“Well, I ran across you and that Fielding fellow that night at the Van Meier lecture. And you were so happy and radiant, and Fielding so possessive—damn him!—damn him!—he—you didn’t let him hurt you Angèle?”
As though anything that had ever happened in her life could hurt her like this! She had never known what pain was before. White-lipped, she shook her head. “No, he didn’t hurt me.”
“Well, I went to see her the next day. She came into the room like a shadow—I realized she was getting thin. She was kind and sweet and far-off; impalpable, tenuous and yet there. I could see she was dying for me. And all of a sudden it came to me how wonderful it would be to have someone care like that. I went to her; I took her in my arms and I said: ‘Child, child, I’m not bringing you a whole heart but could you love me?’ You see I couldn’t let her go after that.”
“No,” Angela’s voice was dull, lifeless. “You couldn’t. She’d die.”
“Yes, that’s it; that’s just it. And I know you won’t die, Angel.”
“No, you’re quite right. I won’t die.”
An icy hand was on her heart. At his first words: “She came walking into my room—” an icy echo stirred a memory deep, deep within her inner consciousness. She heard Jinny saying: “I went walking into his room—”
Something stricken, mortally stricken in her face fixed his attention. “Don’t look like that, my girl, my dear Angel. … There are three of us in this terrible plight—if I had only known. … I don’t deserve the love of either of you but if one of you two must suffer it might as well be she as you. Come, we’ll go away; even unhappiness, even remorse will mean something to us as long as we’re together.”
She shook her head. “No, that’s impossible—if it were someone else, I don’t know, perhaps—I’m so sick of unhappiness—maybe I’d take a chance. But in her case it’s impossible.”
He looked at her curiously. “What do you mean ‘in her case’?”
“Isn’t her name Virginia Murray?”
“Yes, yes! How did you guess it? Do you know her?”
“She’s my sister. Angèle Mory—Angela Murray, don’t you see. It’s the same name. And it’s all my fault. I pushed her, sent her deliberately into your arms.”
He could only stare.
“I’m the unkind sister who didn’t want her. Oh, can’t you understand? That night she came walking into your room by mistake it was because I had gone to the station to meet her and Roger Fielding came along. I didn’t want him to know that I was coloured and I—I didn’t acknowledge her, I cut her.”
“Oh,” he said surprised and inadequate. “I don’t see how you could have done that to a little girl like Virginia. Did she know New York?”
“No.” She drooped visibly. Even the loss of him was nothing compared to this rebuke. There seemed nothing further to be said.
Presently he put his arm about her. “Poor Angèle. As though you could foresee! It’s what life does to us, leads us into pitfalls apparently so shallow, so harmless and when we turn around there we are, caught, fettered—”
Her miserable eyes sought his. “I was sorry right away, Anthony. I tried my best to get in touch with her that very evening. But I couldn’t find her;—already you see, life was getting even with me, she had strayed into your room.”
He nodded. “Yes, I remember it all so plainly. I was getting ready to go out, was all prepared as a matter of fact. Indeed I moved that very night. But I loitered on and on, thinking of you.
“The worst of it is I’ll always be thinking of you. Oh Angèle, what does it matter, what does anything matter if we just have each other? This damned business of colour, is it going to ruin all chances of happiness? I’ve known trouble, pain, terrible devastating pain all my life. You’ve suffered too. Together perhaps we could find peace. We’d go to your sister and explain. She is kind and sweet; surely she’d understand.”
He put his arms about her and the two clung to each other, solemnly, desperately, like children.
“I’m sick of pain, too, Anthony, sick of longing and loneliness. You can’t imagine how I’ve suffered from loneliness.”
“Yes, yes I can. I guessed it. I used to watch you. I thought you were probably lonely inside, you were so different from Miss Lister and Mrs. Starr. Come away with me and we’ll share our loneliness together, somewhere where we’ll forget—”
“And Virginia? You said yourself she’d die—”
“She’s so young, she—she could get over it.” But his tone was doubtful, wavering.
She tore herself from him. “No, I took her sister away from her; I won’t take her lover. Kiss me goodbye, Anthony.”
They sat on the hard sofa. “To think we should find one another only to lose each other! To think that everything, every single thing was all right for us but that we were kept apart by the stupidity of fate. I’d almost rather we’d never learned the truth. Put your dear arms about me closer, Angel, Angel. I want the warmth, the sweetness of you to penetrate into my heart. I want to keep it there forever. Darling, how can I let you go?”
She clung to him weeping, weeping with the heartbroken abandonment of a child.
A bell shrilled four times.
He jumped up. “It’s Sanchez, he’s forgotten his key; thank God he did forget it. My darling, you must go. But wait for me. I’ll meet you—we’ll go to your house, we’ll find a way. We can’t part like this!” His breath was coming in short gasps; she could see little
