 23 The next day was Darrow's last at Jeeve, and for seeing that the afternoon and evening would have to be given to the family, he had asked Anna to devote an early hour to the final consideration of their plans. He was to meet her in the brown sitting-room at ten, and they were to walk down to the river and talk over their future in the little pavilion abutting on the wall of the park. It was just a week since his arrival at Jeeve, and Anna wished, before he left, to return to the place where they had sat on their first afternoon together. Her sensitiveness to the appeal of inanimate things, to the colour and texture of whatever wove itself into the substance of her emotion, made her want to hear Darrow's voice and to feel his eyes on her in the spot where Bliss had first flowed into her heart. That Bliss, in the interval, had wound itself into every fold of her being, passing in the first days from a high, shy tenderness to the rush of a secret surrender it had gradually widened and deepened to flow on in redoubled beauty. She thought she now knew exactly how and why she loved Darrow, and she could see her whole sky reflected in the deep and tranquil current of her love. Early the next day in her sitting-room she was glancing through the letters which it was Effie's morning privilege to carry up to her. Effie meanwhile circled inquisitively about the room where there was always something new to engage her infant fancy, and Anna, looking up, saw her suddenly arrested before a photograph of Darrow which, the day before, had taken its place on the writing-table. Anna held out her arms with a faint blush. You do like him, don't you, dear? Oh, most awfully dearest Effie against her breast leaned back to assure her with a limpid look. And so do Granny and Owen. And I do think Sophie does too, she added, after a moment's earnest pondering. I hope so, Anna laughed. She checked the impulse to continue. Has she talked to you about him that you're so sure? She did not know what had made the questions spring to her lips, but she was glad she had closed them before pronouncing it. Nothing could have been more distasteful to her than to clear up such obscurities by turning on them the tiny flame of her daughter's observation. And what, after all, now that Owen's happiness was secured, did it matter if there were certain reserves in Darrow's approval of his marriage? A knock on the door made Anna glance at the clock. There's nurse to carry you off. It's Sophie's knock the little girl answered, jumping down to open the door, and Miss Finer, in fact, stood on the threshold. Come in, Anna said with a smile, instantly remarking how pale she looked. May Effie go out for a turn with nurse, the girl asked. I should like to speak to you a moment. Of course, this ought to be your holiday, as yesterday was Effie's. Run off, dear, she added, stooping to kiss the little girl. When the door had closed, she turned back to Sophie Viner with a look that sought her confidence. I'm so glad you came, my dear. We've got so many things to talk about, just you and I, together. The confused intercourse of the last days had, in fact, left little time for any speech with Sophie, but such as related to her marriage and the means of overcoming Madame Deschantele's opposition to it. Anna had exacted of Owen that no one, not even Sophie Viner, should be given a hint of her own projects, till all contingent questions had been disposed of. She had felt from the outset a secret reluctance to intrude her secure happiness on the doubts and fears of the young pair. From the sofa corner to which she had dropped back, she pointed to Darrow's chair. Come and sit by me, dear, I wanted to see you alone. There's so much to say that I hardly know where to begin. She leaned forward, her hands clasped on the arms of the sofa, her eyes bent smilingly on Sophie's. As she did so, she noticed that the girl's unusual pallor was partly due to the slight veil of powder on her face. The discovery was distinctly disagreeable. Anna had never before noticed on Sophie's part any recourse to cosmetics, and much as she wished to think herself exempt from old-fashioned prejudices, she suddenly became aware that she did not like her daughter's governess to have a powdered face. Then she reflected that the girl who sat opposite her was no longer Evie's governess but her own future daughter-in-law. And she wondered whether Miss Viner had chosen this odd way of celebrating her independence, and whether, as Mrs. Owen Leith, she would present to the world a bedisoned countenance. This idea was scarcely less distasteful than the other, and for a moment Anna continued to consider her without speaking. Then in a flash the truth came to her. Miss Viner had powdered her face because Miss Viner had been crying. Anna leaned forward impulsively. My dear child, what's the matter? She saw the girl's blood rush up under the white mask and hastened on. Please don't be afraid to tell me. I do so want you to feel that you can trust me as Owen does. And you know you mustn't mind if, just at first, Madame de Chantel occasionally relapses. She spoke eagerly, persuasively, almost on a note of pleading. She had in truth so many reasons for wanting Sophie to like her, her love for Owen, her solicitude for Evie, and her own sense of the girl's fine metal. She had always felt a romantic and almost humble admiration for those members of her sex who, from force of will or the constraint of circumstances, had plunged into the conflict from which fate had so persistently excluded her. There were even moments when she fancied herself vaguely to blame for her immunity, and felt that she ought somehow to have affronted the perils and hardships which refused to come to her. And now, as she sat looking at Sophie Viner, so small, so slight, so visibly defenseless and undone, she still felt, through all the superiority of her worldly advantages and her seeming maturity, the same odd sense of ignorance and inexperience. She could not have said what there was in the girl's manner and expression to give her this feeling, but she was reminded, as she looked at Sophie Viner, of the other girl she had known in her youth, the girls who seemed possessed of a secret she had missed. Yes, Sophie Viner had their look, almost the obscurely menacing look of Kitty Main. Anna, with an inward smile, brushed aside the image of this forgotten rival. But she had felt, deep down, a twinge of the old pain, and she was sorry that even for the flash of a thought Owens betrothed should have reminded her of so different a woman. She laid her hand on the girls. When his grandmother sees how happy Owen is, she'll be quite happy herself. If it's only that, don't be distressed. Just trust to Owen and the future. Sophie Viner, with an almost imperceptible recoil of her whole slight person, had drawn her hand from under the palm and closing it. That's what I wanted to talk to you about. The future. Of course, we've all so many plans to make and to fit into each other's. Please, let's begin with yours. The girl paused a moment, her hands clasped on the arms of her chair, her lids dropped under Anna's gaze. Then she said, I should like to make no plans at all just yet. No plans? No. I should like to go away. My friends the farlows would let me go to them. Her voice grew firmer and she lifted her eyes to add, I should like to leave today if you don't mind. Anna listened with a rising wonder. You want to leave Gieve at once? She gave the idea a moment's swift consideration. You prefer to be with your friends till your marriage? I understand that, but surely you needn't rush off to-day. There are so many details to discuss, and before long you know I shall be going away too. Yes, I know. The girl was evidently trying to steady her voice. But I should like to wait a few days, to have a little more time to myself. Anna continued to consider her kindly. It was evident that she did not care to say why she wished to leave Gieve so suddenly, but her disturbed face and shaken voice betrayed a more pressing motive than the natural desire to spend the weeks before her marriage under her old friend's roof. Since she had made no response to the allusion to Madame de Chantelle, Anna could but conjecture that she had had a passing disagreement with Owen, and if this were so, random interference might do more harm than good. My dear child, if you really want to go at once I shan't of course urge you to stay. I suppose you've spoken to Owen? No, not yet. Anna threw an astonished glance at her. You mean to say you haven't told him? I wanted to tell you first. I thought I ought to, on account of Effie. Her look cleared as she put forth this reason. Oh, Effie! Anna's smile brushed away this grouple. Owen has a right to ask that you should consider him before you think of his sister. Of course you shall do just as you wish, she went on, after another thoughtful interval. Oh, thank you, Sophie Viner murmured, and rose to her feet. Anna rose also, vaguely seeking for some word that should break down the girl's resistance. You'll tell Owen at once, she finally asked. Miss Viner, instead of replying, stood before her in manifest uncertainty, and as she did so there was a slight tap on the door, and Owen Leith walked into the room. Anna's first glance told her that his face was unclouded. He met her greeting with his happiest smile, and turned to lift Sophie's hand to his lips. The perception that he was utterly unconscious of any cause for Miss Viner's agitation came to his stepmother with a sharp thrill of surprise. Darrow's looking for you, he said to her. He asked me to remind you that you'd promised to go for a walk with him. Anna glanced at the clock. I'll go down presently. She waited and looked again at Sophie Viner, whose troubled eyes seemed to commit their message to her. You'd better tell Owen, my dear. Owen's look also turned on the girl. Tell me what? Why, what's happened? Anna summoned a laugh to ease the vague tension of the moment. Don't look so startled. Nothing except that Sophie proposes to desert us for a while for the farlows. Owen's brow cleared. I was afraid she'd run off before long. He glanced at Anna. Do please keep her here as long as you can. Sophie intervened. Mrs. Leith's already given me leave to go. Already, to go when? Today, said Sophie in a low tone, her eyes on Anna's. Today, why on earth should you go today? Owen dropped back a step or two, flushing and paling under his bewildered frown. His eyes seemed to search the girl more closely. Some things happened. He too looked at his stepmother. I suppose she must have told you what it is? Anna was struck by the suddenness and vehemence of his appeal. It was as though some smoldering apprehension had lain close under the surface of his security. She's told me nothing except that she wishes to be with her friends. It's quite natural that she should want to go to them. Owen visibly controlled himself. Of course, quite natural. He spoke to Sophie. But why didn't you tell me so? Why did you come first to my stepmother? Anna intervened with her calm smile. That seems to me quite natural, too. Sophie was considerate enough to tell me first because of Effie. He weighed it. Very well, then, that's quite natural, as you say. And, of course, she must do exactly as she