If Lora’s mind had been consecrated to the preservation of enigmas a considerable portion of her waking thoughts, as well as her dreams, from her twentieth to her thirtieth year, might easily have been devoted to the several questionable aspects of her management of life during that period which began when Pete Halliday accosted her at Mrs. Ranley’s party, and ended when she sank into a seat in the day coach of the Chicago express. But in the first place she never at any time had the slightest idea that life was susceptible, in any broad sense, to management; and in the second place enigmas bored her. With her the fact that a question was complicated and difficult was proof that it deserved only to be ignored; and if the question were posed by the past instead of the present or the immediate future it wasn’t worthwhile even to listen to it. So in the hospital bed in New York she not only made no attempt to retrace to their sources the threads of accident and design that had led her into catastrophe, but even devised no solution of her present difficulties until one was offered to her through the interest of Doctor Nielsen; the day she looked out of the window and saw Anne Whitman and Steve Adams drive off in his roadster she went downstairs to get the things she had so carefully deposited in Anne’s room only three days earlier, and then calmly arranged herself for her afternoon nap; the broken baby-carriage wheel, which Albert Scher, his pockets inside out, despairingly and clumsily repaired with picture wire, produced in her one sole reaction, an added caution in avoiding bumps and negotiating curbs; when Max Kadish died she let his family take his body without a struggle, not enough interested in Albert’s feeling of outrage to try to comprehend it; and when Lewis Kane insisted that the four-page contract be signed before they proceeded to the execution of their project she would have affixed her name without reading more than a paragraph or two if he had not made her go through it from beginning to end. She kept the copy he gave her though, in a wooden box which contained an assortment of trinkets, some sketches Albert had made of her, a poem Max had written, and her snapshots.
She had been called a whore twice: once by Steve Adams and once by Max’s sister Leah. That created no problem whatever. She knew what a whore was of course: a woman who lets a man go to bed with her for money—just as a rug is a piece of carpet you put on the floor without tacking it down, or a doctor is a man who treats people when they’re sick. That she should have been called a whore neither offended nor amused her; it was simply nonsense. She had entirely forgotten that Albert Scher had once called her a prostitute, but then she seldom bothered to remember what Albert said on any subject. She had a suspicion that he remembered mighty little of it himself.
She was surprised that Albert and Lewis Kane became good friends and apparently had a good opinion of each other. This happened after she and the children had moved to the country, to the house on the edge of the village of Maidstone which Lewis paid for, with the title in her name.
She never felt that she understood what people were trying to do or why they were doing it, but Lewis Kane especially was a puzzle. He would prepare an elaborate contract, with intricate provisions against every imaginable circumstance, regarding a child not yet born, not conceived even; and on the other hand he would pay thousands of dollars for a house, with lawns and gardens and a garage, a meadow and a grove of birch trees, and put it in her name apparently without a thought. She could mortgage it or sell it or give it away, anything she wanted to. That seemed to her stupid; when one day she told him so he merely smiled and said she couldn’t do any of those things.
“Why not?” she demanded. “I own it.”
“Try it.”
“Oh. I see. You’ve done something legal.”
“Not at all. Just try it. Tomorrow morning, say.”
“But I don’t want to tomorrow morning. There’s no reason.”
“That’s just the point. How can you do anything there’s no reason for? That’s why I say you couldn’t do it.”
She still thought it was stupid.
The house stood at the top of a gentle rise, where the road west out of Maidstone lifts itself in readiness for the long descent into the valley where the main line of the railroad runs. On a clear day she could see the hills bordering the Hudson to the west, and toward the north a corner of one of the reservoirs, lined with evergreens, was in plain view. The grove sheltered both the garden and the house from the winter winds, and a high hedge served as a screen from the road in front. But from the windows of her room on the second floor Lora could see the cars go by, over the top of the hedge. On that floor were four bedrooms, not counting the maid’s; the room downstairs that had been intended for a bedroom she had arranged as a playroom for the children. Stan, whose last name Lora knew but could not pronounce, a black-eyed Pole with a little tuft of black hair in the middle of his chin, who did the outdoor work and tended the furnace and could drive the car when necessary, lived on the other side of the village with his wife and seven or eight children. When Lora asked him one day if he didn’t think that was too many he shrugged his shoulders, screwed up one eye, and said impassively, “It don’t matter what I think, she’s as full as a frog.”
