The Proper Thing
The street was empty, the night starless, the hour homicidal and serene. As the taxi flew up, Wentworth had the impression of lights extinguished, an impression which he at once revised. It was, he told himself, lights in the house adjoining that he had seen. He got out, paid the fare, ascended the steps. The cab turned. Across the street a cat cried. Beyond, afar and above, a train shone, rattled, vanished.
Wentworth opened the door. The hall was black. Feeling his way, he entered the drawing room. That too was black. At the entrance was the button of the switch. He groped for it, then stopped. Though he could see nothing and had heard nothing, he had become conscious that he was not alone. There was someone else in the room. At the sudden apperception, his nerves, dominating his flesh, made it creep.
It was one of those moments in which the past surges. In a sort of retrograde vision a panorama unfolded in which, centrally, was Julianne, his wife, who, unaware of his return, was then asleep in her room above.
That morning, with the purchase of a villa by the sea in view, he had gone from New York to Boston where ordinarily the details of it would have detained him at least until the morrow. But the matter had been more speedily concluded than he had expected, and he had taken the night train back. The villa was on the North Shore, and shortly with Julianne he intended to return there for the summer, when guests would come, among others Gordon, a relative of Julianne, one whom she had latterly unearthed. Long before Wentworth had met him, as for that matter he met everybody who was worth it, but it was only recently, since the exhumation, that he had got to know and to like the man.
Now, as he stood in the darkness it was not Gordon that the vision presented but Julianne, and it was then that he felt his flesh creep. Whoever was in this room might already—
At that inhuman possibility he touched the button. With a regret that was to be eternal he wished he had not, wished rather as many do when it is too late, that he had done otherwise, that he had vacated the room, gone upstairs, given them time, himself too, only the few minutes in which any situation may be saved.
In the light which the button brought, he lost that chance. Beyond, behind a center table, looking tolerably strained and, as he afterward thought, equally stupid, there they stood.
In the unawaitedness of it, with a subconscious movement, he turned the light off. Then immediately he turned it on again. But now Gordon was firing away. “We saw you coming and—” It must have been a bit difficult but, with an attempt at a grin that twisted his face, he carried it off. “Rather a joke on you, eh?”
For a second Wentworth looked at the ceiling. It was charming. On it cupids sprawled. He did not see them. What he did see was that which in every spiritual crisis we all see—that he stood absolutely alone. He looked at the man and nodded.
“Yes, you have a rare sense of humor.”
From Gordon he turned to Julianne. She differed from the ordinary. On seeing her you had the impression of one of those mother-of-pearl sultanas that peer from the illuminated text of Persian script. Her voice was luscious. Wentworth loved it. He loved her beauty, her grace, the contour of her mouth that glowed with ardent life, her eyes that were light as blue water and yet large and profound. But most, it had been her heart that he had loved, that enigmatic heart of hers that had also its depths, depths hitherto unsounded. It was covered now, as she was, with what is ridiculously known as a saut-de-lit.
From the woman he turned again to the man. Gordon’s white neckcloth might have been better tied. Under his overcoat it showed loosely.
Already Wentworth had reconstructed it all; Gordon who had been about to go, Julianne who had accompanied him down, then the taxi, the alarm, the lights switched off, the wait, the suspense! Well, they had had enough of it, so too had he.
“Yes,” he repeated and mercifully dropped it there.
As he spoke he removed his hat. About the ears his hair was gray. He was nearly forty. Gordon was younger, more the woman’s man perhaps, but less fine than Wentworth, who had that air of extreme distinction which certain New Yorkers occasionally attain.
In removing his hat he approached the table behind which they stood and looked at Julianne again.
“That is a very pretty thing you have on,” he told her. “But a trifle thin perhaps. This is one of our nice, warm April nights when everybody catches cold. Better get something heavier, don’t you think?”
Beneath the flimsy frippery, that enigmatic heart of hers had been beating, beating, beating. She did not know what might happen. In circumstances not similar perhaps but cognate a woman seldom does know. Though usually a beautiful woman becomes aware that in her existence there is always something of the fairy tale. Now, in the rain of his calm, colorless words there was that reassurance which, au fond, she had expected. Her sultana air, momentarily disturbed, but momentarily only, returned. Her lips glowed, her eyes shone, she smiled, and lusciously she spoke:
“I will, dear.”
With those unique syllables which in a woman’s mouth are so fluid, she undulated, moved to the door, looked back.