pleases. He still kept his eyes on the girl. Tomorrow, he abruptly announced, I shall go up to Paris to see you. Oh, no, no, she protested. Owen turned back to Anna. Now do you say that nothing's happened? Under the influence of his agitation, Anna felt a vague tightening of the heart. She seemed to herself like someone in a dark room about whom unseen presences are groping. If it's anything that Sophie wishes to tell you, no doubt she'll do so. I'm going down now, and I'll leave you here to talk it over by yourselves. As she moved to the door, the girl caught up with her. But there's nothing to tell. Why should there be? I've explained that I simply want to be quiet. Her look seemed to detain Mrs. Leith. Owen broke in. Is that why I may and go up to-morrow? Not to-morrow. Then when may I? Later, in a little while, a few days. In how many days? Owen, his stepmother, interposed, but he seemed no longer aware of her. If you go away to-day, the day that our engagements made known, it's only fair he persisted that you should tell me when I am to see you. Sophie's eyes wavered between the two and dropped down wearily. It's you who are not fair when I've said I wanted to be quiet. But why should my coming disturb you? I'm not asking now to come to-morrow. I only ask you not to leave without telling me when I'm to see you. Owen, I don't understand you, his stepmother exclaimed. You don't understand my asking for some explanation, some assurance, when I'm left in this way without a word, without a sign? All I ask her to tell me is when she'll see me. Anna turned back to Sophie Viner, who stood straight and tremulous between the two. After all, my dear, he's not unreasonable. I'll write, I'll write, the girl repeated. What will you write, he pressed her vehemently. Owen, Anna exclaimed, you are unreasonable. He turned from Sophie to his stepmother. I only want her to say what she means, that she's going to write to break off our engagement. Isn't that what you're going away for? Anna felt the contagion of his excitement. She looked at Sophie, who stood motionless, her lips set, her whole face drawn to a silent fixity of resistance. You ought to speak, my dear, you ought to answer him. I only ask him to wait. Yes, Owen broke in, and you won't say how long. Both instinctively addressed themselves to Anna, who stood nearly as shaken as themselves, between the double shock of their struggle. She looked again from Sophie's inscrutable eyes to Owen's stormy features. Then she said, What can I do when there's clearly something between you that I don't know about? Oh, if it were between us, can't you see it's outside of us, outside of her, dragging at her, dragging her away from me? Owen wheeled round again upon his stepmother. Anna turned from him to the girl. Is it true that you want to break your engagement? If you do, you ought to tell him now. Owen burst into a laugh. She doesn't dare to. She's afraid I'll guess the reason. A faint sound escaped from Sophie's lips, but she kept them close on whatever answer she had ready. If she doesn't wish to marry you, why should she be afraid to have you know the reason? She's afraid to have you know it, not me. To have me know it. He laughed again, and Anna at his laugh felt a sudden rush of indignation. Owen, you must explain what you mean. He looked at her hard before answering. Then, ask Darrow, he said. Owen, Owen, Sophie Viner murmured. The Reave by Edith Wharton, chapter 24. Anna stood looking from one to the other. It had become apparent to her in a flash that Owen's retort, though it startled Sophie, did not take her by surprise. And the discovery shot its light along dark distances of fear. The immediate inference was that Owen had guessed the reason of Darrow's disapproval of his marriage. Or that, at least, he suspected Sophie Viner of knowing and dreading it. This confirmation of her own obscure doubt sent a tremor of alarm through Anna. For a moment, she felt like exclaiming, All this is really no business of mine, and I refuse to have you mix me up in it. But her secret fear held her fast. Sophie Viner was the first to speak. I should like to go now, she said in a low voice, taking a few steps toward the door. Her tone woke Anna to the sense of her own share in the situation. I quite agree with you, my dear, that it's useless to carry on this discussion. But since Mr Darrow's name has been brought into it, for reasons which I fail to guess, I want to tell you that you're both mistaken if you think he's not in sympathy with your marriage. If that's what Owen means to imply, the idea is a complete delusion. She spoke the words deliberately and incisively, as if hoping that the sound of the utterance would stifle the whisper in a bosom. Sophie's only answer was a wake murmur and a movement that brought her nearer to the door. But before she could reach it, Owen had placed himself in her way. I don't mean to imply what you think, he said, addressing a stepmother but keeping his eyes on the girl. I don't say Darrow doesn't like our marriage. I say it's Sophie who's hated it since Darrow's been here. He brought out a charge and a tone of forced composure. But his lips were wired and he grasped the doorknob to hide the tremor of his hand. Anna's anger searched up with her fears. You're absurd, Owen. I don't know why I listened to you. Why should Sophie dislike Mr Darrow and if she does, why should that have anything to do with her wishing to break her engagement? I don't say she dislikes him. I don't say she likes him. I don't know what it is they say to each other when they're shut up together alone. Shut up together alone? Anna stared. Owen seemed like a man in delirium. Such an exhibition was degrading to them all. But he pushed on without seeing her look. Yes, the first evening she came in the study. The next morning early in the park. Yesterday again in the spring house when you were at the lodge with the doctor. I don't know what they say to each other but they've taken every chance they could to say it and to say it when they thought that no one saw them. Anna longed to silence him but no words came to her. It was as though all her confused apprehensions had suddenly taken definite shape. There was something. Yes, there was something. There was reticences and equations had been more than a figment of her doubts. The next instant brought a recoil of pride. She turned indignantly on her stepson. I don't half understand what you've been saying but what you seem to hint is so preposterous and so insulting both to Sophie and to me that I see no reason why we should listen to you any longer. Though her tone steadied Owen she perceived at once that it would not deflect him from his purpose. He spoke less vehemently but with all the more precision. How can it be preposterous since it's true or insulting since I don't know any more than you the meaning of what I've been seeing. If you'll be patient with me I'll try to put it quietly. What I mean is that Sophie has completely changed since she met Darrow here and that having noticed the change I'm hardly to blame for having tried to find out its cause and I made an effort to answer him with the same composure. You're to blame at any rate for so recklessly assuming that you have found it out. You seem to forget that till they met here Sophie and Mr. Darrow hardly knew each other. If so it's all the stranger that they've been so often closeted together. Owen, Owen the girl sighed out. He turned his haggard face to her. Can I help it if I've seen and known what I wasn't meant to? For God's sake give me a reason any reason I can't decently make out with. Is it my fault if the day after you arrived when I came back late through the garden the curtains of the study hadn't been drawn and I saw you there alone with Darrow? And I laughed impatiently. Really Owen if you make it the grievance that two people who are staying the same house should be seen talking together? They were not talking that's the point. Not talking? How do you know? You could hardly hear them from the garden. No but I could see. He was sitting at my desk with his face in his hands. She was standing in the window looking away from him. He waited as if for Sophie Weiner's answer but still she neither stirred nor spoke. That was the first time he went on and the second was the next morning in the park. It was natural enough their meeting there. Sophie had gone out with Effie and Effie ran back to look for me. She told me she'd left Sophie and Darrow in the path that leads to the river and presently we saw them ahead of us. They didn't see us at first because they were standing looking at each other and this time they were not speaking either. We came up close before they heard us and all that time they never spoke or stopped looking at each other. After that I began to wonder and so I watched them. Oh Owen. Oh I only had to wait. Yesterday when I motored you and the doctor back from the lodge I saw Sophie coming out of the spring house. I supposed she'd taken shelter from the rain and when you got out of the motor I strolled back down the avenue to meet her but she disappeared. She must have taken a shortcut and come into the house by the side door. I don't know why I went on to the spring house. I suppose it was what you would call spying. I went up the steps and found the room empty but two chairs had been moved out from the wall and were standing near the table and one of the Chinese screens that lie on it had dropped to the floor. Anna sounded a faint note of irony. Really? Sophie'd gone there for shelter and she dropped the screen and moved the chair. I said two chairs. Two? What's damning evidence? Of I don't know what. Simply of the fact that there had been there with her as I looked out of the window I saw him close by walking away. He must have turned the corner of the spring house just as I got to the door. There was another silence during which Anna paused not only to collect her own words but to wait for Sophie Weiner's. Then, as the girl made no sign, she turned to her. I have absolutely nothing to say to all this but perhaps you'd like me to wait and hear your answer? Sophie raised her head with a quick flash of color. I've no answer either except that Owen must be mad. In the interwar, since she had last spoken, she seemed to have regained her self-control and her voice rang clear with a cold edge of anger. Anna looked at her stepson. He had grown extremely pale and his hand fell from the door with a discouraged gesture. That's all then? You won't give me any reason? I didn't suppose it was necessary to give you or anyone else a reason for talking with a friend of Mrs. Leaves under Mrs. Leaves' own roof? Owen hardly seemed to feel the retort. He kept his dogged stare on her face. I won't ask for one then. I'll only ask you to give me your assurance that your talks with Darrow have had nothing to do with your suddenly deciding to leave Chibre. She hesitated, not so much with the air of weighing her answer as of questioning his right to exact any. I give you my assurance and now I should like to go, she said, as she turned away Anna intervened. My dear, I think you ought to speak. The girl drew herself up with a faint laugh. To him or to you? To him, she stiffened. I've said all there is to say. Anna drew back, her eyes on her