Part 16

It was a hilarious dinner. Actually. Tom helped it. The Farmer person had an aptitude for puns. He told them with a Carolina accent. Tom knew of him, that he wore a straggly ribbon for a tie--gray and brown--tucked like a shoe-string into the yellow edge of his collar. He knew also that the collar button showed--it was black bone--and an adam’s-apple: that the shirt bulged and was half stiff, and wrinkled. Tom knew no more because his eyes rose no higher and no lower. They remained at their horizontal tension.

He packed them off to an extravaganza. No, he could not join them. He simply could not. They would enjoy it without him. One did not go to the theater for company--as one went to dinner. They were gone at last.

Tom was home like a spent arrow. Down the turbulent avenue with the trains clamoring overhead. He took off his clothes. He was exhausted, as if he had run that day, not been carried, to New York. In a moment, he slept.

He woke early and lay in his bed and understood.

David did not know it: he had done this thing with a knowledge surer than knowing. That much was clear. If David had had a doubt as to the true trivial purpose of Tom’s telegram, if he had so much as said: “There may be something important” he must have given Tom the chance to tell him. It was plain, David had sensed the lack of a particular business, guessed the purely social nature of Tom’s wish: keen willing, without knowing, to avoid it.

Was it stupidity? Tom thought not. The stupid person would not have understood so much. He would have said: “There may be something important.” Or, feeling the true inwardness of Tom’s importunity, he must have been passive before it. Beneath David’s ingenuous behavior, there worked a deliberate negation. That much seemed certain. Part of his will’s function it had been to hide from David what it was all about, since his will was willing to cause Tom’s distress, and David conscious would not have been willing to cause it, David’s innocence a cloak over himself. But the detail of his meeting Farmer? Tom believed that in the wide world of occurrence the searching will could always find material for its act.

The important thing now was to slur over the affair. A great hurt, an inexplicable wound: a pin prick that somehow had touched his heart--one could not talk of such improbable things.

He saw David the next day.

“Really, man, why do you insist on foisting such impossible persons on yourself and me?”

David squirmed. “I can’t say I like him either. But he seemed begging to come along.”

“He is the dullest man I have seen in a year. I didn’t cut short my trip, you know, to dine with your stray cats.”

“I suspected you couldn’t go him.... I knew _something_ was the matter....”

... That was long since: that could not happen now. Tom sat over his sleeping friend on the floor and had this thought: “He feels differently now.” Of a sudden a twinge strangely akin to guilt went through him. What was he thinking about indeed? He had wanted to be with David those idle days. David had not had the same wish so strongly since he had spoiled their first evening together. Perhaps now in a like case he might wish more strongly. What was there unusual--guilty--in that? He had no desire to seal David hermetically from the world. Surely he showed the contrary intentions. Was he not introducing him to his friends? David had had a full ten days, and he ten empty ones. Another time, David might be the eager one. What was he troubling himself about?...

David lay still and asleep on the floor. David was up, brandishing his arms, and his eyes sleepless as a day after hours of sun.

“I am off for a spin.” David was devoted to his bicycle. “What are you doing this afternoon?”

Tom seemed to search up and down with his head. “I can’t think of anything.”

“Good! Then, you’ll join us on our walk later on. We’re going to Bronx Park: and have a supper of popcorn--three colors--hot-dogs and sauerkraut and ice-cream soda.”

“Who are?”

“Why, Cornelia and I--and you.”

“I don’t like the bill-o’-fare.”

David’s face went a shade less light.

“Besides,” Tom caught himself, “I have an engagement. I promised to have tea with Mrs. Duffield. Fennido is to be there. She asked me specially to bring you, too.”

“You don’t seem to go out as much with Cornelia and me, as you used to.”

“My dear fellow, I am getting busier all the time. You know that. If you don’t understand, who should? You know that there goes into a date like this something other than free choice.” He walked up and down. David stood still. “Will you come?” Tom asked.

“I have this engagement with Cornelia.... If you ask Cornelia also.” Tom’s eyes dropped. He hummed a few high notes of a popular melody. He found his chair, slapped the Sunday paper into its proper folds on his knees.

“One doesn’t take one’s family to these chatters, Davie. Fortunately, since Cornelia would have to be dragged. How unreasonable you are.”

David stood motionless. He was wondering if Tom told all the truth. Tom took the offensive: “I’ll be blessed, Davie, if you’re not thinking evil things about me now. I don’t give enough care to my Sister. I don’t bring her enough into my life, into our life.” He sat back in his chair and thrust his sharp question into the indecisive vagueness of David’s “Not so?”

