O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 Part 51

He seized her hands and pa.s.sionately drew her close to him.

"Want you? I can tell you now. I've been jealous, terribly so, of everyone, everything that touched you."

"I knew it," she said. "That's one reason why I didn't sing well to-night. Now I'm free"--she threw her arms out with the gesture of flying--"I'm free to love just you. We'll start another life, Oliver, a life of our own. We'll be fire-side people, dear, homely lovers content to sit and talk of an evening. You'll find me very valuable, really, as a partner," she said eagerly. "I've never been near enough to your work. And it's such wonderful work!" With an impulsive movement she went over and closed the piano. "I'll only open it when you ask me to," she said.

The process of elimination was simple enough. There was a touch of melancholy in Myra's measurement of relations.h.i.+ps, in her consciousness of their frailty. People fell away easily, leaving her and Oliver to their chosen isolation. A dozen regrets or so to invitations, a week or two of evasions over the telephone, a few friends like Martigues turned away at the door when obviously she was at home, a refusal to sing at a charity concert and, most conclusive of all, David Cannon's advertised departure with another artist, and the thing was virtually done.

Then came a succession of long intimate evenings, she and Oliver left to their caprice, she and Oliver walking and driving together, wandering where their fancy took them in the springtime of city and country. She laughed sometimes at him, he seemed so dazed by the consciousness of utter possession. "You are sure you are not bored, darling?" he would often ask these first days. She could not rea.s.sure him enough; could not find ways enough to prove to him that when a woman like herself gave of body, mind, and spirit, it was a full giving. There was exquisite pain in that giving; it was almost a terrifying thing. She was a vital creature, and must spend that which was hers, wisely or foolishly. Her ceaseless energy had always before found an outlet in her work. Now her only expression lay in Oliver. Her mind, never at rest, seized upon his working life, made it hers. But she soon learned that he regarded her self-appointed post of partner with a tender condescension edged with intolerance.

She learned with a tiny shock that although in matters musical he trusted absolutely to her judgment, he did not consider the feminine intellect as equal to his own. Music, she discovered, had always been defined by him as something feminine in its application to the arts.

She became gradually aware that he objected to her visits to his office. His glance did not brighten at her entrance. He was not amused as he had been at first, when she bent over the sketches or ran her slim fingers along the tracery of blue prints, daring to question them. Sometimes she had a feeling that she did not entirely know Oliver; that there were plans of his, thoughts of his, which she did not share. She had not missed these before when her own life was full. She had time now during their long hours together to observe reactions of the cause of which she knew nothing. He was absent-minded, off on a trail that led away from her.

There came a week when he allowed her the brunt of wooing; a new dress failed to bring forth the usual compliment; a question lay unanswered where in pride she left it. Then one morning with a new crisp note in his voice, he telephoned, telling her that he must meet a man at his club for dinner that evening. Mechanically she answered, dully heard his voice warm to a sweetness that should have comforted her.

"You know I wouldn't leave you unless it were important, dearest. I can't explain now, but I may have great news for you when I come home."

She hung up the receiver thoughtfully, and turned to an apartment which seemed suddenly dreary and empty. She had no purpose in her day.

The twilight hour loomed in prospect an endless, dusky loneliness.

For a moment she thought of ringing him up and proposing to meet him downtown for lunch; then restrained the impulse. Was she to turn into a nagging wife! She longed now for some friend with whom she could spend the day; but she could think of none. Since her marriage with Oliver she had not encouraged intimacies. On his account she had estranged the few women to whom she might now have turned.

Oliver had never understood friends.h.i.+ps among women.

The day dragged by. For the first time in months she found herself wis.h.i.+ng that she was going out that evening. She thought almost guiltily of David Cannon and Frances Maury, imagining herself in Frances's place. She went to the piano, tried to sing, and realized with dismay that she was sadly out of practice. After all, what did it matter? she decided moodily. Oliver rarely asked her for music.

She took up a novel and dozed over it.

At eleven o'clock Oliver came home. She knew by the way he opened the front door that the news was good. She ran to meet him; her dullness vanished.

He took her by the hand and led her into the softly lit room which seemed suddenly warm again with his presence. Then he whirled her, facing him. Her smile was a happy reflection of his own brightness.

"You'll never guess what's happened," he began.

"Tell me quickly!" she begged.

He waited a moment, with an eye to dramatic effect.

"Well, then," he said proudly, "I've been appointed on a special committee of reconstruction in France. Malcolm Wild--you've heard me speak of him--came down from Was.h.i.+ngton to-day to propose it to me.

There are six of us on the committee, and I'm the youngest."

"Oliver!" She put into the exclamation something of what he expected, for he seemed satisfied. He lifted his head with a young, triumphant gesture. "It is my chance to do a great and useful work," he said.

"I needn't tell you what it means. I never hoped, _I_ never dreamed of such an honour."

"I'm so proud of you!" she cried.

He hardly seemed to hear her.

"Think of it, just think of it--to be invited to go over there with five of the biggest architects here, American money backing us!

We've been given a whole section to rebuild; I forget how many villages. It's like a dream." He pa.s.sed his hand over his eyes.

"France!" she heard herself saying. "But, Oliver, it's the work of months."

He nodded happily.

"That's what it is."

"France!" she murmured in a kind of ecstasy. "I'm just getting it."

She clasped her hands together. "I've always wanted to be in France with you. My dear, when do we start?"

He gave her a swift, bewildered look.

"Why, Myra, didn't you understand? I can't take you right away with me. Later, of course, you'll join me. It won't be long, a few months at most."

"I'm not to go when you go?"

Her voice, low and strained, drove straight to his heart.

"Myra, I never thought--it's a man's trip just now, darling.

I--couldn't take you with me," he stammered miserably. "Pa.s.sports are almost impossible to get; and then conditions over there----"

She backed away from him, her arms stiff at her sides.

"When were you--planning to go?"

He stared at her pitifully.

"Beloved, don't look at me that way!"

"When were you planning to go?" she repeated.

"Next week," he said in an altered voice. "I never thought you would take it this way. I never thought--it's a great chance."

"That's what I once told you," she said slowly, and turned away that he might not see her face. "Don't touch me!" she cried as he came nearer. "Don't! I've been nervous all day, and lonely." She tried to control herself, but as his arms went around her, she began to sob like a hurt child. "If you leave me, I shall die. I can't bear it. I know it's wicked of me." Her words reached him brokenly. "It's only because you're all I have. I've given up everything; and now----"

He stood very still, staring into s.p.a.ce, his hold on her never loosening. She stumbled on, confessing what had lain hidden in her heart until this moment. She told him things she had never thought she could betray to any one--things she had never even dared formulate. When she had done, he said in a strange, gentle voice:

"I didn't know you depended so on me. But it's all right; I won't leave you, ever. It's all right. There, dear, I understand."

She struggled free from his hold, and dried her eyes with a sudden pa.s.sionate gesture of scattering tears.

"You shall go," she said fiercely. "I hate myself for acting this way.

It was only because----" She could get no further.

He did not attempt to touch her again. They stood facing one another, measuring their love.

"I might go," he said at last, as if to himself; "but in going I should spoil something very precious. You deny it now, but you would remember your own sacrifice. And then, of course, you would go back to your work. I should want you to. But it would never be the same again, never."

"I won't go back."

He shook his head.