stepson. He had left the threshold and was advancing towards Sophie Weiner with a motion of desperate appeal. But as he did so, there was a knock on the door. A moment's silence fell on the free. Then Anna said, Come in! Darrow came into the room. Seeing the three together, he looked rapidly from one to the other. Then he turned to Anna with a smile. I came up to see if you were ready, but please send me off if I'm not wanted. His look, his voice, the simple sense of his presence restored Anna's shaken balance. By Owen's side he looked so strong, so obeying, so experienced that the last passionate charges dwindled to mere boyish waiparings. A moment ago she had dreaded Darrow's coming. Now she was glad that he was there. She turned to him with sudden decision. Come in, please. I want you to hear what Owen has been saying. She caught a murmur from Sophie Weiner, but disregarded it. An illuminating impulse urged her on. She, habitually so aware of her own lack of penetration, her small skill in reading hidden motives and detecting secret signals, now felt herself mysteriously inspired. She addressed herself to Sophie Weiner. It's much better for you both that this absurd question should be cleared up now. Then, turning to Darrow, she continued. For some reason that I don't pretend to guess, Owen has taken it into his head that you've influenced Miss Weiner to break her engagement. She spoke slowly and deliberately because she wished to give time and to gain it. Time for Darrow and Sophie to receive the full impact of what she was saying and time to observe its full effect on them. She had said to herself, if there's nothing between them, they'll look at each other. If there is something, they won't. And as she ceased to speak, she felt as if all her life were in her eyes. Sophie, after a start of protest, remained motionless, her gaze on the ground. Darrow, his face-grown grave, glanced slowly from Owen leave to Anna. With his eyes on the letter he asked, has Miss Weiner broken her engagement? A moment's silence followed his question. Then the girl looked up and said, yes. Owen, as she spoke, uttered a small exclamation and walked out of the room. She continued to stand in the same place without appearing to notice his departure and without watch-saving an additional word of explanation. Then, before Anna could find a cry to detain her, she too turned and went out. For God's sake, what's happened? Darrow asked. But Anna, with a drop of the heart, was saying to herself that he and Sophie Weiner had not looked at each other. End of Chapter 24. Chapter 25 of the Reef This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Chessie. The Reef by Edith Wharton, Chapter 25. Anna stood in the middle of the room, her eyes on the door. Darrow's questioning gaze was still on her, and she said to herself with a quick-drawn breath, if only he doesn't come near me. It seemed to her that she had been suddenly endowed with the fatal gift of reading the secret sense of every seemingly spontaneous look and movement, and that in his least gesture of affection she would detect a cold design. For a moment longer he continued to look at her inquiringly. Then he turned away and took up his habitual stand by the mental piece. She drew a deep breath of relief. Won't you please explain? He said. I can't explain. I don't know. I didn't even know, till she told you, that she really meant to break her engagement. All I know is that she came to me just now and said she wished to leave Givre today, and that Owen, when he heard of it, for she hadn't told him, had once accused her of going away with the secret intention of throwing him over. And you think it's a definite break? She perceived, as she spoke, that his brow had cleared. How should I know? Perhaps you can tell me. I? She fancied his face clouded again, but he did not move from his tranquil attitude. As I told you, she went on, Owen has worked himself up to imagining that for some mysterious reason you've influenced Sophie against him. Darrow still visibly wandered. It must indeed be a mysterious reason. He knows how slightly I know, Miss Weiner. Why should he imagine anything so wildly improbable? I don't know that either. But he must have hinted at some reason. No, he admits he doesn't know your reason. He simply says that Sophie's manner to him has changed since she came back to Givre and that he's seen you together several times. In the park, the spring house, I don't know where, talking alone in a way that seemed confidential, almost secret. And he draws the preposterous conclusion that you've used your influence to turn her against him. My influence? What kind of influence? He doesn't say. Darrow again seemed to turn over the facts she gave him. His face remained grave, but without the least trace of this composure. And what does Miss Weiner say? She says it's perfectly natural that she should occasionally talk to my friends when she's under my roof, and refuses to give him any other explanation. That at least is perfectly natural. Anna felt her cheeks flush as she answered. Yes, but there is something... something? Some reason for her sudden decision to break her engagement? I can't understand Owen's feeling, sorry as I am for his way of showing it. The girl owes him some sort of explanation, and as long as she refuses to give it, his imagination is sure to run wild. She would have given it, no doubt, if he'd asked it in a different tone. I don't defend Owen's tone, but she knew what it was before she accepted him. She knows he's excitable and undisciplined. Well, she's been disciplining him a little, probably the best thing that could happen. Why not let the matter rest there? Leave Owen with the idea that you have been the cause of the break? He met the question with his easy smile. Oh, as to that, leave him with any idea of me he chooses, but leave him at any rate free. Free? She echoed in surprise. Simply let things be. You've surely done all you could for him and Miss Weiner. If they don't hit it off, it's their own affair. What possible motive can you have for trying to interfere now? Her gaze widened to a deeper wonder. Why, naturally, what he says of you? I don't care a straw what he says of me. In such a situation, a boy in love will snatch at the most far-fetched reason rather than face the mortifying fact that the lady may simply be tired of him. You don't quite understand, Owen. Things go deep with him and last long. It took him a long time to recover from his other unlucky love affair. He's romantic and extravagant. He can't live on the interest of his feelings. He worships Sophie and she seemed to be fond of him. If she's changed, it's been very sudden. And if they part like this, angrily and inarticulately, it will hurt him horribly. Hurt his very soul. But that, as you say, is between the two. What concerns me is his associating you with the quarrel. Owen's like my own son. If you'd seen him when I first came here, you'd know why. We were like two prisoners who talked to each other by tapping on the wall. He's never forgotten it, nor I. Whether he breaks with Sophie or whether they make it up, I can't let him think you had anything to do with it. She raised her eyes entreatingly to Daros and read in them the forbearance of the man resigned to the discussion of non-existent problems. I'll do whatever you want me to, he said, but I don't yet know what it is. His smile seemed to charge her with inconsequence, and the prick to her pride made her continue. After all, it's not so unnatural that Owen, knowing you and Sophie to be almost strangers, should wonder what you were saying to each other when he saw you talking together. She felt a warning tremor as she spoke, as though some instinct, deeper than reason, searched up in defense of its treasure. But Daros' face was unstirred, safe by the flit of his half-amused smile. Well, my dear, and couldn't you have told him? I, she faltered out through her blush. You seem to forget, one and all of you, the precision you put me in when I came down here. You appealed to me to see Owen through, your assurance to him that I would. Madame Duchamp tells attempt to win me over, and most of all, my own sense of the fact you've just recalled to me, the importance, for both of us, that Owen should like me. It seemed to me that the first thing to do was to get as much light as I could on the whole situation, and the obvious way of doing it was to try to know Miss Weiner better. Of course I've talked with her alone. I've talked with her as often as I could. I've tried my best to find out if you were right in encouraging Owen to marry her. She listened with a growing sense of reassurance, struggling to separate the abstract sense of his words from the persuasion in which his eyes and voice enveloped them. I see. I do see, she murmured. You must see also that I could hardly say this to Owen without offending him still more, and perhaps increasing the breach between Miss Weiner and himself. What sort of figure should I cut if I told him I'd been trying to find out if he'd made a proper choice? In any case, it's none of my business to offer an explanation of what she justly says doesn't need one. If she declines to speak, it's obviously on the ground that Owen's insinuations are absurd, and that truly pledges me to silence. Yes, yes, I see, Anna repeated, but I don't want you to explain anything to Owen. You haven't yet told me what you do want. She hesitated, conscious of the difficulty of justifying her request. Then, I want you to speak to Sophie, she said. Daryl broke into an incredulous laugh. Considering what my previous attempts have resulted in, she raised her eyes quickly. They haven't, at least, resulted in your liking her less, in your thinking less well of her than you've told me. She fancied, he frowned a little. I wonder why you go back to that. I want to be sure. I owe it to Owen. Won't you tell me the exact impression she's produced on you? I have told you. I like Miss Weiner. Do you still believe she's in love with Owen? There was nothing in our short talks to throw any particular light on that. You still believe, though, that there's no reason why he shouldn't marry her? Again, he betrayed a restrained impatience. How can I answer that without knowing her reasons for breaking with him? That's just what I want you to find out from her. And why in the world should she tell me? Because whatever grievance she has against Owen, she can certainly have none against me. She can't want to have Owen connect me in his mind with this wretched quarrel, and she must see that he will until he's convinced you've had no share in it. There was elbow dropped from the mantelpiece, and he took a rest the step or two across the room. Then he halted before her. Why can't you tell her this yourself? Don't you see? He eyed her intently, and she pressed on. You must have guessed that Owen's jealous of you. Jealous of me? The blood flew up under his brown skin. Blind with it, what else would drive him to this folly? And I can't have her think me jealous, too. I've said all I could, short of making her think so, and she's refused a word more to either of us. Our only chance now is that she should listen to you. That you should make her see the harm her silence may do. Darrow uttered a protesting exclamation. It's all too