CHAPTER XXXII
RALPH
Fay stayed. Lily's farewell note to Hagar merely said that after allhe was not sailing with her and that she hoped Hagar would let himbe among her friends. He made a good friend. Fay himself wrote toher, stating that he would be much in New York that autumn and winterand asking if he might come to see her. She answered yes, but thatshe herself was often away; he would have to take the chance of notfinding her. He came, and she was away, came again, and she was away;then she wrote and asked him to dine with her on such an evening. Hewent, and it was an evening to mark with a white stone, to keep a lampburning before in the mind. He asked how he could find out where shewould be, since it was evident that she was speaking here and there.She nodded; she was working hard that autumn, oftenest in company withRose Darragh, but often, too, with Elizabeth Eden and Marie Caton, withRachel and Molly Josslyn. She showed him a list of meetings.
He thanked her and copied it down. "I see that your book will presentlybe out."
"Yes. I hope that you will like it."
"I think that I shall. How hard you work!"
"Not harder than others. The secret is to learn concentration and tofill all the interstices with the balm of leisure. And to work withlove of the World to Be."
That November, together with Rose Darragh and Denny and Elizabeth, shewas often speaking in the poor and crowded sections of the great city.Sometimes they talked to the people in dim, small halls, sometimes inlarger, brighter places, sometimes there were street meetings. She grewaware that often Fay was present. Sometimes, when the meeting was over,he joined her; it began to be no infrequent thing his going uptown uponthe car with her. She began to wonder.... Once in a street meeting shesaw him near her as she spoke. It was a good crowd and interested.As she brought her brief, straight talk to a conclusion, Elizabethwhispered to her, "Lucien couldn't come. Is there any one else whocould speak?" Hagar's eyes met John Fay's. "We lack a speaker," shesaid. "Couldn't you--won't you?" He nodded, stepped upon the box,and made a good speech. His drawling, telling periods, his smiling,sea-blue eyes, a story that he told and a blow or two out from theshoulder caught the fancy and then the good-will of the crowd.
An old woman, Irish, wrinkled, her hands on her hips, called out tohim. "Be yez the new man? If yez are, I loike yez foine!"
He laughed at and with her. "Do you? Then you'll have to become a newwoman to match me!"
The November dusk was closing in when the crowd dispersed. Elizabethwith the other woman speaker faced toward the Settlement. "Can't youcome with me, Hagar?"
"No, not to-night. There are letters and letters--"
Fay asked if he might go uptown with her.
She nodded. "Yes, if you like. Good-night, Elizabeth--good-night, MaryWare; good-night, good-night!"
They took a surface car. She sat for a minute with her eyes shut.
"Are you very tired?"
She smiled. "No, I am not tired. After all, why should it fatigue morethan standing in cathedrals, walking through art galleries? But I wasthinking of something.... Let us sit quietly for a while."
The minutes went by. At last she spoke. "I liked what you said, and theway you said it. Thank you."
"You do not need to thank me. Had I been less convinced, I might havespoken because you asked me to. As it is, I was willing to serve thetruth."
"Ah, good!..."
There was another silence; then she began to speak of the light andthunder of the city about them, and then of a book she was reading.When they left the car it was dark--they walked westward together.
"Have you heard from Lily?"
"Yes. She and Robert are going first to the Riviera, then to Sicily."
"Both are very lovely. Why do you not change your mind and go?"
"I like it better here."
The evening was dark, clear and windy, with the stars trooping out.
"When," asked Hagar, "are you going to build another bridge?"
He pondered it. "I've been building for a long time and I'm goingto build for another long time. Do you grudge me this half-year inbetween?"
"I do not. I was only wondering--" She broke off and began to talkabout the Josslyns whom, it had turned out, he knew and liked. Twoweeks ago she had dined there with him, and Christopher had takenoccasion to tell her that John Fay was about the rightest all right heknew.... She had not really needed the telling. She had a good deal ofinsight herself.
They came to the great arched door of the apartment house, and thereshe told Fay good-night. When he was gone, she stood for a moment inthe paved lobby with its palm or two, her eyes upon the clear darknesswithout; then she turned to the elevator.
Upstairs, within her own doors, Thomasine met her. "Oh, Hagar! It's Mr.Ralph--"
"Ralph!"
Ralph had been abroad, and she had not seen him for a long time.
"Yes!" said Thomasine. "His boat came in yesterday evening. And awhileago he telephoned to ask you if he might come to dinner with you, and Ididn't know what to say, and I told him you wouldn't be in till late;and he said did I think you'd mind his coming, and I didn't know whatto say, so I said, 'No,' I couldn't think so; and he asked what timeyou dined--and it's nearly seven now--"
"Well, you couldn't say anything else," said Hagar. "Only I devoutlyhope--" She moved toward her own room. "I'll dress quickly."
"And don't you think," said Thomasine, "that I'd better not dine withyou--"
"I think just the contrary," answered Hagar, and vanished.