He’s a sensible man, Lora thought, I must ask him to bring his boys with him some day to play with Roy. A week or so later they came, three of them, straight and slim with flashing black eyes. Not more than ten minutes had passed before Lora heard a frightful uproar in the back and ran out to find two of the visitors rolling on the grass locked in a deadly embrace, screaming and jabbing at each other. Roy’s velocipede lay on its side nearby, and Roy himself was standing calmly with his hands in his pockets, watching the battle with detached interest. He explained that they were trying to decide who should have the first ride on the velocipede. The third visitor, the biggest and handsomest, was jumping up and down shouting encouragement to both combatants, while their father was methodically raking the grass not far off without bothering to look at them. The experiment was not repeated.
So far as Maidstone was concerned, Lora was a widow; her name was Mrs. Lora Winter. But for the insistence of Lewis Kane she would not have bothered with the transformation of the Miss into the Mrs., but seeing that obviously it would simplify matters she did not oppose it. The first autumn, when Roy started to school, he came home one day in October and demanded to be told the name, occupation, and date and place of demise of his father. Lora supposed it was a question of official records; but no, he explained that the other boys were all talking about their fathers and he wanted to talk about his; besides, they asked questions.
“It’s none of their business, your father is dead,” said Lora.
Roy stood, keeping his eyes on her, without speaking. She went over to him and put her hand on his head and turned his face up.
“You don’t tell me any big lies, do you?” she said.
His head wiggled from side to side under her hand.
“All right, I don’t tell you any either. I can’t tell you about your father now, but someday we’ll have a long talk about it, so if the boys ask questions just tell them to mind their own business. Fathers don’t matter a bit. They’re just a nuisance.”
That had faint repercussions, the first one coming the following Sunday, when Albert Scher arrived for his customary visit and Roy informed him briefly and categorically that he was a nuisance. When Albert laughed and demanded specifications Roy merely said, “You’re Panther’s father, so you’re a nuisance.”
In time things got somewhat complicated. As the children grew into the confused and shifting comprehensions of childhood it became difficult to explain how it happened that whereas Roy’s and Morris’s fathers were dead everywhere, Panther’s and Julian’s fathers were dead only under certain circumstances. At school all fathers were dead—not only that, they were all somehow the same person. At home Panther’s and Julian’s fathers were alive, and they were different people; in fact, they were Albert and Lewis. Then at home did Roy’s and Morris’s fathers, though they remained dead, become different people too? The confusion of course extended to the children’s playmates, the other boys and girls of the village, and from them into the homes, so that it ended by becoming Maidstone’s favorite puzzle, and finally got so inextricably tangled that no amount of research could ever have straightened it out again. So far as the children’s acceptance in their community was concerned all the deliberation and shrewdness in the world could not have managed it better, for Lora was accused of so many things that not a tenth of them could possibly have been true; and Roy and Panther were clever enough not to waste any time in discovering their superiority when it came to a discussion of fathers.
To Lora it was a matter of indifference. The first year or so there was the baby. She discovered it was vastly easier to manage a baby properly in the country than it was in town. But not necessarily more pleasant; now and then, with little Julian in his carriage on the lawn or along the paths of the grove, she would remember the days of the others, in Washington Square or the park or along the piers, with all the people to watch, all the movement and excitement of the great city at her elbow, and a faint regret would flow peacefully across her mind. But this, she knew, was better. With four young children, one still a baby, she was sufficiently occupied so that the stimulation of the city was better at a distance; and if it did now and then get on her nerves a little to be so bound by the wall at the end of the grove and the abrupt termination of the village sidewalk there was always the car and the picnic hamper; the roads north to the foothills, west to the river, or east to the sound. In the summer, when there was no school, they would make these excursions two or three times a week.