preposterous. What do you suggest? I can't, at any rate, appeal to her on such a ground as dead. And I laid her hand on his arm. Appeal to her on the ground that I am almost Owen's mother, and that any estrangement between you and him would kill me. She knows what he is. She'll understand. Tell her to say anything, do anything she wishes, but not to go away without speaking, not to leave dead between us when she goes. She drew back a stab and lifted her face to his, trying to look into his eyes more deeply than she had ever looked. But before she could discern what they expressed, he had taken hold of her hands and bent his head to kiss them. You'll see her! You'll see her! She entreated, and he answered, I'll do anything in the world you want me to. End of Chapter 25 Chapter 26 Of the Reef This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recalling by Chassie, The Reef by Edith Wharton, Chapter 26 Darrow waited alone in the sitting room. No place could have been more distasteful as the scene of the talk that lay before him. But he had acceded to Anna's suggestion that it would seem more natural for her to summon Sophie Weiner than for him to go in search of her. As his troubled pacing scarred him back and forth, a relentless hand seemed to be tearing away all the tender fibres of association that bound him to the peaceful room. Here, in this very place, he had drunk his deepest draws of happiness, had had his lips at the fountainhead of its overflowing rivers. But now, that source was poisoned, and he would taste no more of an untainted cup. For a moment he felt an actual physical anguish, then his nerves hardened for the coming struggle. He had no notion of what awaited him, but after the first instinctive recoil, he had seen in a flash the urgent need of another word with Sophie Weiner. He had been insincere in letting Anna think that he had consented to speak because she asked it. In reality, he had been feverishly casting about for the pretext she had given him. And for some reason, this trivial hypocrisy weighed on him more than all his heavy burden of deceit. At length, he heard a step behind him, and Sophie Weiner entered. When she saw him, she paused on the threshold, and half drew back. I was told that Mrs. Leif had sent for me. Mrs. Leif did send for you, she'll be here presently, but I asked her to let me see you first. He spoke very gently, and there was no insincerity in his gentleness. He was profoundly moved by the change in a girl's appearance. At sight of him, she had forced a smile, but it lit up her wretchedness like a candle flame held to a dead face. She made no reply, but a sigh of relief. She made no reply, and there it went on. You must understand my wanting to speak to you after what I was told just now. She interposed with a gesture of protest. I'm not responsible for Owen's ravings. Of course. He broke off, and they stood facing each other. She lifted a hand and pushed back her loose lock with the gesture that was burned into his memory. Then she looked about her and dropped into the nearest chair. Well, you've got what you wanted, she said. What do you mean by what I wanted? My engagement's broken, you heard me say so. Why do you say that's what I wanted? All I wished, from the beginning, was to advise you, to help you as best I could. That's what you've done, she rejoined. You've convinced me that it's best I shouldn't marry him. Darrow broke into a despairing laugh. Had the very moment when you'd convinced me to the contrary. Had I? Her smile flickered up. Well, I really believed it till you showed me. Warned me. Warned you? That I'd be miserable if I married a man I didn't love. Don't you love him? She made no answer, and Darrow started up and walked away to the other end of the room. He stopped before the writing table where his photograph, well-dressed, handsome, self-sufficient, the portrait of a man of the world, confident of his ability to deal adequately with the most delicate situations, offered its huge fertility to his gaze. He turned back to her. It's rather hard than Owen, isn't it, that you should have waited until now to tell him? She reflected a moment before answering. I told him as soon as I knew. Knew that you couldn't marry him? Knew that I could never live here with him. She looked about the room, as though the very walls must speak for her. For a moment Darrow continued to search her face perplexedly. Then their eyes met in the long, disastrous gaze. Yes, she said, and stood up. Below the window there had Effie whistling for her dogs. And then, from the terrace, her mother calling her. There, that for instance, Sophie Biner said. Darrow broke out. It's I who ought to go. She kept her small, pale smile. What good would that do any of us, now? He covered his face with his hands. Good God, he groaned. How could I tell? You couldn't tell? We neither of us could. She seemed to turn the problem over critically. After all, it might have been you, instead of me. He took another distracted turn about the room, and coming back to her sat down in a chair at her side. A mocking hand seemed to dash the words from his lips. There was nothing on earth that he could say to her that wasn't foolish, or cruel, or contemptible. My dear, he began at last. Or didn't you at any rate to try? Her gaze grew grave. Try to forget you? He flushed to the forehead. I meant try to give Owen more time, to give him a chance. He's madly in love with you. All the good that's in him is in your hands. His stepmother felt that from the first. And she thought. She believed. She thought I could make him happy. Would she think so now? Now? I don't say now, but later. Time modifies, rubs out, more quickly than you think. Go away, but let him hope. I'm going too. We're going. He stumbled on the plural. In a very few weeks. Going for a long time, probably. What you're thinking of now may never happen. We may not all be here together again for years. She hurt him out in silence. Her hands clashed on her knee. Her eyes bent on them. For me, she said, you'll always be here. Don't say that. Oh, don't. Things change. People change. You'll see. You don't understand. I don't want anything to change. I don't want to forget. To rub out. At first, I imagined I did. But that was a foolish mistake. As soon as I saw you again, I knew it. It's not being here with you that I'm afraid of, in the sense you think. It's being here or anywhere with Owen. She stood up and bent her tragic smile on him. I want to keep you all to myself. The only words that came to him were futile denunciations of his folly. But a sense of death utility checked them on his lips. Poor child. You poor child. He hurt himself, vainly repeating. Suddenly, he felt a strong reaction of reality and its impetus brought him to his feet. Whatever happens, I intend to go. To go for good. He exclaimed. I want you to understand that. Oh, don't be afraid. I'll find a reason. But it's perfectly clear that I must go. She uttered a protesting cry. Go away? You? Don't you see that that would tell everything? Drag everybody into the horror. He found no answer and a voice dropped back to its common note. What good would you're going do? Do you suppose it would change anything for me? She looked at him with amusing wistfulness. I wonder what your feeling for me was. It seems queer that I've never really known. I suppose we don't know much about that kind of feeling. Is it like taking a drink when you're thirsty? I used to feel as if all of me was in the palm of your hand. He bowed his humbled head, but she went on almost exultantly. Don't for a minute think I'm sorry. It was worth every penny it cost. My mistake wasn't being ashamed, just at first, of its having cost such a lot. I tried to carry it off as a joke, to talk of it to myself as an adventure. I'd always wanted adventures, and you'd given me one, and I tried to take your attitude about it, to play the game, and convince myself that I hadn't risked any more on it than you. Then, when I met you again, I suddenly saw that I had risked more, but that I'd won more too. Such worlds! I'd been trying all the while to put everything I could between us. Now, I want to sweep everything away. I'd been trying to forget how you looked. Now, I want to remember you always. I'd been trying not to hear your voice. Now, I never want to hear any other. I've made my choice. That's all. I've had had you, and I mean to keep you. Her face was shining like her eyes. To keep you hidden away here, she ended, and put her hand upon her breast. After she had left him, Darryl continued to sit motionless, staring back into their past. Hitherto, it had lingered on the edge of his mind in a vague pink blur, like one of the little rose-leaf clouds that the setting sun drops from its disc. Now, it was a huge, looming darkness through which his eyes wainly strained. The whole episode was still obscure to him, safe where he and Darryl, as they talked, some phrase or gesture or intonation of the girls, had lit up a little spot in the night. She had said, I wonder what your feeling for me was. And he found himself wondering, too. He remembered distinctly enough that he had not meant the perilous passion, even in its most transient form, to play a part in their relation. And that respect as attitude had been a buff reproach. She was an unusually ordinary woman, she was an unusually original and attractive creature, to whom he had wanted to give a few days of harmless pleasuring, and who was alert and expert enough to understand his intention and spare him the boredom of hesitations and misinterpretations. That had been his first impression, and her subsequent demeanor had justified it. She had been, from the outset, just a frank and easy comrade he had expected to find her. Was it he, then, who, in the sequel, had grown impatient of the bounds he had set himself? Was it his wounded vanity that, seeking balm for its hurt, yearned to dip deeper into the healing pool of her compassion? In this confused memory of the situation, he seemed not to have been guiltless of such yearnings. Yet, for the first few days, the experiment had been perfectly successful. Her enjoyment had been unclouded, and his pleasure in it undisturbed. It was very gradually, he seemed to see, that a shade of lassitude had crept over the intercourse. Perhaps it was because, when her light chatter about people failed, he found she had no other fund to draw on. Or perhaps simply because of the sweetness of her laugh, or of the charm of the gesture with which, one day in the woods of Mali, she had tossed off her head and tilted back her head at the call of a cuckoo. Or because, whenever he looked at her unexpectedly, he found that she was looking at him and did not want him to know it. Or perhaps, in varying degrees, because of all these things, that there had come a moment when no word seemed to fly high enough or dive deep enough, to utter the sense of well-being each gave to the other, and the natural substitute for speech had been a kiss. The kiss at all events had come at a precise moment to save the venture from disaster. They had reached a point when her amazing reminiscences had begun to flag. When her future had been exhaustively discussed, her theatrical prospects minutely studied, her quarrel with Mrs. Merritt retold with the last