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BOOK V: CHAPTER XXXII
She drove from Miss Painter's to her own apartment. The
maid-servant who had it in charge had been apprised of her
coming, and had opened one or two of the rooms, and prepared
a fire in her bedroom. Anna shut herself in, refusing the
woman's ministrations. She felt cold and faint, and after
she had taken off her hat and cloak she knelt down by the
fire and stretched her hands to it.
In one respect, at least, it was clear to her that she would
do well to follow Sophy Viner's counsel. It had been an act
of folly to follow Owen, and her first business was to get
back to Givre before him. But the only train leaving that
evening was a slow one, which did not reach Francheuil till
midnight, and she knew that her taking it would excite
Madame de Chantelle's wonder and lead to interminable talk.
She had come up to Paris on the pretext of finding a new
governess for Effie, and the natural thing was to defer her
return till the next morning. She knew Owen well enough to
be sure that he would make another attempt to see Miss
Viner, and failing that, would write again and await her
answer: so that there was no likelihood of his reaching
Givre till the following evening.
Her sense of relief at not having to start out at once
showed her for the first time how tired she was. The
bonne had suggested a cup of tea, but the dread of having
any one about her had made Anna refuse, and she had eaten
nothing since morning but a sandwich bought at a buffet.
She was too tired to get up, but stretching out her arm she
drew toward her the arm-chair which stood beside the hearth
and rested her head against its cushions. Gradually the
warmth of the fire stole into her veins and her heaviness of
soul was replaced by a dreamy buoyancy. She seemed to be
seated on the hearth in her sitting-room at Givre, and
Darrow was beside her, in the chair against which she
leaned. He put his arms about her shoulders and drawing her
head back looked into her eyes. "Of all the ways you do
your hair, that's the way I like best," he said...
A log dropped, and she sat up with a start. There was a
warmth in her heart, and she was smiling. Then she looked
about her, and saw where she was, and the glory fell. She
hid her face and sobbed.
Presently she perceived that it was growing dark, and
getting up stiffly she began to undo the things in her bag
and spread them on the dressing-table. She shrank from
lighting the lights, and groped her way about, trying to
find what she needed. She seemed immeasurably far off from
every one, and most of all from herself. It was as if her
consciousness had been transmitted to some stranger whose
thoughts and gestures were indifferent to her...
Suddenly she heard a shrill tinkle, and with a beating heart
she stood still in the middle of the room. It was the
telephone in her dressing-room--a call, no doubt, from
Adelaide Painter. Or could Owen have learned she was in
town? The thought alarmed her and she opened the door and
stumbled across the unlit room to the instrument. She held
it to her ear, and heard Darrow's voice pronounce her name.
"Will you let me see you? I've come back--I had to come.
Miss Painter told me you were here."
She began to tremble, and feared that he would guess it from
her voice. She did not know what she answered: she heard
him say: "I can't hear." She called "Yes!" and laid the
telephone down, and caught it up again--but he was gone.
She wondered if her "Yes" had reached him.
She sat in her chair and listened. Why had she said that
she would see him? What did she mean to say to him when he
came? Now and then, as she sat there, the sense of his
presence enveloped her as in her dream, and she shut her
eyes and felt his arms about her. Then she woke to reality
and shivered. A long time elapsed, and at length she said
to herself: "He isn't coming."
The door-bell rang as she said it, and she stood up, cold
and trembling. She thought: "Can he imagine there's any use
in coming?" and moved forward to bid the servant say she
could not see him.
The door opened and she saw him standing in the drawing-
room. The room was cold and fireless, and a hard glare fell
from the wall-lights on the shrouded furniture and the white
slips covering the curtains. He looked pale and stern, with
a frown of fatigue between his eyes; and she remembered that
in three days he had travelled from Givre to London and
back. It seemed incredible that all that had befallen her
should have been compressed within the space of three days!
"Thank you," he said as she came in.
She answered: "It's better, I suppose----"
He came toward her and took her in his arms. She struggled
a little, afraid of yielding, but he pressed her to him, not
bending to her but holding her fast, as though he had found
her after a long search: she heard his hurried breathing.
It seemed to come from her own breast, so close he held her;
and it was she who, at last, lifted up her face and drew
down his.
She freed herself and went and sat on a sofa at the other
end of the room. A mirror between the shrouded window-
curtains showed her crumpled travelling dress and the white
face under her disordered hair
She found her voice, and asked him how he had been able to
leave London. He answered that he had managed--he'd
arranged it; and she saw he hardly heard what she was
saying.
"I had to see you," he went on, and moved nearer, sitting
down at her side.
"Yes; we must think of Owen----"
"Oh, Owen--!"
Her mind had flown back to Sophy Viner's plea that she
should let Darrow return to Givre in order that Owen might
be persuaded of the folly of his suspicions. The suggestion
was absurd, of course. She could not ask Darrow to lend
himself to such a fraud, even had she had the inhuman
courage to play her part in it. She was suddenly
overwhelmed by the futility of every attempt to reconstruct
her ruined world. No, it was useless; and since it was
useless, every moment with Darrow was pure pain...