Ralph came. He was the Ralph of three years ago, of that last autumnweek at Gilead Balm, only with certain things accentuated. He wasricher, he had more and more a name in finance; his state was nowloudly and perpetually proud of him. There was an indefinablehardening.... He was very handsome, Thomasine thought; he lookedtremendously Somebody. He had been around the world--his physician hadsent him off because of a threatened breaking-down. Apparently thathad been staved off, pushed at least into a closet to stay there a fewyears. He talked well, with vigorous, clipped sentences, of Australiaand China and India. Hagar, sitting opposite him in a filmy black gown,kept the talk upon travel. She had not seen him for eighteen months,and before then, for a long while, their meetings had been casual, coldand stiff enough, with upon his side an absurd hauteur. The eighteenmonths had at least dissipated that.... Dinner over, they went forcoffee back to the apartment, and Thomasine determinedly disappeared.Old Gilead Balm talk was in Thomasine's mind. Ralph Coltsworth andHagar Ashendyne were to mate--Old Miss had somehow kept that in theair, even so long, long ago.
In the grave and restful room with its shaded lights Hagar poured a cupof coffee for her cousin and gave it to him.
Taking it, he took for a moment also her two hands, long, slender, andvery finely made. "Ringless!" he said.
Hagar, withdrawing them, poured her own coffee. "I have never cared towear jewels. A necklace and an old brooch or two of my mother's arealmost the only things I have."
Ralph looked about the room. The bough of flaming maple was gone andin its place rested a great branch of cone-bearing white pine.
Her eyes followed his. "I can see the forest through it. Do youremember the great pine above the spring?"
His gaze still roamed. "And you call this home?"
"Yes, it is home."
"Without a man?"
She smiled. "Do you think there can be no home without a man?"
He drank his coffee; then, putting down the cup, rose and moved aboutthe deep and wide place. She watched him from her armchair, long andslim as Diana in her black robe. He looked at the walls with their rowsof cabined thought and the pictures above, at the great library tablewith its tokens of work, and then, standing before the wide, clearwindows, at the multitudinous lights of the world without. A sound asof a distant sea came through the glass. "And without a child?"
Her clear voice sounded behind him. "You are mistaken," she said. "Mywork is my child. One human being serves and expresses in one way andone in another, a
nd I think it is not the office which is higher orlower, but only the mind with which the office is performed. Did I evermeet a man whom I loved and who was my comrade, and who loved me andsaw in me his comrade, my home would probably open to that man. Andwe two might say, 'Now in cleanliness and joy and awe will we bringa child into our home.' ... I think that would be a happy thing tohappen. But if it does not happen, none the less will I have my earthlyhome as I have my unearthly, and be happy in it, and none the less willI do world-work and rejoice in the doing. And if it happened, it wouldbe but added bliss--it would be by no means all the bliss, or all theworld, nor should it be. We grow larger than that.... And now, havinganswered your question, come! let us sit down and talk about what youare doing and when you are going down to Hawk Nest. I had a letter fromGilead Balm last week--from Aunt Serena."
He came and sat down. "The last time I was at Gilead Balm--two yearsand a half ago--they said they had ceased to write to you."
"They have begun again," said Hagar calmly. "Dear Ralph, we live in thetwentieth century. You yourself are here to-night, eating my bread andsalt."
"Have you been to Gilead Balm?"
"Yes, I went last summer, and again the summer before. Not for long,for a little while. Grandfather and grandmother and Aunt Serena saidsome hard things, but I think they enjoyed saying them, and I couldramble over the old place, and, indeed, I think, though they wouldnever have said so, that they were glad to have me there. I will notquarrel. They are so feeble--the Colonel and Old Miss. I do not thinkthey can live many years longer."
"Are you going again this summer?"
"Yes."
They talked again of his journey and recovered health, of New York,of the political and financial condition of the country; or ratherhe gave his view upon this and she sat studying him, her fine, longhands folded in her lap. What with question and remark she kept himfor a long time upon general topics, or upon his increasing part inthe subtle machinery behind so much that made general talk;--but atlast, skilfully as she fenced, he came back to personal life and tohis resentment of all her attitude.... He had thought that time andabsence had cured his passion for her. Even a month ago he had toldhimself that there was left only family interest, old boyish memories.He disapproved intensely of the way she thought of things; she was notat all the wife for him. Sylvie Carter was--he would go to see Sylviejust as soon as he reached New York.... And then, upon the boat, comingover, it was of Hagar that he dreamed all the time. Like a gatheringthunderstorm it was all coming back. Landing in New York he had onlythought of her, all last night and to-day. It was an obsession, he toldhimself that--he could see that once he had her, possessed her, ownedher, he would fight her through life ... or she would fight him ... andall the same the obsession had him, whirling him like a leaf in storm.
He spoke with a suddenness startling to himself. "What is between usis all this fog of damnable ideas that has arisen in the last twentyyears! If it wasn't for that you would marry me."
Hagar took the jade Buddha from the table and weighed it in her hands."Oh, give me patience--" she murmured.