amplification of detail. And when, perhaps conscious of her exhausted resources and his dwindling interest, she had committed the fatal error of saying that she could see he was unhappy, and then treating him to tell her why. From the brink of estranging confidences, and from the risk of unfavorable comparisons, his gesture had snatched her back to safety. And as soon as he had kissed her, he felt that she would never bore him again. She was one of the elemental creatures whose emotion is all in their pulses, and who become inexpressive or sentimental when they try to turn sensation into speech. His carousel had restored her to her natural place in the scheme of things, and thereof felt as if he had clasped a tree and a nymph had bloomed from it. The mere fact of not having to listen to her any longer added immensely to her charm. She continued, of course, to talk to him, but it didn't matter, because he no longer made any effort to follow her words, but let her voice run on as a musical undercurrent to his thoughts. She hadn't a drop of poetry in her, but she had some of the qualities that created in others. And in moments of heat, the imagination does not always feel the difference. Lying beside her in the shade, Darrow felt her presence as a part of the charm stillness of the summer woods as the element of vague well-being that refused his senses and loved to sleep the ache of wounded pride. All he asked of her, as yet, was a touch on the hand or on the lips, and that she should let him go on lying there through the long warm hours while a blackbird's song throbbed like a fountain and the summer wind stirred in the trees. And close by, between the nearest branches and the brim of his tilted head, a slight white figure gathered up all the floating threads of joy. He recalled, too, having noticed as he lay staring at the break in the treetops, a stream of mare's tails coming up the sky. He had said to himself, it will rain tomorrow, and the thought had made the air seem warmer and the sun more vivid on her hair. Perhaps, if the mare's tails had not come up the sky, the adventure might have had no sequel. But the cloud brought rain, and next morning he looked out of his window into a cold, gray blur. They had planted all their excursion down the sand to the two Andelis and Rouen, and now, with the long hours on their hands, they were both a little at a loss. There was the Louvre, of course, and the Luxembourg, but he had tried looking at pictures with her. She had first so persistently admired the worst things and then so frankly lapsed into indifference that he had no wish to repeat the experiment. So they went out, aimlessly, and took a cold, wet walk, turning at length into the deserted arcades of the Palais Royal, and finally drifting into one of its equally deserted restaurants, where they lunged alone and somewhat dolefully, served by a one old waiter, with the look of a castaway who has given up watching for a sale. It was odd how the waiter's face came back to him. Perhaps, but for the rain, it might never have happened. But what was the use of thinking of that now? He tried to turn his thoughts to more urgent issues. But by a strange perversity of association, every detail of the day was forcing itself on his mind with an insistence from which there was no escape. Reluctantly, he relived the long wet walk back to the hotel after a tedious hour at a cinematograph show on the boulevard. It was still raining when they withdrew from this day's spectacle, but she had obstinately refused to take a cab. Had even, on the way, insisted on loitering under the dripping awnings of shop windows and poking into draughty passages. And finally, when they had nearly reached their destination, had gone so far as to suggest that they should turn back to hunt up some show she had heard of in a theater baton yoll. But at that, he had somewhat irritably protested. He remembered that, for the first time, they were both rather irritable and vaguely disposed to resist one another's suggestions. His feet were wet, and he was tired of walking, and sick of the smell of stuffy, unerred theaters, and he had said he must really get back to write some letters. And so, they had kept on to the hotel, ending of Chapter 26. Chapter 27 of The Reef. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Chessie. The Reef by Edith Wharton, Chapter 27. Daryl had no idea how long he had sat there when he heard Anna's hand on the door. The effort of rising and of composing his face to meet her gave him a factitious sense of self-control. He said to himself, I must decide on something. And that lifted him a hair's breath above the whirling waters. She came in with a lighter step, and he instantly perceived that something unforeseen and reassuring had happened. She's been with me. She came and found me on the terrace. We've had a long talk, and she's explained everything. I feel as if I'd never known her before. Her voice was so moved and tender that it checked the start of apprehension. She's explained? It's natural, isn't it, that she should have felt a little sore at the kind of inspection she's been subjected to. Oh, not from you. I don't mean that. But Madame de Chantel's opposition and her sending for Adelaide paint her. She told me frankly she didn't care to owe her husband to Adelaide paint her. She thinks now that her annoyance at feeling herself so talked over and scrutinized may have shown itself in her manner to Owen, and said him imagining the insane things he did. I understand all she must have felt, and I agree with her that it's best you should go away for a while. She's made me, Anna summed up, feel as if I'd been dreadfully thick-skinned and obtuse. You? Yes, as if I'd treated her like the brick-a-brack that used to be sent down here on approval to see if it would look well with the other pieces. She added with a sudden flush of enthusiasm. I'm glad she's got it in her to make one feel like that. She seemed to wait for Daryl to agree with her, or to put some other question, and he finally found voice to ask. Then you think it's not a final break? I hope not. I've never hoped it more. I had a word with Owen too, after I left her, and I think he understands that he must let her go without insisting on any positive promise. She's excited. He must let her calm down. Again she waited, and Daryl said, Surely you can make him see that. She'll help me too. She's to see him, of course, before she goes. She starts immediately, by the way, with Adelaide Painter, who is motoring over to Frosier to catch the one o'clock express, and who, of course, knows nothing of all this, and is simply to be told that Sophie has been sent for by the Farlows. Daryl mutely signed his comprehension, and she went on. Owen is particularly anxious that neither Adelaide nor his grandmother should have the least inkling of what's happened. The need of shielding Sophie will help him to control himself. He's coming to his senses, poor boy. He's ashamed of his wild talk already. He asked me to tell you so. No doubt he'll tell you so himself. Daryl made a movement of protest. Oh, as to that, the thing's not worth another word. Or another thought either? She brightened. Promise me you won't even think of it. Promise me you won't be hard on him. He was finding it easier to smile back at her. Why should you think it necessary to ask my indulgence for Owen? She hesitated a moment, her eyes wandering from him. Then they came back with a smile. Perhaps because I need it for myself. For yourself? I mean because I understand better how one can torture oneself over unrealities. As Daryl listened, the tension of his nerves began to relax. Her gaze, so grave and yet so sweet, was like a deep pool into which he could plunge and hide himself from the hard glare of his misery. As this ecstatic sense enveloped him, he found it more and more difficult to follow her words and to frame an answer. But what did anything matter except that her voice should go on and the syllables fall like soft touches on his tortured brain? Don't you know, she continued, the bliss of waking from a bad dream in one's own quiet room and going slowly over all the horror without being afraid of it anymore? That's what I'm doing now. And that's why I understand Owen. She broke off and he felt her touch on his arm. Because I'd dreamed the horror too. He understood her then and stammered, You? Forgive me and let me tell you, it will help you to understand Owen. There were little things, little signs, once I had begun to watch for them. Your reluctance to speak about her, her reserve with you, a sort of constraint we'd never seen in her before. She laughed up at him and with her hands and his he contrived to say, Now you understand why? Oh, I understand. Of course I understand. And I want you to laugh at me, with me, because there were other things too. Crazier things still. There was even, last night on the terrace, her pink cloak. Her pink cloak? Now he honestly wondered. And as she saw it she blushed. You've forgotten about the cloak? The pink cloak that Owen saw you with at the play in Paris? Yes, yes, I was mad enough for that. It does me good to laugh about it now. But you ought to know that I'm going to be a jealous woman, a ridiculously jealous woman. You ought to be warned of it in time. He had dropped her hands and she leaned close and lifted her arms to his neck with one of her rare gestures of surrender. I don't know why it is, but it makes me happier now to have been so foolish. Her lips were parted in a noiseless laugh and the tremor of her lashes made the shadow move on her cheek. He looked at her through a mist of pain and saw all her offered beauty held up like a cup to his lips. But as he stooped to it a darkness seemed to fall between them. Her arms slipped from his shoulders and she drew away from him abruptly. But she was with you then, she exclaimed, and then as he stared at her, oh don't say no, only go and look at your eyes. He stood speechless and she pressed on. Don't deny it, oh don't deny it, what will be left for me to imagine if you do? Don't you see how every single thing cries it out? Owen sees it, he saw it again just now. When I told him she'd relented and would see him, he said, is that Daryl's doing too? Daryl took the onslaught in silence. He might have spoken, have summoned up the usual phrases of banter and denial. He was not even certain that they might not, for the moment, have served their purpose if he could have uttered them without being seen. But he was as conscious of what had happened to his face as if he had obeyed Anna's bidding and looked at himself in the glass. He knew he could no more hide from her what was written there than he could afface from his soul the fiery record of what he had just lived through. There, before him, staring him in the eyes and reflecting itself in all his linear man's, was the overwhelming fact of Sophie Weiner's passion and of the act by which she had attested it. Anna was talking again, hurriedly, feverishly, and his soul was wrung by the anguish in her voice. Do speak at last. You must speak. I don't want to ask you to harm the girl, but you must see that your silence is doing her more harm than your answering my questions could. You're leaving me only the worst things to think of her. She'd see