After Julian’s second birthday she went oftener to the city. There would be shopping to do, or a visit to Anne Seaver, or perhaps Albert would meet her for lunch and afterwards take her to some of the galleries or to a tea at some studio—once it was Palichak’s, and she was pleased that he evidently remembered her so well. But mostly that bored her; on the train on the way home she would wonder idly why she had bothered to go. There was nothing in it. It passed the time. But time passed at home just as rapidly and pleasurably and with less fuss.
At the house in the country Albert Scher was apt to show up at any time. He might come as often as two or three times in a week and then not put in an appearance for a fortnight or a month even. He came frequently on Sunday, when he knew he would find Lewis Kane there.
Unfailingly Lewis arrived on Sunday, throughout the year, just in time for the midday dinner, which was at twelve-thirty precisely; Lillian never missed it more than five minutes either way, and Lewis was never late. He always had something for each of the children, and he was careful that Julian’s gift should not be more desirable or costly than the others. Albert occasionally rode out with him, but ordinarily came on the train somewhat earlier and walked up from the station. All seven of them ate together, Julian and Morris and Panther on high chairs and Roy on a regular chair, so low his chin could have rested on the tabletop. Lora was well aware that Lewis behaved admirably; she knew, for instance, that he thought children should eat by themselves and should not speak when adults were talking, but he continued to accept the arrangement without a murmur and maintained an unruffled temper even when his twentieth attempt to get a sentence out was smothered in the general hilarity. He permitted himself to offer correction only when a personal issue arose between himself and one of them, and he never presumed to impose rules of conduct. This applied to Julian as strictly as to the others; it was of course as remarkable and admirable as to Lora it seemed, but she might have found it all provided for in paragraphs 14 and 15 of the contract which lay forgotten in the wooden box. Sunday evening there would be a light supper just before the children’s bedtime, and when that was over Lewis would go to the kitchen and give Lillian a two-dollar bill—always laying it on the table and always saying, “For the extra trouble”—tell the children goodbye by patting them on the head, take Lora’s hand and hold it a moment, and depart. Albert always rode back to town with him; only two or three times in four years did either ever spend the night, and then the couch in the living room was utilized. Lora wondered what they talked about during the ninety-minute ride. She knew they rarely saw each other in town, but she had a suspicion that Lewis was helping Albert in his newly projected venture as an art dealer.
After four years she remained aloof from Maidstone. There were agreeable casual contacts, but that was all. It was a bridge and golf community, but she hardly knew that much about it. During the first six months she had refused two or three invitations, giving the children and baby as an excuse, and had never returned the four or five calls she had received. This created a little atmosphere, but subsequent accidental encounters at the grocery or the drugstore, or on the sidewalk, had made it so obvious that she was totally unconcerned in the matter, one way or the other, that finally she was accepted on her own terms, and even, eventually, ceased to be a topic of general debate.
She had no arguments with life. At the age of thirty-three she remained as devoid of intellectual attitude as a cat, though she had by no means lacked exposure to that contagion—running all the way from the diluted second-hand humanism of her high school English teacher to the anarchic egoism of Pete Halliday and the unlabelled and confused vagaries of Albert Scher. It was not so much a failure in comprehension as it was a constitutional immunity. When on a Sunday afternoon Albert Scher—if in winter—sprawled on the living-room rug in front of the divan on which she and Lewis Kane were seated, or—in summer—lay on the soft grass under the big maple tree with his heels in the air, and demonstrated that the only progress possible to man was esthetic progress, she knew well enough what he was driving at, but she was as completely unconcerned as if he had been proving that apple sauce was made out of apples.
