Mrs. Denver, the Sandburgs and Ashley were the only people who saw her. It did seem to Mrs. Denver that the girl’s ready, merry manner was a little dimmed; if her own happy, sunny vocabulary had known the term she would have daubed her cynical. The quasi-intellectual atmosphere at the Sandburgs suited her to perfection; the faint bitterness which so constantly marred her speech was taken for sophistication, her frequent silences for profoundness; in a small way, aided by her extraordinary good looks and the slight mystery which always hung about her, she became quite a personage in their entourage; the Sandburgs considered her a splendid find and plumed themselves on having “brought her out.”
The long golden summer, so beautiful with its promise of happiness, so sickening with its actuality of pain ripened into early, exquisite September. Virginia was home again; slightly more golden, very, very faintly plumper, like a ripening fruit perfected; brimming with happiness, excitement and the most complete content, Angela thought, that she had ever seen in her life.
Jinny sent for the older girl and the two sat on a Sunday morning, away from Sara Penton and the other too insistent friends, over on Riverside Drive looking out at the river winding purple and alluring in the soft autumn haze.
“Weren’t you surprised?” asked Jinny. Laconically, Angela admitted to no slight amazement. She still loved her sister but more humbly, less achingly than before. Their lives, she thought now would never, could never touch and she was quite reconciled. Moreover, in some of Virginia’s remarks there was the hint of the acceptance of such a condition. Something had brought an irrevocable separation. They would always view each other from the two sides of an abyss, narrow but deep, deep.
The younger girl prattled on. “I don’t know whether Sara told you his name—Anthony Cross? Isn’t it a dear name?”
“Yes, it’s a nice name, a beautiful name,” said Angela heartily; when she had learned it was of no consequence. She added without enthusiasm that she knew him already; he had been a member of her class at Cooper Union.
“You don’t talk as though you were very much taken with him,” said Jinny, making a face. “But never mind, he suits me, no matter whom he doesn’t suit.” There was that in her countenance which made Angela realize and marvel again at the resoluteness of that firm young mind. No curse of parents could have kept Virginia from Anthony’s arms. As long as Anthony loved her, was satisfied to have her love, no one could come between them. Only if he should fail her would she shrivel up and die.
On the heels of this thought Virginia made an astounding remark: “You know it’s just perfect that I met Anthony; he’s really been a rock in a weary land. Next to Matthew Henson he will, I’m sure, make me happier than any man in the world.” Dreamily she added an afterthought: “And I’ll make him happy too, but, oh, Angela, Angela, I always wanted to marry Matthew!”
The irony of that sent Angela home. Virginia wanting Matthew and marrying Anthony; Anthony wanting Angela and marrying Virginia. Herself wanting Anthony and marrying, wanting, no other; unable to think of, even to dream of another lover. The irony of it was so palpable, so ridiculously palpable that it put her in a better mood; life was bitter but it was amusingly bitter; if she could laugh at it she might be able to outwit it yet. The thought brought Anthony to mind: “If I could only get a laugh on life, Angèle!”
Sobered, she walked from the bus stop to Jayne Street. Halfway up the narrow, tortuous stair case she caught sight of a man climbing, climbing. He stopped outside her door. “Anthony?” she said to herself while her heart twisted with pain. “If it is Anthony—” she breathed, and stopped. But something within her, vital, cruel, persistent, completed her thought. “If it is Anthony—after what Virginia said this morning—if he knew that he was not the first, that even as there had been one other there might still be others; that Virginia in her bright, hard, shallow youthfulness would not die any more than she had died over Matthew—would console herself for the loss of Anthony even as she had consoled herself for the loss of Matthew!” But no, what Jinny had told her was in confidence, a confidence from sister to sister. She would never break faith with Jinny again; nor with herself.
“But Anthony,” she said to herself in the few remaining seconds left on the staircase, “you were my first love and I think I was yours.”
However, the man at the door was not Anthony; on the contrary he was, she thought, a complete stranger. But as he turned at her footsteps, she found herself looking into the blue eyes of Roger. Completely astounded, she greeted him, “You don’t mean it’s you, Roger?”
“Yes,” he said humbly, shamefacedly, “aren’t you going to let me in, Angèle?”
“Oh yes, of course, of course”; she found herself hoping that he would not stay long. She wanted to think and she would like to paint; that idea must have been