that herself if she were here. What worse injury can you do her than to make me hate her? To make me feel she's plotted with you to deceive us. Oh, not that. Daryl heard his own voice before he was aware that he meant to speak. Yes, I did see her in Paris. He went on after a pause. But I was bound to respect her reason for not wanting it known. Anna paled. It was she at the theater that night? I was with her at the theater one night. Why should she have asked you not to say so? She didn't wish it known that I'd met her. Why shouldn't she have wished it known? She had quarreled with Mrs. Merritt and come over suddenly to Paris and she didn't want the Farlows to hear of it. I came across her by accident and she asked me not to speak of having seen her because of her quarrel? Because she was ashamed of her part in it? Oh no, there was nothing for her to be ashamed of, but the Farlows had found a place for her and she didn't want them to know how suddenly she'd had to leave and how badly Mrs. Merritt had behaved. She was in a terrible plight. The woman had even kept back her month's salary. She knew the Farlows would be awfully upset and she wanted more time to repair them. Daryl heard himself speak as though the words had proceeded from other lips. His explanation sounded plausible enough and he half fancied Anna's look grew lighter. She waited a moment as though to be sure he had no more to add, then she said. But the Farlows didn't know. They told me all about it when they sent her to me. He flushed as if she had laid a deliberate trap for him. They may know now they didn't then. That's no reason for her continuing now to make a mystery of having met you. It's the only reason I can give you. Then I'll go and ask her for one myself. She turned and took a few steps toward the door. Anna, he started to follow her and then checked himself. Don't do that. Why not? It's not like you, not generous. She stood before him straight and pale. But under her rigid face he saw the tumult of her doubt and misery. I don't want to be ungenerous. I don't want to pry into her secrets. But things can't be left like this. Wouldn't it be better for me to go to her? Surely she'll understand. She'll explain. It may be some mere trifle she's concealing. Something that would horrify the Farlows but that I shouldn't see any harm in. She paused, her eyes searching his face. A love affair I suppose. That's it. You met her with some man at the theater and she was frightened and begged you to feel about it. Those poor young things that have to go about among us like machines. Oh, if you knew how I pity them. If you pity her, why not let her go? She stared. Let her go? Go for good, you mean. Is that the best you can say for her? Let things take their course. After all, it's between herself and Owen. And you and me and Effie, if Owen marries her and I leave my child with them, don't you see the impossibility of what you're asking? We're all bound together in this coil. Daryl turned away with a groan. Oh, let her go. Let her go. Then there is something. Something really bad. She was with someone when you met her. Someone with whom she was. She broke off and he saw her struggling with new thoughts. If it's that, of course. Oh, don't you see, she desperately appealed to him, that I must find out and that it's too late now for you not to speak. Don't be afraid that I'll betray you. I'll never, never let a soul suspect. But I must know the truth and surely it's best for her that I should find it out from you. Daryl waited a moment. Then he said slowly, what you imagine is mere madness. She was at a theater with me. With you? He saw a tremor pass through her, but she controlled it instantly and faced him straight and motionless as a wounded creature in a moment before it feels its wound. Why should you both have made a mystery of that? I've told you the idea was not mine. He cast about. She may have been afraid that Owen, but that was not a reason for her asking you to tell me that you hardly knew her, that you hadn't even seen her for years. She broke off and the blood rose to her face and forehead. Even if she had other reasons, there could be only one reason for your obeying her. Silence fell between them, a silence in which the room seemed to become suddenly resonant with voices. There was gaze wander to the window and he noticed that the gale of two days before had nearly stripped the tops of the lime trees in the court. Anna had moved away and was resting her elbows against a mental piece, her head in her hands. As she stood there, he took in with a new intensity of vision, little details of her appearance, that his eyes had often cherished, the branching blue veins in the backs of her hands, the warm shadow that her hair cast on her ear, and the color of the hair itself, dull black with a tourney on the surface like the wings of certain birds. He felt it to be useless to speak. After a while she lifted her head and said, I shall not see her again before she goes. He made no answer and turning to him she added, that is why she's going I suppose, because she loves you and won't give you up. There awaited. The paltriness of conventional denial was so apparent to him, that even if it could have delayed discovery, he could no longer have resorted to it. Under all his other fears was the dread of dishonoring the hour. She has given me up, he said at last. End of Chapter 27 Chapter 28 Of the Reef This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Chessie The Reef by Edith Wharton Chapter 28 When he had gone out of the room, Anna stood where he had left her. I must believe him, I must believe him, she said. A moment before, at the moment when she had lifted her arms to his neck, she had been wrapped in a sense of complete security. All the spirits of doubt had been exorcised, and her love was once more the clear habitation in which every thought and feeling could move in blissful freedom. And then, as she raised her face to Daros and met his eyes, she had seemed to look into the very ruins of his soul. That was the only way she could express it. It was as though he and she had been looking at two sides of the same thing, and the side she had seen had been all light and life, and his a place of graves. She didn't now recall who had spoken first, or even, very clearly, what had been said. It seemed to her only a moment later that she had found herself standing at the other end of the room, the room which had suddenly grown so small that, even with its length between them, she felt as if he touched her, crying out to him, it is because of you she's going, and reading the avowal in his face. That was his secret then, their secret. He had met the girl in Paris and helped her in her straits, lent her money, and are vaguely conjectured, and she had fallen in love with him, and on meeting him again had been suddenly overmastered by her passion. Anna, dropping back into her sofa corner, said staring these facts in the face. The girl had been in a desperate plight, frightened, penniless, outraged by what had happened, and not knowing, with a woman like Mrs. Merritt, what fresh injury might impend. And Darrow, meeting her in this distracted hour, had pityed, counseled, been kind to her, with the fatal, the inevitable result. There were the facts as Anna made them out. That, at least, was their external aspect, was as much of them as she had been suffered to see, and into the secret intricacies they might cover, she dared not yet project her thoughts. I must believe him, I must believe him. She kept on repeating the words like a talisman. It was natural, after all, that he should have behaved as he had, defended the girl's pity as secret to the last. She, too, began to feel the contagion of his pity, the stir in her breast of feelings deeper and more native to her than the pains of jealousy. From the security of her blessedness, she longed to lean over with compassionate hands. But Owen, what was Owen's part to be? She owed herself first to him. She was bound to protect him, not only from all knowledge of the secret she had surprised, but also, and chiefly, from its consequences. Yes, the girl must go. There could be no doubt of it. Darrow himself had seen it from the first, and at the thought she had a wild revulsion of relief, as though she had been trying to create in her heart the delusion of a generosity she could not feel. The one fact on which she could stay her mind was that Sophie was leaving immediately, would be out of the house within an hour. Once she was gone, it would be easier to bring Owen to the point of understanding that the break was final, if necessary to work upon the girl to make him see it. But that, Anna was sure, would not be necessary. It was clear that Sophie Weiner was leaving Givre with no thought of ever seeing it again. Suddenly, as she tried to put some order in her thoughts, she heard Owen's call at the door. Mother! A name he seldom gave her. There was a new note in his voice, the note of a joyous impatience. It made her turn hastily to the glass to see what face she was about to show him. But before she had had time to compose it, he was in the room, and she was caught in a schoolboy hug. It's all right, it's all right, and it's all you're doing. I want to do the worst kind of penance, Belle and Candle and the rest. I've been through it with her, and now she hands me on to you, and you to call me any names you please. He freed her with his happy laugh. I am to be stood in the corner till next week, and then I am to go up to see her, and she says I owe it all to you. To me? It was the first phrase she found to clutch at, as she tried to steady herself in the eddies of his joy. Yes, you were so patient and so dear to her, and you saw at once what a damned ass I'd been. She tried a smile, and it seemed to pass master with him, for he sent it back in a broad beam. That's not so difficult to see. No, I admit it doesn't take a microscope, but you were so wise and wonderful. You always are. I've been mad these last days, simply mad. You and she might well have washed your hands of me. And instead, it's all right, all right. She drew back a little, trying to keep the smile on her lips, and not let him get the least glimpse of what it hid. Now, if ever, indeed, it behoved her to be wise and wonderful. I'm so glad, dear, so glad, if only you'll always feel like that about me. She stopped, hardly knowing what she said, and aghast at the idea that her own hands should have retied the knot she imagined to be broken. But she saw he had something more to say, something hard to get out, but absolutely necessary to express. He caught her hands, pulled her clothes, and with his forehead drawn into its whimsical smiling wrinkles. Look here, he cried, if Dara wants to call me a damned ass too, you're not to stop him. It brought her back to a sharper sense of a central peril, of the secret to be kept from him at whatever cost to erect nerves. Oh, you know, he doesn't always wait for orders. On the whole, it sounded better than she'd feared. You mean he's called me one already? He accepted the fact with his gayest laugh. Well, that saves a lot of trouble. Now we can pass to the order of the day. He broke off and glanced at the clock, which is, you know, dear, that she's starting in about an hour. She and Adelaide