Or perhaps Albert would be expounding one of his various theories of art. Art, he would say, is merely one aspect of man’s unremitting effort to triumph over nature. That’s all right, Lewis would put in, if by triumph over you mean understand. Not at all, Albert would retort, not understand; conquer, defeat. For centuries man tried to put it over nature by showing that he could surpass her in the beauty of his creations. I’ll show you how clumsy you are, he said to her, look, when did you ever make a woman or a tree or a blending of light and shade as lovely as that? But one day not so long ago it was decided that that game was played out. No more could be done, all the old tunes were stale, so he determined to turn his challenge upside down. You think you’re beautiful, eh? he sneered. My god, let me show you, here’s what you really look like; and he produced a million masterpieces of ugliness. Nature, of course, has remained stolidly unaffected in either case, but meanwhile man has his fun. It is an excellent arrangement that nature is provided with no technique for surrender, otherwise there would be nothing left to live for.
This too would leave Lora totally unconcerned, except that she would be faintly amused at Albert’s idea of what it would take to make life not worth living. She knew well enough, she thought, what would make life not worth living for him: to suffer an amputation of either of two certain flexible members of his body, one of which was his tongue.
For herself the question did not arise. If contrary to all precedent she had elected to sport with an enigma that would have been the last one she would have chosen. She lived, after a fashion; that was her unconscious answer. There was nothing ecstatic about it, but neither was there any despair. She had sufficiently definite attitudes here and there, but they were unprovided with any intellectual foundation; it was merely that regarding certain things she knew how she felt. She was disposed to be friendly toward all women, for instance, but the ones she had known best—her mother, Anne, Leah—she despised for their weakness. Toward men her attitude was a mixture of fear, indifference and admiration—the proportion which each ingredient contributed to the combination depended on the man, but none was in any case wholly absent. Of these and similar phenomena within herself she was completely aware, and she enjoyed watching their development. When for example one Sunday morning Lewis Kane telephoned that his wife was seriously ill and that he would be unable to make his usual visit, and Lora found herself contemplating the possibility of marriage with him in case he should become a widower, it amused her to uncover the reasons why it was more nearly possible to consider him than any other man she knew as a husband. First, she decided, money. Second, the comfortable discipline of his emotions. Next, his practical competence. Fourth—well, money again, probably. But with all those advantages she preferred the present arrangement, should the choice present itself.
The problem remained academic, for Mrs. Kane speedily recovered.
She had one habit that she did not like: she dreamed of God. Or rather, of a god, for he did not at all resemble the insipid bearded Jehovah of the brightly colored Sunday School picture cards of her childhood. He was not young, nor yet old; of a friendly yet forbidding countenance, with his body of unimaginable grace clothed in a loose white shirt and loose white trousers which flapped about his legs in the breeze, he would suddenly appear from nowhere and stride toward her, where she lay in the center of a meadow surrounded by strange and lovely flowers nodding on long and elegant stems. As he approached her he would make a beckoning gesture with his hands, this way and then that, and hundreds of little figures—she could not call them dwarfs, for they did not look like men—would come bouncing up from all directions and begin plucking the flowers with their long stems and dropping them upon her. They would fall anywhere, on her legs, on her breasts, on her middle, even now and then on her face, and soon would pile up so that she could feel their weight. She would feel, without misgiving, that she was going to be suffocated—and would make no attempt to free herself from the increasing burden, though she could feel that she was being pressed into the carpet of the grass right against the ground and many of the sharp stems of the flowers were pricking her flesh. Still she would make no effort to move, until all at once, realizing that the face and figure of the god were now completely hid from her, and filled with a frantic desire to see him once more, she would impatiently push the blanket of flowers away, down from her face, and lift herself to look eagerly around.…
She would be awake, in bed, in the night, sitting up or raised on her elbow, the covers pushed down, breathing quick and hard, feeling warm and disturbed and excited. Or half awake. After a moment her hand would reach up to grope for the light switch, and she would sit blinking in the sudden glare, getting back to reality by looking at the dressing-table, the chairs, the familiar pattern of the rug. Then she would go to the bathroom for a drink of cold water, and perhaps take a few puffs of a cigarette. After which she would sleep soundly till morning.
Sometimes she would not wake at all, but in the morning she would know the dream had come, for though she would not be able to remember any of the details there would be an unmistakable feeling about it. Her body knew. That feeling had a strange quality, an unnatural reconciliation of knowledge and disbelief, as though some new object had suddenly appeared in her room without having been brought there or having come.