"I've come to talk of myself, not of Owen," she heard him
saying. "When you sent me away the other day I understood
that it couldn't be otherwise--then. But it's not possible
that you and I should part like that. If I'm to lose you, it
must be for a better reason."
"A better reason?"
"Yes: a deeper one. One that means a fundamental disaccord
between us. This one doesn't--in spite of everything it
doesn't. That's what I want you to see, and have the
courage to acknowledge."
"If I saw it I should have the courage!"
"Yes: courage was the wrong word. You have that. That's why
I'm here."
"But I don't see it," she continued sadly. "So it's
useless, isn't it?--and so cruel..." He was about to speak,
but she went on: "I shall never understand it--never!"
He looked at her. "You will some day: you were made to feel
everything"
"I should have thought this was a case of not feeling----"
"On my part, you mean?" He faced her resolutely. "Yes, it
was: to my shame...What I meant was that when you've lived a
little longer you'll see what complex blunderers we all are:
how we're struck blind sometimes, and mad sometimes--and
then, when our sight and our senses come back, how we have
to set to work, and build up, little by little, bit by bit,
the precious things we'd smashed to atoms without knowing
it. Life's just a perpetual piecing together of broken
bits."
She looked up quickly. "That's what I feel: that you ought
to----"
He stood up, interrupting her with a gesture. "Oh, don't--
don't say what you're going to! Men don't give their lives
away like that. If you won't have mine, it's at least my
own, to do the best I can with."
"The best you can--that's what I mean! How can there be a
'best' for you that's made of some one else's worst?"
He sat down again with a groan. "I don't know! It seemed
such a slight thing--all on the surface--and I've gone
aground on it because it was on the surface. I see the
horror of it just as you do. But I see, a little more
clearly, the extent, and the limits, of my wrong. It's not
as black as you imagine."
She lowered her voice to say: "I suppose I shall never
understand; but she seems to love you..."
"There's my shame! That I didn't guess it, didn't fly from
it. You say you'll never understand: but why shouldn't you?
Is it anything to be proud of, to know so little of the
strings that pull us? If you knew a little more, I could
tell you how such things happen without offending you; and
perhaps you'd listen without condemning me."
"I don't condemn you." She was dizzy with struggling
impulses. She longed to cry out: "I DO understand! I've
understood ever since you've been here!" For she was aware,
in her own bosom, of sensations so separate from her
romantic thoughts of him that she saw her body and soul
divided against themselves. She recalled having read
somewhere that in ancient Rome the slaves were not allowed
to wear a distinctive dress lest they should recognize each
other and learn their numbers and their power. So, in
herself, she discerned for the first time instincts and
desires, which, mute and unmarked, had gone to and fro in
the dim passages of her mind, and now hailed each other with
a cry of mutiny.
"Oh, I don't know what to think!" she broke out. "You say
you didn't know she loved you. But you know it now.
Doesn't that show you how you can put the broken bits
together?"
"Can you seriously think it would be doing so to marry one
woman while I care for another?"
"Oh, I don't know...I don't know..." The sense of her
weakness made her try to harden herself against his
arguments.
"You do know! We've often talked of such things: of the
monstrousness of useless sacrifices. If I'm to expiate,
it's not in that way." He added abruptly: "It's in having to
say this to you now..."
She found no answer.
Through the silent apartment they heard the sudden peal of
the door-bell, and she rose to her feet. "Owen!" she
instantly exclaimed.
"Is Owen in Paris?"
She explained in a rapid undertone what she had learned from
Sophy Viner.
"Shall I leave you?" Darrow asked.
"Yes...no..." She moved to the dining-room door, with the
half-formed purpose of making him pass out, and then turned
back. "It may be Adelaide."
They heard the outer door open, and a moment later Owen
walked into the room. He was pale, with excited eyes: as
they fell on Darrow, Anna saw his start of wonder. He made a
slight sign of recognition, and then went up to his step-
mother with an air of exaggerated gaiety.
"You furtive person! I ran across the omniscient Adelaide
and heard from her that you'd rushed up suddenly and
secretly " He stood between Anna and Darrow, strained,
questioning, dangerously on edge.
"I came up to meet Mr. Darrow," Anna answered. "His leave's
been prolonged--he's going back with me."
The words seemed to have uttered themselves without her
will, yet she felt a great sense of freedom as she spoke
them.
The hard tension of Owen's face changed to incredulous
surprise. He looked at Darrow.
"The merest luck...a colleague whose wife was ill...I came
straight back," she heard the latter tranquilly explaining.
His self-command helped to steady her, and she smiled at
Owen.
"We'll all go back together tomorrow morning," she said as
she slipped her arm through his.
Content of BOOK V: CHAPTER XXXII [Edith Wharton's novel: The Reef]
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