must already be snatching a hasty sandwich. You'll come down to bid them goodbye. Yes, of course. Dara had, in fact, grown upon her while he spoke, the urgency of seeing Sophie Weiner again before she left. The thought was deeply distasteful. Anna shrank from encountering the girl till she had cleared away through her own perplexities. But it was obvious that since they had separated, barely an hour earlier, the situation had taken a new shape. Sophie Weiner had apparently reconsidered her decision to break amicably, but definitely with Owen, and stood again in their path, a menace and a mystery, and confused impulses of resistance stirred in Anna's mind. She felt Owen's touch on her arm. Are you coming? Yes, yes, presently. What's the matter? You look so strange. What do you mean by strange? I don't know, startled, surprised. She read what her look must be by its sudden reflection in his face. Do I? No wonder. You've given us all an exciting morning. He held to his point. You're more excited now that there's no cause for it. What on earth has happened since I saw you? He looked about the room as if seeking the clue to her agitation, and in her dread of what he might guess, she answered. What has happened is simply that I'm rather tired. Will you ask Sophie to come up and see me here? While she waited, she tried to think what she should say when the girl appeared. But she had never been more conscious of her inability to deal with the oblique and the torches. She had lacked the hard teachings of experience, and an instinctive disdain for whatever was less clear and open than her own conscience had kept her from learning anything of the intricacies and contradictions of other hearts. She said to herself, I must find out. Yet everything in her recoiled from the means by which she felt it must be done. Sophie Weiner appeared almost immediately, dressed for departure her little back on her arm. She was still pale to the point of haggardness, but with a light upon her that struck Anna with surprise. Or was it, perhaps, that she was looking at a girl with new eyes, seeing her, for the first time, not as Effie's governess, not as Owen's bride, but as the embodiment of that unknown peril lurking in the background of every woman's thoughts about her lover? Anna, at any rate, with a sudden sense of estrangement, noted in her, graces and snares, never before perceived. It was only the flash of a primitive instinct, but it lasted long enough to make her ashamed of the darknesses it lit up in her heart. She signed to Sophie to sit down on the sofa beside her. I asked you to come up to me because I wanted to say goodbye quietly. She explained, feeling her lips tremble, but trying to speak in a tone of friendly naturalness. The girl's only answer was a faint smile of acquiescence, and Anna, disconcerted by her silence, went on. You've decided, then, not to break your engagement? Sophie Weiner raced her head with a look of surprise. Evidently the question, thus abruptly put, must have sounded strangely on the lips of so ardent a partisan as Mrs. Leith. I thought that was what you wished, she said. What I wished? Anna's heart shook against her side. I wish, of course, whatever seems best for Owen. It's natural, you must understand, that that consideration should come first with me. Sophie was looking at her steadily. I supposed it was the only one that counted with you. The curtness of retort roused Anna's latent antagonism. It is, she said, in a hard voice that startled her as she heard it. Had she ever spoken so to anyone before? She felt frightened, as though her very nature had changed without her knowing it. Feeling the girl's astonished gaze still on her, she continued. The suddenness of the change has naturally surprised me. When I left you, it was understood that you were to reserve your decision. Yes. And now? Anna waited for a reply that did not come. She did not understand the girl's attitude, the edge of irony in her short syllables, the plainly premeditated determination to lay the burden of proof on her interlocutor. Anna felt a sudden need to lift her intercourse above this mean level of defiance and distrust. She looked appealingly at Sophie. Isn't it best that we should speak quite frankly? It's this change on your part that perplexes me. You can hardly be surprised at that. It's true, I asked you not to break with Owen too abruptly. And I asked it, believe me, as much for your sake as for his. I wanted you to take time to think over the difficulty that seems to have arisen between you. The fact that you felt it required thinking over seemed to show you wouldn't take the final step lightly. Wouldn't, I mean, accept of Owen more than you could give him. But your change of mind obliges me to ask the question I thought you would have asked yourself. Is there any reason why you shouldn't marry Owen? She stopped a little breathlessly, her eyes on Sophie Weiner's burning face. Any reason? What do you mean by a reason? Anna continued to look at her gravely. Do you love someone else? She asked. Sophie's first look was one of wonder and a faint relief. Then she gave back the other scrutiny in a glance of indescribable reproach. Ah, you might have waited, she exclaimed. Waited? Till I'd gone, till I was out of the house, you might have known, you might have guessed. She turned her eyes again on Anna. I only meant to let him hope a little longer so that he shouldn't suspect anything. Of course I can't marry him, she said. Anna stood motionless, silenced by the shock of the avowal. She too was trembling, less with anger than with a confused compassion. But the feeling was so bland with others, less generous and more obscure, that she found no words to express it, and the two women faced each other without speaking. I'd better go, Sophie murmured at length with lowered head. The words roused in Anna a latent impulse of compunction. The girl looked so young, so exposed and desolate. And what thoughts must she be hiding in her heart? It was impossible that they should part in such a spirit. I want you to know that no one said anything, it was I who... Sophie looked at her. You mean that Mr. Daryl didn't tell you? Of course not, did you suppose I thought he did? You found it out, that's all. I knew you would, in your place I should have guessed it sooner. The words were spoken simply without irony or emphasis, but they went through Anna like a sword. Yes, the girl would have had divinations, promptings that she had not had. She felt half envious of such a sad precocity of wisdom. I'm so sorry, so sorry, she murmured. Things happened that way, now I'd better go, I'd like to say goodbye to Effie. Oh, it broke in a cry from Effie's mother. Not like this, you mustn't. I feel, you make me feel too horribly as if I were driving you away. The words had rushed up from the depths of her bewildered pity. No one is driving me away, I had to go, she heard the girl reply. There was another silence during which passionate impulses of magnanimity warden Anna with her doubts and dreads. At length, her eyes on Sophie's face. Yes, you must go now, she began, but later on, after a while when all this is over, if there's no reason why you shouldn't marry Owen. She paused a moment on the words. I shouldn't want you to think I stood between you. You? Sophie flushed again, and then grew pale. She seemed to try to speak, but no words came. Yes, it was not true when I said just now that I was thinking only of Owen. I'm sorry. Oh, so sorry for you too. Your life. I know how hard it's been, and mine. Mine's so full. Happy women understand best. Anna drew near and touched the girl's hand. Then she began again, pouring all her soul into the broken phrases. It's terrible now. You see no future, but if, by and by, you know best. But you so young, and at your age, things do pass. If there's no reason, no real reason why you shouldn't marry Owen. I want him to hope. I'll help him to hope, if you say so. With the urgency of her pleading, her clasp tightened on Sophie's hand, but it warmed to no responsive tremor. The girl seemed numb, and Anna was frightened by the stony silence of her look. I suppose I'm not more than half a woman, she mused, for I don't want my happiness to hurt her. And allowed, she repeated, if only you tell me there's no reason. The girl did not speak, but suddenly, like a snapped branch she bent, stooped down to the hand that clasped her, and laid her lips upon it in a stream of weeping. She cried silently, continuously, abundantly, as though Anna's touch had released the waters of some deep spring of pain. Then, as Anna, moved and half afraid, leaned over her with a sound of pity, she stood up and turned away. You're going, then, for good, like this? Anna moved toward her and stopped. Sophie stopped, too, with eyes that shrank from her. Oh! Anna cried and hit her face. The girl walked across the room and paused again in the doorway. From there she flung back. I wanted it. I chose it. He was good to me. No one ever was so good. The door handle turned, and Anna heard her go. End of Chapter 28 Chapter 29 Her first thought was, he's going to in a few hours. I needn't see him again before he leaves. At that moment the possibility of having to look in Darrow's face and hear him speak seemed to her more unendurable than anything else she could imagine. Then on the next wave of feeling came the desire to confront him at once and ring from him she knew not what. A vowel, denial, justification, anything that should open some channel of escape to the flood of her pent-up anguish. She had told Owen she was tired, and this seemed a sufficient reason for remaining upstairs when the motor came to the door, and Miss Painter and Sophie Viner were born off in it. Sufficient also for sending word to Madame Deschantel that she would not come down till after luncheon. Having dispatched her maid with this message she lay down on her sofa and stared before her into darkness. She had been unhappy before, and the vision of old miseries flocked like hungry ghosts about her fresh pain. She recalled her youthful disappointment, the failure of her marriage. The wasted years that followed. But those were negative sorrows, denials, and postponements of life. She seemed in no way related to their shadowy victim, she who was stretched on this fiery rack of the irreparable. She had suffered before, yes, but lucidly, reflectively, elegiacly. Now she was suffering as a hurt animal must, blindly, furiously, with a single fierce animal longing that the awful pain should stop. She heard her maid knock, and she hid her face and made no answer. The knocking continued, and the discipline of habit at length made her lift her head, compose her face, and hold out her hand to the note the woman brought her. It was a word from Darrow. May I see you? And she said at once, in a voice that sounded thin and empty, asked Mr. Darrow to come up. The maid inquired if she wished to have her hair smooth first, and she answered that it didn't matter. But when the door had closed, the instinct of pride drew her to her feet, and she looked at herself in the glass above the mantelpiece, and passed her hands over her hair. Her eyes were burning, and her face looked tired and thinner, otherwise she could see no change in her appearance. And she wondered that at