The Common Law. Chambers Robert William

love in a cottage

      Is hell in a hut."

      "Is that you, Stephanie?" he asked, as a dark figure, seated on the veranda, turned a shadowy head toward him.

      "Yes. Isn't this starlight magnificent? I've been up to the nursery looking at the infant wonder—just wild to hug him; but he's asleep, and his nurse glared at me. So I thought I'd come and look at something else as unattainable—the stars, Louis," she added, laughing—"not you."

      "Sure," he said, smiling, "I'm always obtainable. Unlike the infant upon whom you had designs," he added, "I'm neither asleep nor will any nurse glare at you if you care to steal a kiss from me."

      "I've no inclination to transfer my instinctively maternal transports to you," she said, serenely, "though, maternal solicitude might not be amiss concerning you."

      "Do you think I need moral supervision?"

      "Not by me."

      "By whom?"

      "Ask me an easier one, Louis. And—I didn't say you needed it at all, did I?"

      He sat beside her, silent, head lifted, examining the stars.

      "I'm going back on the midnight," he remarked, casually.

      "Oh, I'm sorry!" she exclaimed, with her winning frankness.

      "I'm—there's something I have to attend to in town—"

      "Work?"

      "It has to do with my work—indirectly—"

      She glanced sideways at him, and remained for a moment curiously observant.

      "How is the work going, anyway?" she asked.

      He hesitated. "I've apparently come up slap against a blank wall. It isn't easy to explain how I feel—but I've no confidence in myself—"

      "You! No confidence? How absurd!"

      "It's true," he said a little sullenly.

      "You are having a spasm of progressive development," she said, calmly. "You take it as a child takes teething—with a squirm and a mental howl instead of a physical yell."

      He laughed. "I suppose it's something of that sort. But there's more—a self-distrust amounting to self-disgust at moments…. Stephanie, I want to do something good—"

      "You have—dozens of times."

      "People say so. The world forgets what is really good—" he made a nervous gesture—"always before us poor twentieth-century men looms the goal guarded by the vast, austere, menacing phantoms of the Masters."

      "Nobody ever won a race looking behind him," she Said, gaily; "let 'em menace and loom!"

      He laughed in a half-hearted fashion, then his head fell again slowly, and he sat there brooding, silent.

      "Louis, why are you always dissatisfied?"

      "I always will be, I suppose." His discontented gaze grew more vague.

      "Can you never learn to enjoy the moment?"

      "It goes too quickly, and there are so many others which promise more, and will never fulfil their promise; I know it. We painters know it when we dare to think clearly. It is better not to think too clearly—better to go on and pretend to expect attainment…. Stephanie, sometimes I wish I were in an honest business—selling, buying—and could close up shop and go home to pleasant dreams."

      "Can't you?"

      "No. It's eternal obsession. A painter's work is never ended. It goes on with some after they are asleep; and then they go crazy," he added, and laughed and laid his hand lightly and unthinkingly over hers where it rested on the arm of her chair. And he remained unaware of her delicate response to the contact.

      The stars were clear and liquid-bright, swarming in myriads in the June sky. A big meteor fell, leaving an incandescent arc which faded instantly.

      "I wonder what time it is," Be said.

      "You mustn't miss your train, must you?"

      "No." … Suddenly it struck him that it would be one o'clock before he could get to the studio and call up Valerie. That would be too late. He couldn't awake her just for the pleasure of talking to her. Besides, he was sure to see her in the morning when she came to him for her portrait…. Yet—yet—he wanted to talk to her…. There seemed to be no particular reason for this desire.

      "I think I'll just step to the telephone a moment." He rose, and her fingers dropped from his hand. "You don't mind, do you?"

      "Not at all," she smiled. "The stars are very faithful friends. I'll be well guarded until you come back, Louis."

      What she said, for some reason, made him slightly uncomfortable. He was thinking of her words as he called up "long distance" and waited. Presently Central called him with a brisk "Here's your party!" And very far away he heard her voice:

      "I know it is you. Is it?"

      "Who?"

      "It is! I recognise your voice. But which is it—Kelly or Louis or Mr.

      Neville?"

      "All three," he replied, laughing.

      "But which gentleman is in the ascendant? The god-like one? Or the conventional Mr. Neville? Or—the bad and very lovable and very human Louis?"

      "Stop talking-nonsense, Valerie. What are you doing?"

      "Conversing with an abrupt gentleman called Louis Neville. I was reading."

      "All alone in your room?"

      "Naturally. Two people couldn't get into it unless one of them also got into bed."

      "You poor child! What are you reading?"

      "Will you promise not to laugh?"

      "Yes, I will."

      "Then—I was reading the nineteenth psalm."

      "It's a beauty, isn't it," he said.

      "Oh, Louis, it is glorious!—I don't know what in it appeals most thrillingly to me—the wisdom or the beauty of the verse—but I love it."

      "It is fine," he said. "… And are you there in your room all alone this beautiful starry night, reading the psalms of old King David?"

      "Yes. What are you doing? Where are you?"

      "At Ashuelyn, my sister's home."

      "Oh! Well, it is perfectly sweet of you to think of me and to call me up—"

      "I usually—I—well, naturally I think of you. I thought I'd just call you up to say good night. You see my train doesn't get in until one this morning; and of course I couldn't wake you—"

      "Yes, you could. I am perfectly willing to have you wake me."

      "But that would be the limit!"

      "Is that your limit, Louis? If it is you will never disturb my peace of mind." He heard her laughing at the other end of the wire, delighted with her own audacity.

      He said: "Shall I call you up at one o'clock when I get into town?"

      "Try it. I may awake."

      "Very well then. I'll make them ring till daylight."

      "Oh, they won't have to do that! I always know, about five minutes before you call me, that you are going to."