“No,” he decided. “Josephine was a bit upset this morning. I’d better go home, this time.”
Linney was waiting for him at the station, smart looking fellow in that uniform; the car, too, was one of the finest; these men with their shabby little coupes must envy him. There was a rush for the waiting taxis; never enough of them. One young man got left; he stood on the platform, with his bag beside him, and glanced at his watch.
“Hold on a moment Linney!” said Delancey, and leaning out of his car, addressed the stranger. “See here, going north? Perhaps I can give you a lift.”
He often did that, and liked to do it.
“Sorry, but I don’t know whether it’s north or not,” answered the stranger, “I’m going to Mrs. Luff’s—if you happen to know where that is.”
“That’s right on my way! Hop in!”
“Thanks!” said the stranger, gave his bag to Linney, and got in beside Delancey. He was a neat, fair-haired young fellow, slight, rather short, quietly dressed, quiet in voice, yet there was something about him which made Delancey anxious to impress him.
“Fine place the Luffs have,” he observed.
“Is it?” said the other politely.
“Yes. …They’re neighbors of ours, you know. Delancey, my name is. Shawe Delancey.”
“My name’s Acheson.”
“Acheson. …” Delancey repeated. “Yes. …Fine place the Luffs have. Quite an estate. Our place isn’t half the size, but my wife’s a great gardener. I wish you could see—”
He stopped, with an odd look on his ruddy face. The thought had entered his mind, and would not be banished, that he would not like this quiet young man to meet Josephine.
“Most men of my age have younger wives,” he thought. “Girls…”
Then he recalled that this was Josephine’s car, and that she was generous to him.
“She’s a fine-looking woman, too,” he thought. “And she knows how to dress. I mean to say, Mrs. Luff’s like a rag-bag, compared to Josephine.”
He liked Mrs. Luff very much, though; he greatly regretted that Josephine did not get on with her. When they had first come here, the Luffs had been remarkably nice, had invited them to dinner, had been friendly in a fashion he had never before encountered. With honest humility he admitted to himself that the Luffs were “a cut above him,” and above Josephine, too. Their way of living, their simplicity, their ease, the atmosphere of careless comfort in their house, seemed to him about the best thing there could be. He would have liked to live like them; he would have liked to be like them.
“Drive right up to the Luffs’ house, Linney,” he said.
For, after all, he had not quarreled with the Luffs; he didn’t even know exactly what had gone amiss between Josephine and Mrs. Luff. Whenever he met Luff, at the railway station, or on the train, they always chatted together. There was no reason why he should not take this young man to the door; and if he happened to see Mrs. Luff, well, he wouldn’t be sorry for a chance to say a few friendly words to her. That would be no offense against Josephine.
“Fact is,” he thought, “I believe Josephine’s sorry now. I believe she’d be glad of an excuse to patch things up with Mrs. Luff. She lets her nerves get the better of her.”
His heart quickened a little, to see Mrs. Luff on the terrace. He had always admired that terrace, with the striped awning over it, the comfortable chairs and little tables.
“Suppose she—snubs me?” he thought, and he imagined her speaking with the haughty arrogance he had heard Josephine employ toward the presumptuous.
Mrs. Luff rose as the car stopped, and came to the head of the steps.
“Hugh!” she said. “I’m so glad. …And Mr. Delancey. …How nice!”
Her husband had come to her side.
“Delancey…” he said. “Come up and have a drink?”
Delancey was delighted with this welcome; he mounted the steps, smiling joyously.
“Elsie, dear,” said Mrs. Luff. “Mr. Delancey, Miss Sackett. …And I forgot—you don’t know Hugh Acheson, either.”
It was the girl he had seen in the garden that morning, the girl Whitestone said he loved. …She was wearing a sleeveless white dress that made her olive skin seem darker; her face was exquisite, great black eyes, soft and somber, a wide and sullen and beautiful mouth. She was very young, and her manner was not amiable, yet, for all her immaturity and her lack of graciousness, Delancey knew that she was something rare. Without being at all able to define it, he nevertheless knew that here was the sorcery that men have died for since the beginning of things.
“Poor Robert…” he thought, with a pang. “Poor devil!”
For what could this lovely girl find to please her in the bitter and moody Whitestone, a man certainly ten years older than she, and a married man, too? Yet, if Whitestone’s heart had once turned to her, how could he ever forget…? Poor devil!
A parlour-maid brought out whiskey and a syphon of soda on a tray; Luff held out his cigarette case; there was the friendliest air. But for once Delancey’s cheerful talk deserted him; he felt unhappy, desolate, and did not understand why. Only that somehow this was the right life; somehow Luff, lean and amiably taciturn, Mrs. Luff in her debonair dowdiness, the quiet young Acheson, the unforgettable Elsie, were the right people, whom he had been longing for, without knowing it. And he couldn’t stay here, couldn’t ever get back here once he had left.
He sipped his drink slowly; when anyone spoke to him he answered, and that was the best he could do. He wanted to make this moment last.
“You’ll stay to lunch, won’t you?” asked Mrs. Luff, and he came to, with a slight start.
“Why, thank you,” he answered. “I’d certainly like to, but my wife’s expecting me home. …”
He had to go now, and go forever. Mrs. Luff would simply not be interested in “patching things up” with Josephine.
“It was all Josephine’s fault, whatever it was,” he thought. “Must have been. Mrs. Luff wouldn’t quarrel with people. She must think Josephine is—”
The word came to his mind; it was as if he had heard Mrs. Luff say, in her lazy, pleasant voice—“impossible.” That must be what all their neighbors called Josephine. The impossible Mrs. Delancey. …
He got into the superb dark-blue car, and he was ashamed of it. He was ashamed of his own bigness, his hearty voice; he sat back in a corner, thoroughly miserable.
“It’s no use,” he said to himself, over and over. “It’s no use.”
And did not know what he meant by that, or why he was so unhappy. As his own house came in sight he pulled himself together, tried to shake off his depression. It was really a fine house, Colonial style, big white pillars, well-kept grounds. …The housemaid smiled at him when she opened the door.
“Shawe!” called his wife’s voice, imperiously.
She was lying on a couch in the library, tall, looking very slight in a black lace tea gown, with long jade earrings, her olive face powdered, her lips scarlet, her black hair drawn straight back from her forehead. He had seen her before in this same costume, and in this same pose, and he had admired her. “Cleopatra,” he had called her.
He did not admire her now. In his mind, he envisaged her on the Luffs’