“It must sound very strange to you, I know,”
he went on; “and it’s strange to me, too;
but it seems to me that there isn’t anything
I’ve done without my thinking whether you would
like me to do it.”
She rose involuntarily. “You make me ashamed
to think that you’re so much mistaken about
me! I know how we all influence each other—I
know I always try to be what I think people expect
me to be—I can’t be myself—I
know what you mean; but you—you must be
yourself, and not let—” She stopped
in her wandering speech, in strange agitation, and
he rose too.
“I hope you’re not offended with me!”
“Offended? Why? Why do you—go
so soon?”
“I thought you were going,” he answered
stupidly.
“Why, I’m at home!”
They looked at each other, and then they broke into
a happy laugh.
“Sit down again! I don’t know what
I got up for. It must have been to make some
tea. Did you know Madeline had bequeathed me her
tea-kettle—the one we had at the St. Albans?”
She bustled about, and lit the spirit-lamp under the
kettle.
“Blow out that match!” he cried.
“You’ll set your dress on fire!”
He caught her hand, which she was holding with the
lighted match in it at her side, after the manner
of women with lighted matches, and blew it out himself.
“Oh, thank you!” she said indifferently.
“Can you take it without milk?”
“Yes, I like it so.”
She got out two of the cups he remembered, and he
said, “How much like last winter that seems!”
And “Yes, doesn’t it?” she sighed.
The lamp purred and fretted under the kettle, and
in the silence in which they waited, the elm tree
that rose from the pavement outside seemed to look
in consciously upon them.
When the kettle began to sing, she poured out the
two cups of tea, and in handing him his their fingers
touched, and she gave a little outcry. “Oh!
Madeline’s precious cup! I thought it was
going to drop!”
The soft night-wind blew in through the elm leaves,
and their rustling seemed the expression of a profound
repose, an endless content.
The next night Lemuel went to see Statira, without
promising himself what he should say or do, but if
he were to tell her everything, he felt that she would
forgive him more easily than ’Manda Grier.
He was aware that ’Manda always lay in wait
for him, to pierce him at every undefended hint of
conscience. Since the first break with her, there
had never been peace between them, and perhaps not
kindness for long before that. Whether or not
she felt responsible for having promoted Statira’s
affair with him, and therefore bound to guard her
to the utmost from suffering by it, she seemed always
to be on the alert to seize any advantage against
him. Sometimes Statira accused her of trying
to act so hatefully to him that he would never come