He rose and began to pace the floor. The physical, the passionate sideof him was in storm. He was not for nothing a Coltsworth. Coltsworthswere dominating people, they were masterful. They wished to prevail,body and point of view, point of view, perhaps, no less than body. Theywere not content to have their scheme of life and to allow anothera like liberty; their scheme must lie upon and smother under theother's. They wished submissiveness of mind--the other person's mind.They wished it in their relations with men--Ralph himself preferredsubservient officials, subservient secretaries, subservient boards,subservient legislators. He preferred men to listen in the club, heliked a deferential murmur from his acquaintance. He had followers whomhe called friends. A certain number of these truly admired him; he wasto them feudal and splendid. He was a Coltsworth and Coltsworths likedto dominate the minds and fortunes of men. When it came to collectivewomankind, they might have said that they had really never consideredthe question--naturally men dominated women. To them God was male. Theywould have agreed with the Kentucky editor that the feminist movementwas an audacious attempt to change the sex of Deity.... The thing thatangered the Coltsworths through and through was Revolt. Political,economic, intellectual, spiritual--Revolt was Revolt, whateveradjective went before! Rage boiled up in the mind of the master. Andwhen the revolted was not perturbed, or anxious or fluttered, butstood aloof and was aloof, when the revolt was successful, when therebellion had become revolution and the new flag was up and the citadelimpregnable--the sense of wrath and injury overflowed like the waves ofPhlegethon. It overflowed now with Ralph.
He turned from the window. "All this rebellion of women is unthinkable!"
Hagar looked at him somewhat dreamily. "However, it has occurred."
"Things can't change like that--"
"The answer to that is that they have changed."
She sat and smiled at him, quite eluding him, a long way off. "Do youthink that only mind in man rebels? Mind in woman does it too. Andit comes about that there are always more rebels, men and women. Weare quite numerous to-day.... But there are women who do not rebel,as there are men. There are many women who will grant you your everypremise, who are horrified in company with you, horrified at usothers.... Why do you not wish to mate among your own kind?"
"I wish to mate with _you_!"
She shook her head. "That you cannot do.... There is being drawn aline. Some men and women are on one side of it, and some men and womenare on the other side of it. There is taking place a sorting-out.... Inthe things that make the difference you are where you were when Troyfell. I cannot go back, down all those slopes of Time."
"I am afire for you."
"You wake in me no answering fire." She rose. "I will talk about muchwith you, but I will talk no longer about love. You may take yourchoice. Stay and talk as my old playmate and cousin, or say good-nightand good-bye."
"If I go," said Ralph hoarsely, "I shall not come again--I shall notask you again--"
"Ralph, Ralph! do you think I shall weep for that?... You do think thatI shall weep for that!... You are mad!"
"By God!" said Ralph, and quivered, "I wish that we were together in adark wood--I wish that you were in a captured city, and I was comingthrough the broken gate--" Suddenly he crossed the few feet betweenthem, caught and crushed her in his arms, bruising her lips with his."Just be a woman--you dark, rich thing with wings--"
Hagar had a physical strength for which he was unprepared. Exertingit, she freed herself, and in the same instant and as deliberately asswiftly, struck him across the face with her open hand. "Good-bye, toyou!" she said in a thrilling voice.
They stared at each other for a moment across space. Then Hagar saidquietly. "You had better go, Ralph...."
He went. When the door had closed behind him, she stood very stillfor a few moments, her eyes upon the pine bough. The excess of colourslowly ebbed from her face, the anger died in her eyes. "Oh, all ofus poor, struggling souls!" she said. Obeying some inner impulse shefirst lowered, then extinguished the lights in the room and moved toone of the windows. She threw up the sash and the keen, autumnal nightstreamed in upon her. The window-seat was low and broad. She sat therewith her head thrown back against the frame, and let the night and thehigh, starry heaven and the moving air absorb and lift her. It was veryclear and there seemed depths on depths above. Hyades and Pleiades, andthe Charioteer, and Andromeda Bound, and Perseus climbing the steepsky. "We are all bound and limited--we are all on the lower slopes ofTime--down in the fens with the lower nature. It is only a questionof more or less--Aspiration born and strengthening, or Aspiration yetin the womb. Then what room for anger because another is where I havebeen--because another, coming upward, rests awhile in the dungeon thatwas also mine, perhaps it was yesterday, perhaps it was ages ago?...Where I am to-day will seem dungeon enough to that which one day Ishall be.... And so with him, and so with us all...."
A mon
th after this she found among her letters one morning foursmoothly ecstatic pages from Sylvie Carter. Ralph had asked Sylvie tomarry him, and Sylvie had said Yes. Sylvie wrote that she expected tobe very happy, and that she was going to do her best to make Ralphso, too. The next day brought a half-page from Ralph. It stated thatsomething Hagar had said had set him to thinking. She had said thatthere was being a line drawn and that some men and some women werefinding themselves together on either side. He thought there was truthin it, and that, after all, one should marry within one's class;otherwise a perpetual clash of opinions, fatal to love. There followeda terse announcement of his engagement to Sylvie, and he signedhimself, "Your affectionate cousin, Ralph Coltsworth."
But it was Old Miss whose letter was wholly aggrieved and indignant....