She did not like the dream; there was something uncomfortable and a little disquieting about it; but neither did she greatly dislike it. She never recollected any other, but in time she grew to know the details of this one so well that it seemed almost like a part of her real existence. Sometimes she would try to remember when it had first come, but she could not even be sure whether it was before or since she had met Lewis Kane. The memory was lost.
She never mentioned it to anyone, not even to Albert Scher, one of whose favorite subjects was dreams.
In Albert she found a mild and comfortable enjoyment. He was good company. The same was true in less degree of Lewis; she was never wholly at ease with him; but now and then he aroused in her an interest and curiosity which Albert never awakened. Neither, however, cut into her very deeply; their visits to Maidstone were pleasant recurrent commas in the smooth phrases of her life; there were no sharp ejaculations or disturbing interrogations.
The infrequent major points of punctuation were furnished by the children. Roy came home late from the playground with a bloody nose. Panther contributed a sleepless and anxious week with diphtheria. Morris after three days’ trial refused point-blank to go to school, the only reason he would give being that it made his legs hurt to sit down so long. Roy declared the true reason to be that he was jealous of Tony Rahlson, who, being a year older, was two classes ahead. That was not so, Morris protested vehemently; in the first place, he would soon be ahead of Tony anyway; secondly, the girl across the aisle made faces at him; and thirdly, it made his legs hurt. Lora let him stay out two days and then took him back and arranged with the teacher to seat him on the other side of the room. This solved the problem; he reported that his legs still hurt a little, so that he had to walk with a jerk—he showed Lora how this was, back and forth across the dining room—but that he was willing to put up with it for Lora’s sake. She praised him for that, and he went out to play with Tony, Lora tactfully failing to remark that he was leaving his jerk behind.
This episode was in the autumn preceding Julian’s fifth birthday, and Lora’s thirty-third. It was still possible for Albert occasionally to call her Venus without sounding ridiculous, for the lines of her body were as clear and graceful as ever, and her face seemed unaware of time’s chief function. She had never bobbed her hair; usually now she wore it coiled at the back of her head, brushed straight back from her brow over her scalp’s well-modelled mound; when Albert tried to find a single grey hair to confront her with he had to confess defeat. The clear white skin still stretched with the most perfect smoothness over her cheeks and cheekbones, her chin and throat, even under her eyes and on her forehead; the amber-grey eyes held their steady unimpassioned light; the mouth, a little too large, maintained the line of its curve right to the tips of the corners, without a droop or any sign that the skin was finding it necessary to pull a bit here and there in the effort to adjust itself to unnecessary accumulations beneath. She had never cared for dancing, but now and then on a Sunday afternoon Albert would turn on the radio and insist on showing her a new stomp or drag he had picked up in Harlem; she would follow him properly almost at once, without thinking about it, close against him, letting her body move with his; Roy and Panther would imitate them, and Lewis Kane, half-reclining in a corner of the divan, would beat time with his foot and applaud them, with his eyes on Lora’s still tranquil face flushed a little with exertion, or the flowing graceful response of her body. That was what was wrong with her, Albert would say impatiently, her body flowed, and you shouldn’t flow with jazz; nor jerk either; what it required was a series of delicately broken motions, not legato, but each one beginning precisely where the last left off.…
Don’t tell me there’s anything delicate about jazz, Lewis would object; and Lora, leaving them to have it out, would watch Roy and Panther and marvel at the tireless energy of their flying legs and supple little bodies.
Once, as they finished, she felt Albert’s arm suddenly tighten around her, then his other arm, tighter still; pressed thus close against him, she felt his lips on hers. Too astonished to move, she suffered the kiss to the end of its brief but somewhat violent career; all at once, feeling herself released, she stepped back. Albert stood an instant, then, obviously needing something to do, went over and turned off the radio. A loud shrill laugh came from Morris, seated on the floor; Roy and Panther stood staring at their mother incredulously; Lewis Kane looked uncomfortable and cleared his throat three times in succession. Lora was furious that she felt herself coloring with embarrassment, and could think of nothing to say. Albert stood at the radio, grinning around at them.
