“Jimmy,” said Jane brokenly, “please stop.”
“Why?” said Jimmy eagerly.
“Because it’s no use,” said Jane. “I won’t deceive Stephen, or betray Agnes, or leave my children.”
“But you love me?” said Jimmy.
Jane’s troubled eyes fell before his ardent glance.
“You love me?” he repeated a little huskily. “Oh, Jane—my darling—say it!” His shaken accents tore at her heartstrings.
“Yes,” whispered Jane. “I—I love you.” Her eyes were on the cloud-shadows racing across the lawn. She could hardly believe that she had uttered the sentence that rang in her ears. It had fluttered from her lips before she was aware. The words themselves gave actuality to the statement. Once said they were true. They trembled in the silent garden. Winged words, that could not be recalled.
“Jane!” breathed Jimmy. And still he did not touch her. Staring straight before her at the cloud-shadows, Jane was suddenly conscious of a dreadful, devastating wish that he would.
“Jane—” said Jimmy falteringly. Suddenly he took her in his arms.
Jane felt herself lost in a maze of emotion.
“Jimmy,” said Jane, after a moment, “this is terrible—this is perfectly terrible. I—I can’t tell even you how I feel.” She slipped from his embrace.
“Even me?” smiled Jimmy. Until he repeated them, Jane had not realized the tender import of her words. He took her again in his arms.
“Jimmy—don’t!” said Jane faintly. “I’m sinking, Jimmy, I’m sinking into a pit that a moment before was unthinkable! Stop kissing me, Jimmy! For God’s sake, stop kissing me! I want to think!”
“I don’t want you to think,” said Jimmy. “I just want you to feel.”
“But I—I am thinking!” said Jane pitifully.
“Don’t do it!” said Jimmy.
But Jane steadfastly put away his arms.
“Jimmy,” she said desperately, “we must think. We must think of everyone. If I went away with you, we wouldn’t achieve happiness.”
“Of course we would,” said Jimmy. “We’ve only one life to live, Jane, and that life’s half over. Let’s make the most of it while it lasts.”
“But Stephen’s life,” said Jane, “and Agnes’s—”
“Don’t think of them,” said Jimmy. “Think only of us. Are our lives nothing?”
“I can’t think only of us,” said Jane.
“You could if you came away with me,” said Jimmy. “You will come, won’t you, Jane?”
“No, Jimmy,” said Jane very sadly.
“Then I’ll carry you off, darling,” said Jimmy, “to some chimerical place. We’ll jump over a broomstick together in the dark of the moon to the tinkle of a tambourine! Let’s sail for the South Sea Islands, Jane, just as we planned that first evening. Let’s go to Siam and Burma and on into India—”
“Oh, Jimmy,” sighed Jane, “you’re so ridiculous—and so adorable.”
There was only one answer to that.
“You’re adorable,” said Jimmy, as he kissed her. “And ridiculous!”
“Jimmy,” said Jane, “am I dreaming? I must be dreaming—though I never dreamed of you like this before.”
“Invincible innocent!” laughed Jimmy. “You’re going away with me! You’re going to leave this garden forever. You’ll never see that apple tree in bloom again—”
“Never that apple tree?” said Jane.
“But you’ll see other trees in bloom,” smiled Jimmy, “in other gardens.”
“But not that one?” said Jane. “Not that one with Jenny’s swing hanging from its branches and Steve’s tree-house nailed to its trunk and the bare place beneath it where the grass never grew after we took up Cicily’s first sandpile?”
“Don’t think, darling!” said Jimmy quickly.
They sat a long time in silence.
“Cold, darling?” whispered Jimmy, as Jane stirred in his arms.
“No—not cold,” murmured Jane.
“Thinking?” whispered Jimmy.
“No—not thinking,” murmured Jane. “Not thinking any more at all.”
“Coming?” smiled Jimmy.
“I—don’t know,” said Jane. “Don’t ask me that or I’ll begin thinking. Just hold me, Jimmy, hold me in your arms.”
VI
When Jane opened her eyes next morning, the cold light of the April dawn was breaking over the garden. She had come into the house with Jimmy some four hours before. They had turned out the lights in the living-room and crept silently up the stairs and exchanged one last kiss at the door of Jane’s bedroom. She had opened the door with elaborate precaution and moved quietly into her room. Precautions, however, were unnecessary. Stephen was sound asleep on the sleeping-porch. Jane had slipped out of her clothes and into her nightgown in the darkness and had stood, for a moment, in her bedroom window gazing out at the silvery garden. She had raised her bare arms in the moonlight, as if to fold to her heart a phantom lover. She had smiled at their milky whiteness. Then she had jumped into bed and covered herself up and waited, a little fearfully, for besieging thoughts. They had not come, however. Defeated by victorious feeling, perhaps they lay in ambush. Jane wondered and, while wondering and feeling, fell serenely asleep.
She was wakened at dawn by the chirping of birds in the oak trees on the terrace. She opened her eyes in her familiar blue bedroom. She did not remember, for a moment, what had happened in the garden. Then the thoughts pounced on her. They had been in ambush. Serried ranks of thoughts, battalions of thoughts, little valiant warrior thoughts that rose up singly from the ranks and stabbed her mind before she was aware of their coming. She recalled the events of the evening with horror and incredulity. It could not have happened. If it had, she must have been mad. She was Jane Carver—Mrs. Stephen Can-er—Stephen Carver’s wife and the mother of his three children. She
