The Helpmate Part 19

"Edith," said she, "was it you who thought of it, or he?"

"I? Never. He didn't say a word about it. He just went and got it. He thought it all out by himself, poor dear."

"Can you think why he thought of it?"

"Yes," said Edith gravely, "I can. Can't you?"

Anne was silent.

"It's very simple. He wants you to trust him a little more, that's all."

Anne's mouth trembled, and she tightened it.

"Are you afraid of him?"

"Yes," she said, "I am."

"Because you think he isn't very spiritual?"

"Perhaps."

"Oh, but he's on his way there," said Edith. "He's human. You've got to be human before you can be spiritual. It's a most important part of the process. Don't you omit it."

"Have I omitted it?"

She stroked one of the thin hands that were out-stretched towards her on the coverlet, and the other closed on her caress. The touch brought the tears into her eyes. She raised her head to keep them from falling.

"Dear," said Edith, and paused and reiterated, "dear, you have about all the big things that I haven't. You're splendid. There's only one thing I want for you. If you could only see how divinely sacred the human part of us is--and how pathetic."

Anne looked at her as she lay there, bright and brave, untroubled by her own mortal pathos. In her, humanity, woman's humanity, was reduced to its simplest expression of spiritual loving and bodily suffering. Anne was a child in her ignorance of the things that had been revealed to Edith lying there.

Looking at her, Anne's tears grew heavy and fell.

"It's your birthday," said Edith softly.

And as she heard Majendie's foot on the stairs Anne dried her eyes on the birthday pocket handkerchief.

"Here she is," said Edith as he entered. "What are you going to do with her? She doesn't have a birthday every day."

"I'm going," he said, "to take her down to breakfast."

Their meals so abounded in occasions for courtesy that they had become profoundly formal. This morning Anne's courtesy was coloured by some emotion that defied a.n.a.lysis. She wore her new mood like a soft veil that heightened her attraction in obscuring it.

He watched her with a baffled preoccupation that kept him unusually quiet. His quietness did him good service with Anne in her new mood.

When the meal was over she rose and went to the window. The sedate Georgian street was full of the day that shone soberly here from the cool clear north.

"What are you thinking of?" said he.

"I'm thinking what a beautiful day it is."

"Yes, isn't it a jolly day?"

"If it's beautiful here, what must it be in the country?"

"The country?" A thought struck him. "I say, would you like to go there?"

"Do you mean to-day?"

Her upper lip lifted, and the two teeth showed again on the pale rose of its twin. In spite of the dignity of her proportions, Anne had the look of a child contemplating some hardly permissible delight.

"Now, this minute. There's a train to Westleydale at nine fifty."

"It would be very nice. But--how about business?"

"Business be--"

"No, no, _not_ that word."

"But it is, you know; it can't help itself. There's a devil in all the offices in Scale at this time of the year."

"Would _you_ like it?"

"I? Rather. I'm on!"

"But--Edith--oh no, we can't."

She turned with a sudden gesture of renunciation, so that she faced him where he stood smiling at her. His face grew grave for her.

"Look here," he said, "you mustn't be morbid about Edith. It isn't necessary. All the time we're gone, she'll be there, in perfect bliss with simply thinking of the good time _we_'re having."

"But her back's bad to-day."

"Then she'll be glad that we're not there to feel it. Her back will add to her happiness, if anything."

She drew in a sharp breath, as if he had hurt her.

"Oh, Walter, how can you?"

He replied with emphasis. "How can I? I can, not because I'm a brute, as you seem to suppose, but because she's a saint and an angel. I take off my hat and go down on my knees when I think of her. Go and put _your_ hat on."

She felt herself diminished, humbled, and in two ways. It was as if he had said: "You are not the saint that Edith is, nor yet the connoisseur in saints.h.i.+p that I am."

She knew that she was not the one; but to the other distinction she certainly fancied that she had the superior claim. And she had never yet come behind him in appreciation of Edith. Besides, she was hurt at being spoken to in that way on her birthday.

Her resentment faded when she found him standing at the foot of the stairs by Edith's door, waiting for her. He looked up at her as she descended, and his eyes brightened with pleasure at the sight.

Edith was charmed with their plan. It might have been conceived as an exquisite favour to herself, by the fine style in which she handled it.