“Good lord,” he said at last, “I must have had a stroke or something.”
“You’re stupid,” Lora said.
“Plunged straight into insanity by your resistible loveliness,” he declared. He turned to Roy, “Listen, young man, beware of girls with smooth placid faces, high cheekbones and a wad of red hair—”
“Lora’s hair isn’t red,” said Panther.
“The worst possible red,” Albert insisted.
“Aw stuff,” said Roy. “She’s not a girl anyway, are you, Lora?”
“Don’t mind him, he’s just being silly,” Lora smiled.
Lewis Kane said nothing, then or afterwards.
The episode meant nothing to Lora except as it concerned Lewis. She did not want him to have a false opinion of her relations with Albert Scher. It was a good thing, she remarked to herself after they had gone, that Albert hadn’t repeated his performance six years ago and carried her to the divan and tried to tear her clothes off. He might; unquestionably he had a crazy streak.
The following Sunday Albert did not come. It was a brilliant sunny October day, with the sharp exhilarating air so clear that they could see the hills far away across the Hudson, and even make out the autumn colors of the forest on the ridge the other side of the broad valley. In the middle of the afternoon Julian was sent upstairs for his routine nap, and Lora instructed the other children to stay in the yard while she and Lewis went for a walk. “Remember, don’t go away,” she said, “we’ll be back soon, and Lewis likes to have you here.”
They went at a brisk pace across the meadows, up the rise to the edge of the woods, to where an old abandoned road once had entered. There they sat on a log, panting a little from the climb, and attacked a question that remained unsettled from a previous discussion: whether Julian should be sent to kindergarten. Lewis was inclined to favor it; Lora saw no advantage in it, since Julian played enough with other children anyway; she thought he would be better off at home for at least another year. Lewis didn’t insist; he didn’t claim any rights in the matter, he said. No doubt Lora’s position was sound.
“All right, we’ll wait a year,” Lora said. She looked aside at him, and went on, “There’s something else I wanted to speak about. I thought you might think there was something queer about the way Albert acted last week.”
Lewis turned his head towards her and their eyes met. Neither held any suggestion of doubt or challenge; it was a simple meeting of glances, a greeting of understanding. Lewis smiled a little.
“You can depend on Albert to be queer,” he said.
Lora nodded. “It was foolish to mention it, I suppose.”
“Not at all. I’m glad you did.” He pulled a cockle-burr from the knee of his trousers and flipped his fingers back and forth trying to get rid of it. “I have sometimes wondered,” he went on, “what you and Albert are to each other. There’s Panther, of course, but she is obviously yours, not his. That’s true of all the children, even Julian, I’ve accepted that.” Another cockle-burr. “Of course it’s none of my business, but things often come into our minds without waiting for an invitation, and I’ve often wondered about Albert.”
“Well,” Lora said, “he’s just Albert. To me as to you.”
“So I gathered. But still…after all.…”
She looked at him in surprise. Lewis searching for words!
“After all, you are a young attractive healthy woman, unencumbered by vows. And while you obviously hold men in contempt, there is evidence that you are willing to tolerate their performance of a necessary function.”
Lora laughed. “Albert would like that. But where do you get the idea that I hold men in contempt?”
