So here he was, back with Esther — the one thing he had once been sure would never happen. Yes, and very happy to be back. That was the queerest part of it. It seemed, perversely, that he ought to be unhappy to be doing what his reason had told him not to do. But he was not. And that was why, as he leaned there musing on his window-sill while the last light faded and the April night came on, a subtle worm was gnawing at his conscience and he wondered darkly at how great a lag there was between his thinking and his actions.
He was twenty-eight years old now, and wise enough to know that there are sometimes reasons of which the reason knows nothing, and that the emotional pattern of one’s life, formed and set by years of living, is not to be discarded quite as easily as one may throw away a battered hat or worn-out shoe. Well, he was not the first man to be caught on the horns of this dilemma. Had not even the philosophers themselves been similarly caught? Yes — and then written sage words about it:
“A foolish consistency,” Emerson had said, “is the hobgoblin of little minds.”
And great Goethe, accepting the inevitable truth that human growth does not proceed in a straight line to its goal, had compared the development and progress of mankind to the reelings of a drunken beggar on horseback.
What was important, perhaps, was not that the beggar was drunk and reeling, but that he was mounted on his horse, and, however unsteadily, was going somewhere.
This thought was comforting to George, and he pondered it for some time, yet it did not altogether remove the edge of guilt that faintly tinged his contentment. There was still a possible flaw in the argument: His inconsistency in coming back-to Esther — was it wise or foolish? . . . Must the beggar on horseback for ever reel?
Esther awoke as quick and sudden as a bird. She lay upon her back and stared up at the ceiling straight and wide. This was her body and her flesh, she was alive and ready in a moment.
She thought at once of George. Their reunion had been a joyous rediscovery of love, and all things were made new again. They had taken up the broken fragments of their life and joined them together with all the intensity and beauty that they had known in the best days before he went away. The madness that bad nearly wrecked them both had now gone out of him entirely. He was’ still full of his, unpredictable moods and fancies, but she had not seen a trace of the old black fury that used to make him lash about and beat his knuckles bloody against the wall. Since he returned he had seemed quieter, surer, in better control of himself, and in everything he did he acted as if he wanted to show her that he loved her. She had never known such perfect happiness. Life was good.
Outside, on Park Avenue, the people had begun to move along the pavements once more, the streets of the city began to fill and thicken. Upon the table by her bed the little dock ticked eagerly its pulse of time as if it hurried forward for ever like a child towards some imagined joy, and a clock struck slowly in the house with a measured, solemn chime. The morning sun steeped each object in her room with casual light, and in her heart she said, “It is now.”
Nora brought coffee and hot rolls, and Esther read the paper. She read the gossip of the theatre, and she read the names of the cast that had been engaged for the new German play that the Community Guild was going to do in the autumn, and she read that “Miss Esther Jack has been engaged to design the show”. She laughed because they called her “Miss”, and because she could see the horrified look on his face when he read it, and because she remembered his expression when the little tailor thought she was his wife, and because it gave her so much pleasure to see her name in the paper —“Miss Esther Jack, whose work has won her recognition as one of the foremost modern designers.”
She was feeling gay and happy and pleased with herself, so she put the paper in her bag, together with some other clippings she had saved, and took them with her when she went down-town to Twelfth Street for her daily visit to George. She handed them to him, and sat opposite to watch his face as he read them. She remembered all the things they had written about her work:
“ . . . subtle, searching, and hushed, with a wry and rueful humour of its own . . . ”
“ . . . made these old eyes shine by its deft, sure touch of whimsey as nothing else in this prodigal season of dramatic husks has done . . . ”
“ . . . the gay insouciance of her unmannered settings, touched with those qualities which we have come to expect in all her ardent services to that sometimes too ungrateful jade, the drama . . . ”
“ . . . the excellent fooling that is implicit in these droll sets, elvishly sly, mocking, and, need we add or make apology for adding, expert? . . . ”
She could hardly keep from laughing at the scornful twist of his mouth and the mocking tone of his comment as he bit off the phrases.
“‘Elvishly sly!’ Now isn’t that too God-damned delightful!” he said with mincing precision. “‘Made these old eyes shine!’ Why, the quaint little bastard! . . . ‘That sometimes too ungrateful jade!’ Oh, deary me, now! . . . ‘And need we add —!’ I am swooning, sweetheart: pass the garlic!”
He threw the papers on the floor with an air of disgust and turned to her with a look of mock sternness that crinkled the corners of his eyes.
“Well,” he said, “do I get fed, or must I starve here while you wallow in this bilge?”
She could control herself no longer and shrieked with glee. “I didn’t do it!” she gasped. “I didn’t write it! I can’t help it if they write like that! Isn’t it awful?”
“Yes, and you hate it, don’t you?” he said. “You lap it up! You arc sitting there licking your lips over it now, gloating on it, and on my hunger! Don’t you know, woman, that I haven’t had a bite to eat all day? Do I get fed, or not? Will you put your deft whimsey in a steak?”
“Yes,” she said. “Would you like a steak?”
“Will you make these old eyes shine with a chop and a delicate dressing of young onions?”
“Yes,” she said. “Yes.”
He came over and put his arms about her, his eyes searching hers in a look of love and hunger. “Will you make me one of your causes that is subtle, searching, and hushed?”
“Yes,” she said. “Whatever you like, I will make it for you.”
“Why will you make it for me?” he asked.
It was like a ritual that both of them knew, and they fastened upon each word and answer because they were so eager to hear it from each other.
“Because I love you. Because I want to feed you and to love you.”
“Will it be good?” he said.
“It will be so good that there will be no words to tell its goodness,” she said. “It will be good because I am so good and beautiful, and because I can do everything better than any other woman you will ever know, and because I love you with all my heart and soul, and want to be a part of you.”
“Will this great love get into the food you cook for me?”
“It will be in every morsel that you eat. It will feed your hunger as you’ve never been fed before. It will be like a living miracle, and will make you better and richer as long as you live. You will never forget it. It will be a glory and a triumph.”
“Then this will be such food as no one ever ate before,” he said. “Yes,” she said.-“It will be.”
And it was so. There was never anything like it in the world before. April had come back again.
So now they were together. But things were not quite the same between them as they had once been. Even on the surface they were different. No longer now for them was there a single tenement