“Why--I didn’t say that.... But why do we go out together so seldom now? We three. Why is Cornelia here so little?”

“Why don’t you invite her?”

“I always thought that was for you to do.”

“The truth is, David, you see Cornelia plenty.” Tom had achieved the tune he wanted. He was out of the talk. By stress of David he would manage to remain out. “I have nothing against your friendship with Sis. I am happy about it. I had something to do with making it, you may remember. It is good for her--and she means a lot. But you must broaden out, man; at your time of life you must not crib yourself, even with a Cornelia. You have no idea of the gamut of human relationships: of their variance and wonder.... Why do you think I wished you to come with me, this afternoon? You see how frank I am. Cornelia you can have any time and always. But Laura Duffield will get weary of inviting you to meet her friends, if you continue to show such nimbleness in avoiding her. That is precisely what you need. Yes--a lot more, just now, than you need Sister.”

Tom was unanswerable. He did not press the matter further. He read the news. But David later trudging the deserted side-street, between silent walls, could not convince himself there was no answer.

“Cornelia,” he said, “come over to our place and spend Wednesday evening.”

“I have an engagement, Davie.”

“Then come Thursday. Or Friday.”

Cornelia stopped. “Let’s sit on that bench,” she said. “Quick!--before some one else----” Her first remark had been low, serious. A touch of brightness in her last words that made David look at her. As they sat, it was gone.

Carriages flowed before them. Motionless coachmen, immobile ladies, cramped frilled children passed like wooden figures in a carrousel. Only the horses lived. And yet not all of them, since their docked tails and their cruelly reined necks had an air of artifice.

“Listen, David. I want to speak to you. I should love to accept your invitation. But ...” she stopped.

David felt a strange commotion. Something within him was full of panic, wanted to get away. At most a fraternal fault was going to be found with Tom. Why then did he have the sense that it was he who was going to be accused--and more still, justly? These gusts of emotion were ridiculous. Cornelia had as yet said nothing. Yet, at that moment, if a man had come up to him and asked: “Is Thomas Rennard your friend?” David would have stammered. Cornelia was speaking.

“You know, Davie--it was natural enough--when Tom lived alone, he used always to come to me. I dropped in occasionally to look after him--his curtains or his linen--or of course, if he wasn’t well. Then, he’d be bundled over to my place. But I had ‘our home.’ Now, he has a real, liveable place--the better of us two. But I have the feeling, David, that this has not altered the old custom. Tom does not suggest my spending evenings with you.” Having said so little, she was afraid she had said too much. She went on: “Oh, course, he still comes to me.”

“Alone, then. We have not been together in your place since Tom is back from his vacation.”

“Yes, he comes alone.” Cornelia spoke this slowly, pensively. Her next words trembled swift upon each other as if escaping her thought. “I have the idea that perhaps he likes to have his place apart---- It was that way with his old room. When he wanted me, he came to me. He knew I was not that way: that I was always glad to see him. I guess, don’t you think, he still needs his corner for being solitary?”

“But, Cornelia--why then, share a----”

“Oh, that is different, Davie. Women are in the way.”

“I don’t feel that you are. Cornelia.”

“He does. He is a strange dear, you know. He feels that--that women are in the way. He must.”

David’s inexorable logic was a burden to Cornelia who loved it--even as his candor hurt though she was nursing it. “Then you won’t come, next week?”

“Not until Tom asks me. Only the first time I will feel like that. The first time, it seems to me, the invitation had better come from him.”

She wanted to talk on. She had so much to ask and to confess. She had not been invited to help fix their rooms. This was a most hurting difference. She had concealed it. She felt that her words with David had been stupid. Better silence than her feeble approach to speaking. What she wanted David to see she had most hidden. All her moods toward him were of that sort. Always, always. If she wanted to give herself, there she was turning away. Of course Tom was not helpless in such a matter as arranging his apartment. He had his own ideas. She had been sure at least that she would be consulted. One afternoon she came: “How do you like things?” They were complete. “Splendidly, Tom.” That was all. It was not the artist who was offended. The artist in Cornelia could always be disposed of. But the woman--the sister. She realized that David also had been but perfunctorily consulted. This was still _Tom’s_ place. Thinking of that Cornelia forgot her own slight.

She looked at the boy beside her, looked up at him. They sat on the ground. A pine tree rose straight above them. David studied the split roll in his hand, with its long red sausage sticking out at both ends.