such a moment her body should seem as unrelated to the self that writhed within her, as if it had been a statue or a picture. The maid reopened the door to show in Darrow, and he paused a moment on the threshold as if waiting for Anna to speak. He was extremely pale, but he looked neither ashamed nor uncertain. And she said to herself, with a perverse thrill of appreciation, he's as proud as I am. Allowed, she asked, you wanted to see me? Naturally, he replied in a grave voice. Don't. It's useless. I know everything. Nothing you can say will help. At the direct affirmation he turned even paler, and his eyes, which he kept resolutely fixed on her, confessed his misery. You allow me no voice in deciding that? Deciding what? That there's nothing more to be said. He waited for her to answer, and then went on. I don't even know what you mean by everything. Oh, I don't know what more there is. I know enough. I implored her to deny it, and she couldn't. What can you and I have to say to each other? Her voice broke into a sob. The animal anguish was upon her again, just a blind cry against her pain. Darrow kept his head high and his eyes steady. It must be as you wish, and yet it's not like you to be afraid. Afraid? To talk things out, to face them. It's for you to face this, not me. All I ask is to face it, but with you, once more he paused. Won't you tell me what Ms. Weiner told you? Oh, she's generous, to the utmost. The pain caught her like a physical throw. It suddenly came to her how the girl must have loved him to be so generous. What memories there must be between them? Oh, go, please go! It's too horrible. Why should I have to see you? She stammered, lifting her hands to her eyes. With her face hidden, she waited to hear him move away, to hear the door open and close again. As a few hours earlier it had opened and closed on Sophie Weiner. But Darrow made no sound or movement. He, too, was waiting. Anna felt a thrill of resentment. His presence was an outrage on her sorrow, a humiliation to her pride. It was strange that he should wait for her to tell him so. You want me to leave, Givra? He asked at length. She made no answer. And he went on. Of course I'll do as you wish. But if I go now, am I not to see you again? His voice was firm. His pride was answering her pride. She faltered. You must see it's useless. I might remind you that you're dismissing me without a hearing. Without a hearing I've heard you both. But I won't, he continued, remind you of that. Or of anything or anyone but Owen. Owen? Yes. If we could somehow spare him. She had dropped her hands and turned her startled eyes on him. It seemed to her an age since she had thought of Owen. You see, don't you, Darrow continued, that if you send me away now, she interrupted. Yes, I see. And there was a long silence between them. At length, she said, very low, I don't want anyone else to suffer as I'm suffering. Owen knows I meant to leave to-morrow. Darrow went on. Any sudden change of plan may make him think. Oh, she saw his inevitable logic. The horror of it was on every side of her. It had seemed possible to control her grief and face Darrow calmly while she was upheld by the belief that this was their last hour together, that after he had passed out of the room there would be no fear of seeing him again. No fear that his nearness, his look, his voice and all the unseen influences that flowed from him would dissolve her soul to weakness. But her courage failed at the idea of having to conspire with him to shield Owen, of keeping up with him for Owen's sake, a faint of union and felicity. To live at Darrow's side in seeming intimacy and harmony for another twenty-four hours seemed harder than to live without him for all the rest of her days. Her strength failed her, and she threw herself down and buried her sobs in the cushions where she had so often hidden a face aglow with happiness. Anna, his voice was close to her. Let me talk to you quietly. It's not worthy of either of us to be afraid. Words of endearment would have offended her, but her heart rose at the call to her courage. I've no defense to make, he went on. The facts are miserable enough, but at least I want you to see them as they are. Above all, I want you to know the truth about Miss Finer. The name sent blood to Anna's forehead. She raised her head and faced him. Why should I know more of her than what she's told me? I never wish to hear her name again. It's because you feel about her in that way that I ask you, in the name of common charity, to let me give you the facts as they are and not as you've probably imagined them. I've told you I don't think uncharitably of her. I don't want to think of her at all. That's why I tell you you're afraid. Afraid? Yes, you've always said you wanted, above all, to look at life, at the human problem, as it is, without fear and without hypocrisy, and it's not always a pleasant thing to look at. He broke off, and then began again. Don't think this is a plea for myself. I don't want to say a word to lessen my offense. I don't want to talk of myself at all. Even if I did, I probably couldn't make you understand. I don't myself as I look back, and I don't myself as I look back. Be just to me. It's your right. All I ask you is to be generous to Miss Viner. She stood up trembling. You're free to be as generous to her as you please. Yes, you've made it clear to me that I'm free, but there's nothing I can do for her that will help her half as much as your understanding her would. Nothing you can do for her. You can marry her. His face hardened. You certainly couldn't wish her a worse fate. It must have been what she expected, relied on. He was silent, and she broke out. Or what is she? What are you? It's too horrible. On your way here, to me! She felt the tears in her throat and stopped. That was it, he said bluntly. She stared at him. I was on my way to you, after repeated delays and postponements of your own making. At the very last you turned me back with a mere word, and without explanation, I waited for a letter and none came. I'm not saying this to justify myself. I'm simply trying to make you understand. I felt hurt and bitter and bewildered. I thought you meant to give me up. And suddenly, in my way, I found someone to be sorry for, to be of use to. That, I swear to you, was the way it began. The rest was a moment's folly, a flash of madness, as such things are. We've never seen each other since. Anna was looking at him coldly. You sufficiently describe her in saying that. Yes, if you measure her by conventional standards, which is what you always declare you never do. Conventional standards? A girl who, she was checked by a sudden rush of almost physical repugnance. Suddenly she broke out. I always thought her an adventurous. Always? I don't mean always, but after you came. She's not an adventurous. You mean that she professes to act on the new theories, the stuff that awful women rave about on platforms? Oh, I don't think she pretended to have a theory. She hadn't even that excuse? She had the excuse of her loneliness, her unhappiness, of miseries and humiliations that women like you can't even guess. She had nothing to look back to, but indifference or unkindness. Nothing to look forward to but anxiety. She saw I was sorry for her and it touched her. She made too much of it. She exaggerated it. I ought to have seen the danger, but I didn't. There's no possible excuse for what I did. Anna listened to him in speechless misery. Every word he spoke threw back a disintegrating light on their own past. He had come to her with an open face and a clear conscience. Come to her from this. If his security was the security of falsehood, it was horrible. If it meant that he had forgotten, it was worse. She would have liked to stop her ears to close her eyes, to shut out every sight and sound and suggestion of a world in which such things could be, and at the same time she was tormented by the desire to know more, to understand better, to feel herself less ignorant and inexpert in matters which made so much of the stuff of human experience. What did he mean by a moment's folly, a flash of madness? How did people enter on such adventures? How pass out of them without more visible traces of their havoc? Her imagination recoiled from the vision of a sudden debasing familiarity. It seemed to her that her thoughts would never again be pure. I swear to you, she heard Darrow saying, it was simply that and nothing more. She wondered at his composure, his competence, at his knowing so exactly what to say. No doubt men often had to make such explanations. They had the formulas by heart. A leaden lassitude descended on her. She passed from flame and torment into a colorless cold world where everything surrounding her seemed equally indifferent and remote. For a moment she simply ceased to feel. She became aware that Darrow was waiting for her to speak, and she made an effort to represent to herself the meaning of what he had just said, but her mind was as blank as a blurred mirror. Finally she brought out, I don't think I understand what you've told me. No, you don't understand," he returned with sudden bitterness, and on his lips the charge of incomprehension seemed an offense to her. I don't want to, about such things. He answered almost harshly, don't be afraid, you never will. And for an instant they faced each other like enemies, then the tears swelled in her throat at his reproach. You mean I don't feel things? I'm too hard? No, you're too high, too fine. Such things are too far from you. He paused as if conscious of the futility of going on with whatever he had meant to say, and again for a short space they confronted each other, no longer as enemies so it seemed to her, but as beings of different language who had forgotten the few words they had learned of each other's speech. Darrow broke the silence. It's best on all accounts that I should stay till tomorrow, but I needn't intrude on you, we needn't meet again alone. I only want to be sure I know your wishes. He spoke the short sentences in a level voice as though he were summing up the results of a business conference. Anna looked at him vaguely. My wishes? As to Owen. At that she started. They must never meet again. It's not likely they will. What I meant was that it depends on you to spare him. She answered steadily. He shall never know. And after another interval Darrow said, This is good-bye then. At the word she seemed to understand for the first time whether the flying moments had been leading them. Resentment and indignation died down, and all her consciousness resolved itself into the mere visual sense that he was there before her, near enough for her to lift her hand and touch him, and that in another instant the place where he stood would be empty. She felt a mortal weakness, a craven impulse to cry out to him to stay, a longing to throw herself into his arms, and take refuge there from the unendurable anguish he had caused her. Then the vision called up another thought. I shall never know what that girl has known, and the recoil of pride flung her back on the sharp edges of her anguish. Good-bye, she said, in dread lest he should read her face, and she stood motionless her head high while he walked to the door and went out. End of Chapter 29 Recording by Patty Cunningham