand on Angela’s arm but the latter shook her off. Roger must not see her on familiar terms like this with a coloured girl for she felt that the afternoon portended something and she wanted no side issues. The coloured girl gave her a penetrating glance; then her habitual reserve settled down blotting out the eagerness, leaving her face blurred and heavy. “I beg your pardon, Miss Mory, I’m sure,” she murmured and stepped out into the tempestuous traffic of Fourth Avenue. Angela was sorry; she would make it