“I never know where to begin,” he chuckled.

Why could she not at least ask questions? What did they talk of, idle nights? What was Tom’s attitude at home toward David? _Tom’s place._ Did David feel this?

“First you must even up the roll and the sausage--bite off both ends. Like this.”

“That’s the rule?”

“The rule....” She was like a woman carrying a great load upon her back afraid to ease it, shift it a bit from the sore spot lest it crush her. She was silent.

David ate methodically. He enjoyed eating. The bite of the mustard was good on his tender tongue. He felt Cornelia beside him eating, not knowing she ate. The “hot dog” was gone: he felt in her silence a need of question which aroused his own.

He wanted to know the truth of this strange problem between Tom and his sister. He wanted to know if Cornelia was really somewhat sentimental, somewhat “the old woman.” He wanted to be sure that she was; that Tom was right, loving her, prizing her, putting her in her place. He wanted to be sure that she was not.... He did not want to lose a tithe of his respect for her--and for himself, sitting beside her close and wanting no change....

A pause, with the weight of their questions clear and compact--closing them in. He was beside her coming close. She was open. Could they not be open in this silence, whatever came? A tree, warm air, no one. Could they not stay open, whatever was born?

Cornelia stirred with anguish. She was afraid: she was afraid to look at David: for she was very open. He would pour in through her eyes, if her eyes touched him. All he--into her all. Why not? Her answer was a word of escape.

“----that party, tell me about it----” Escape from herself since already, she knew, David was within her. She could not drive him away. She had no will to. She could escape from herself.

“----I am not made for parties. But, oh, Cornelia? There was a man, a wonderful man! He played piano for us. He said----”

Their spirits had met. Upon the tiny separateness of their questions of Tom their spirits had met and tremorously touched. Now, their spirits floated in opposite directions; timidly, still eye to eye, but with contrary wings propelling them away.

They clasped hands.

“Good-by.” “Good-by, Davie.”

The true psychic reaction of their separateness together came to them both.... David wondered if Tom was right. He had a good time with Cornelia. Nothing fecund about it. Being with her led, if to anything, to gaps and to stops invisible, before which always they turned away. “Perhaps she is sterile.” “Why doesn’t she get married?” Sudden he had a grievance against Cornelia. Life to them must be two separate things. He was happy with her, but even that was a mere emptiness he would with youthful eagerness have sold for a rich battle of pain. She was a woman, yet no woman to him.... Cornelia walked away, knowing what David felt. All the way back to her rooms she felt David moving toward Tom, David doubting, David beginning to patronize and to take her in circumstance and reason.

She thought his thoughts. She followed his eyes as they turned away from hers, as they turned away from her. Her own were filled only with what filled his. Seeing with his eyes she saw her enemy. She saw her brother....

IX

David did not understand or question the spirit in which, the following night, he went with Tom to dine at the apartment of Constance Bardale.

She had watched him with large eyes at the table, where he sat mostly silent and very busy with the food that he found delicious. She had manoeuvered him later aside from the chattering group. They talked quietly together. David had no sense of her as yet, beyond the silk cold sheath of an earth-colored dress fending a woman’s body.

But he did not suffer. He said to himself: “I don’t know really what to say to her. But it goes all right.” He was pleased at this, grateful to her. He showed it.

The opposing group broke into laughter. It broke its confines. A tall massive man stood over the two.

“Constance,” he said, “you must hear this.” A thick, foreign accent marred his otherwise perfect English. He was an Austrian: head of the Stegending Galleries on Fifth Avenue where second-rate examples of second-rate old masters fetched first-rate prices. He stood very close to Constance Bardale, who looked askance at him with sly knowledge lighting the flecks in her gray eyes. She seemed to be saying: “So this is the best excuse you could find for breaking into my tête-à-tête? Don’t you see it is hopeless? No, of course, you wouldn’t.”

The Austrian’s sally had its success. It was a breach toward the hostess through which now the others began to flow upon her. The guests shifted near. David remarked how directly Mr. Stegending spoke to Miss Bardale. Unlike himself. But he took comfort in his partial isolation. He rested back in it as he would have in his chair had his self-consciousness not made him crane stiffly forward.

“It was Fennido’s idea,” said Stegending.

“I assure you, Karl, it was Con’s.” Fennido balanced himself with grace. In a half courtesy he thrust out an indicating palm toward his hostess.

“Mine?”