“Oh, it’s obvious.” He crossed one leg over the other and turned about on the log so as to face her more directly. “It shows in everything you do; but it’s easy to get along with, it’s so good-natured. It just happens never to have bothered me, because from the beginning I’ve had the good sense to know where your fences were. And I know my own limitations. There are various ways of getting things you want out of people. Look at Albert with the children for instance; they’d do anything for him just because he knows how to act with them and what to say to them. He makes a face at Julian, or a noise like a rooster, and Julian is his. I can’t make faces and noises. I’m perfectly helpless with children and women too. So I bring them things Albert can’t afford, and as a result they’re just as anxious to see me as they are him. The same with women. I’ve got to buy what I want, and it’s easy enough, as long as you don’t forget that you can only buy what is for sale. That’s why your contempt for men doesn’t bother me; I don’t get in its path. Aside from everything else, in a purely physical way you are the most exciting and desirable woman I’ve ever known. Everything about you is provocative and seductive, the full free lines of your body, the glance of your eyes, the way you walk, the positions you take when you lie on the grass, or dance, or sit and cross your legs, particularly your mouth with that look it has of always being just ready to open though it is forever closed.…I like to observe those things, but I don’t make the mistake of supposing that they have any significance for me. I know I’ve bought everything you have for sale so far as I’m concerned. What I’ve been curious about sometimes is whether it’s for sale at all or not—to anyone, for any price. Impertinent, of course. That’s why I wondered about Albert. Beyond him, I still wonder.…”
“You needn’t,” Lora said.
“That’s hard to believe, but I believe it.”
“It’s true.”
“But why—” He stopped, frowning, then suddenly smiled. “You’re probably making a mistake. You mustn’t let a prejudice get between you and the possibilities you possess. I’m not arguing for myself; I know I’m out of it.” The smile broadened. “I’m not arguing for Albert either; he’s out of it too, I can see that. I guess I’m not arguing for anything, for I’m by no means anxious to jeopardize my present privileges. They are very dear to me—my greatest delight. You know that.”
As sure as you’re born, Lora thought, the poor dear is making love to me. Probably he has wanted to for quite a while, and seeing Albert kiss me has brought it out. Well, why not? It would be a nuisance. How could we manage it anyhow, with the house full of children? He could stay and sleep on the divan downstairs, and come up to my room. Then he’d have to sneak out again; that sort of thing is a nuisance. What about right here, in the woods, on the leaves? No, not outdoors with him, in the daylight. In the house then, at night. Why not, if he really wants to so much?
She smiled, and murmured, “It might be possible to extend your privileges, if you think I’m making a mistake.”
He seemed a little startled. “Well—you mustn’t suppose—you mustn’t misunderstand me, you know.”
She smiled directly into his face and shook her head.
“I won’t misunderstand you.”
“We’ll see.” He stood up and shook himself and stamped his feet on the ground. “It’s getting chilly, hadn’t we better move? Shall we go into the woods, or start back?”
They decided they had better return, and headed down the hill. They were both stiff from sitting on the log, and jumped and ran to warm up. At that sort of thing Lewis was not precisely in his element; he came down hard, without bending his knees, jolting up and down, slipping and barely saving himself a dozen times. He did look ridiculous, Lora thought, but after all when a man is over fifty years old what can you expect. In another twenty years she might have a little trouble with that hill herself.
There was no extension of privileges that night, and no further mention of it. Lewis left as usual, immediately after supper, to drive back to town—alone, since Albert had not come—and Lora spent the evening helping Roy with his arithmetic, until the children’s bedtime. Then she lit a blaze in her own room, in the fireplace which had been specially installed after Lewis had bought the house, arranged a chair and the reading-light, and settled down with a pile of magazines. This was the most luxurious hour of her day, with the children safely asleep, downstairs locked up for the night, and plenty of wood in the basket. She read a while, then sat and watched the fire. How pleasant it all was! There was going to be a little complication with Lewis apparently, but that was of no serious consequence. There was nothing at all objectionable or repugnant about him, and certainly his requirements would be moderate, you could trust him not to go to extremes. She was glad she had said what she did; she was perfectly willing—ha, there was an idea: did he mean to give Julian a brother or sister? But no, that couldn’t be what he was driving at; if that was what he wanted he would have said so in so many words. Nevertheless, it remained an idea, whether he had had it or not. She smiled at the fire, pondering whether it would be worthwhile to start that business all over again.…
It was four days later, the following Thursday, that she saw Lewis’s coupé turn in at the driveway, and then, looking through the dining-room window, stood stupefied at the sight of Pete Halliday’s white bony face and tangled brown hair as he descended at one side of the car while Lewis got out at the other.