“Now wait.” Richard Fennido rose to his full plump height. David saw how large his buttocks were, like a woman’s: his small blue eyes peered from beside the curved nose like a bird’s. He was poising evidently for his sort of flight--in words.

“I said it was your idea, Constance, and I can prove it.”

A little woman at his side laughed prematurely. Her eyes seemed fixed in a sort of perpetual fright. This was Mrs. May Delano, and her great fear was not to appreciate and not to appear at home. Fennido began.

David found, as he talked, no need of the effort of attention. This Mr. Fennido did not notice him at all. He seemed to hold Constance Bardale with his eyes, the group about him with his shoulders that were curiously sharp above so plump a body. He was done. There was a breaking up. A new shredding of words, a new scramble from which another voice emerged, momently mastered attention, sank away.

David watched Tom. Not consciously so much as because he nearly always saw him, when Tom was there to see. He felt a strange thing. Tom, the casual, easy Tom, was uneasy. He was fretted by some sharp discomfort. His eyes wandered, his feet tapped, he lighted a cigarette and threw it away. Fennido talked again. A great talker. Tom gathered the sharp points of his nerves together: he was once more composed but with a tension that had in it the power of some prefatory move: almost a charge. In the ensuing scatter of minds, Tom was busy gathering them together, gathering them to him. Ill-at-ease no longer. He was speaking....

He spoke for a while, wreathed in the comfortable silence of the others. David’s eyes, moved by an impulse he was not conscious of, wandered. They met the eyes of Marcia Duffield. He looked away, shocked by a current which had flowed momently between them. David knew Tom’s words held him unpleasantly; at times held him not at all. What was the interest in them, what their motive, beyond Tom’s wish to speak and to hold interest? David sensed this: sensed the rebuke he felt in this for Tom. As his eyes went back to the eyes of Marcia Duffield it came to him that she was feeling similar things with him. In the brief meeting of their eyes, it was as if they had discovered one another in themselves.

This was absurd and impossible! Marcia Duffield? David’s mind could not grasp this flashing intuition; it slipped leaving no conscious mark. He looked harder at the others in the unwitting need not to look again at her. Already, what he could carry with him of that strange momentary kinship across the room was reduced to the sense of bright, black, hard eyes, filled with a wistful question.

He was aware of King Van Ness: perhaps because that solid gentleman was always looking at Marcia. David knew who he was: Junior partner in Van Ness, Stone and Company--son of a great banker, doubtless a millionaire. Van Ness sat as if between two fascinations: the voluble one that was principally Tom, who at times caught him and sent him stiffer forward in his chair; the silent one, Marcia, who never looked at him, but the stirring of whose hands and mouth was at once reflected in his ways--like the image in a dull steel mirror. Van Ness was heavy and tall, not stout. His big bones and the heft of his arms and legs gave the impression of extraordinary weight. Their heaviness proceeded rather from his mood than their own heaviness. Van Ness was heavy, not because he was great in bulk, but because he was small in spirit. The unlit stretch of him was a sag and a pull downward because he lacked the lift of mental resilience. His head stated this. The forehead was large and bulging. The brown eyes opened wide and were far apart. The nose was long, straight, clumsily rather than strongly molded with unmoving nostrils. Van Ness wore a black mustache, a straight-cropt bristly brush: his mouth was small and unperturbed; his chin jutted forward with a counterfeit of power that was mere lack of curiosity, unresistance to the proprieties and manners birth had brought him. This was King Van Ness: supremely gentlemanly, supremely rich, supremely dull--impregnable. He stirred in the talk of Fennido and Tom as a heavy vessel creaks at anchor in a choppy sea....

David heard Tom again.

“We had it out, until seven o’clock that night. I came home exhausted.”

Tom glanced at David. Not long or sure enough to see him turn pale.

“But it can’t be! It’s a lie!” David said to himself. He remembered the evening Tom referred to. He had come home at six. Tom lay on the couch. In excellent spirits. They had gone to Brown’s Chop-House for dinner. And yet--David, as usual, had no positive proof. Perhaps a mere exaggeration, a mistake in the day. Why was he always so eager--so afraid--to catch Tom in a trivial falsehood?

Marcia was speaking to him. Van Ness had roused himself to a rare gust of words. Serious words, half-angry. The question of labor-unions. Marcia drew Tom aside.

David saw how her eyes were close on him and how her breast stirred faintly. He saw that Tom was watching only with his ears: his eyes wandered to the talking banker. In a pause, “You must have had your wits about you!” he threw in. He had heard every word.