The Happiest Time of Their Lives Part 15

"Adelaide," he said in a tone that drove every other sensation away--"Adelaide, that letter. No, don't read it." He took it from her and laid it on his dressing-table. "My dear love, it has very bad news in it."

"There _has_ been something, then?"

"Yes. I have been worried about my health for some time. This letter tells me the worst is true. Well, my dear, we did not enter matrimony with the idea that either of us was immortal."

But that was his last effort to be superior to the crisis, to pretend that the bitterness of death was any less to him than to any other human creature, to conceal that he needed help, all the help that he could get.

And Adelaide gave him help. Artificial as she often was in daily contact, in a moment like this she was splendidly, almost primitively real. She did not conceal her own pa.s.sionate despair, her conviction that her life couldn't go on without his; she did not curb her desire to know every detail on which his opinion and his doctor's had been founded; she clung to him and wept, refusing to let him discuss business arrangements, in which for some reason he seemed to find a certain respite; and yet with it all, she gave him strength, the sense that he had an indissoluble and loyal companion in the losing fight that lay before him.

Once she was aware of thinking: "Oh, why did he tell me to-night? Things are so terrible by night," but it was only a second before she put such a thought away from her. What had these nights been to him? The night when she had found his light burning so late, and other nights when he had probably denied himself the consolation of reading for fear of rousing her suspicions. She did not attempt to pity or advise him, she did not treat him as a mixture of child and idiot, as affection so often treats illness. She simply gave him her love.

Toward morning he fell asleep in her arms, and then she stole back to her own room. There everything was unchanged, the light still burning, her satin slippers stepping on each other just as she had left them. She looked at herself in the gla.s.s; she did not look so very different. A headache had often ravaged her appearance more.

She had always thought herself a coward, she feared death with a terrible repugnance; but now she found, to her surprise, that she would have light-heartedly changed places with her husband. She had much more courage to die than to watch him die--to watch Vincent die, to see him day by day grow weak and pitiful. That was what was intolerable. If he would only die now, to-night, or if she could! It was at this moment that the kitchen maid had heard her sobbing.

Because there was nothing else to do, she got into bed, and lay there staring at the electric light, which she had forgotten to put out. Toward seven she got up and gave orders that Mr. Farron was not to be disturbed, that the house was to be kept quiet. Strange, she thought, that he could sleep like an exhausted child, while she, awake, was a ma.s.s of pain. Her heart ached, her eyes burned, her very body felt sore. She arranged for his sleep, but she wanted him to wake up; she begrudged every moment of his absence. Alas! she thought, how long would she continue to do so?

Yet with her suffering came a wonderful ease, an ability to deal with the details of life. When at eight o'clock her maid came in and, pulling the curtains, exclaimed with Gallic candor, "Oh, comme madame a mauvaise mine ce matin!" she smiled at her with unusual gentleness. Later, when Mathilde came down at her accustomed hour, and lying across the foot of her mother's bed, began to read her sc.r.a.ps of the morning paper, Adelaide felt a rush of tenderness for the child, who was so unaware of the hideous bargain life really was. Surprising as it was, she found she could talk more easily than usual and with a more undivided attention, though everything they said was trivial enough.

Then suddenly her heart stood still, for the door opened, and Vincent, in his dressing-gown, came in. He had evidently had his bath, for his hair was wet and s.h.i.+ny. Thank G.o.d! he showed no signs of defeat!

"Oh," cried Mathilde, jumping up, "I thought Mr. Farron had gone down-town ages ago."

"He overslept," said Adelaide.

"I had an excellent night," he answered, and she knew he looked at her to discover that she had not.

"I'll go," said Mathilde; but with unusual sharpness they both turned to her and said simultaneously, "No, no; stay." They knew no better than she did why they were so eager to keep her.

"Are you going down-town, Vin?" Adelaide asked, and her voice shook a little on the question; she was so eager that he should not inst.i.tute any change in his routine so soon.

"Of course," he answered.

They looked at each other, yet their look said nothing in particular.

Presently he said:

"I wonder if I might have breakfast in here. I'll go and shave if you'll order it; and don't let Mathilde go. I have something to say to her."

When he was gone, Mathilde went and stood at the window, looking out, and tying knots in the window-shade's cord. It was a trick Adelaide had always objected to, and she was quite surprised to hear herself saying now, just as usual:

"Mathilde, don't tie knots in that cord."

Mathilde threw it from her as one whose mind was engaged on higher things.

"You know," she observed, "I believe I'm only just beginning to appreciate Mr. Farron. He's so wise. I see what you meant about his being strong, and he's so clever. He knows just what you're thinking all the time. Isn't it nice that he likes Pete? Did he say anything more about him after you went up-stairs? I mean, he really does like him, doesn't he? He doesn't say that just to please me?"

Presently Vincent came back fully dressed and sat down to his breakfast.

Oddly enough, there was a spirit of real gaiety in the air.

"What was it you were going to say to me?" Mathilde asked greedily.

Farron looked at her blankly. Adelaide knew that he had quite forgotten the phrase, but he concealed the fact by not allowing the least illumination of his expression as he remembered.

"Oh, yes," he said. "I wish to correct myself. I told you that Mrs.

Wayne was an elderly wood-nymph; but I was wrong. Of course the truth is that she's a very young witch."

Mathilde laughed, but not whole-heartedly. She had already identified herself so much with the Waynes that she could not take them quite in this tone of impersonality.

Farron threw down his napkin, stood up, pulled down his waistcoat.

"I must be off," he said. He went and kissed his wife. Both had to nerve themselves for that.

She held his arm in both her hands, feeling it solid, real, and as hard as iron.

"You'll be up-town early?"

"I've a busy day."

"By four?"

"I'll telephone." She loved him for refusing to yield to her just at this moment of all moments. Some men, she thought, would have hidden their own self-pity under the excuse of the necessity of being kind to her.

She was to lunch out with a few critical contemporaries. She was horrified when she looked at herself by morning light. Her skin had an ivory hue, and there were many fine wrinkles about her eyes. She began to repair these damages with the utmost frankness, talking meantime to Mathilde and the maid. She swept her whole face with a white lotion, rouged lightly, but to her very eyelids, touched a red pencil to her lips, all with discretion. The result was satisfactory. The improvement in her appearance made her feel braver. She couldn't have faced these people--she did not know whether to think of them as intimate enemies or hostile friends--if she had been looking anything but her best.

But they were just what she needed; they would be hard and amusing and keep her at some tension. She thought rather crossly that she could not sit through a meal at home and listen to Mathilde rambling on about love and Mr. Farron.

She was inexcusably late, and they had sat down to luncheon--three men and two women--by the time she arrived. They had all been, or had wanted to go, to an auction sale of _objets d'art_ that had taken place the night before. They were discussing it, praising their own purchases, and decrying the value of everybody else's when Adelaide came in.

"Oh, Adelaide," said her hostess, "we were just wondering what you paid originally for your tapestry."

"The one in the hall?"

"No, the one with the Turk in it."

"I haven't an idea,--" Adelaide was distinctly languid,--"I got it from my grandfather."

"Wouldn't you know she'd say that?" exclaimed one of the women. "Not that I deny it's true; only, you know, Adelaide, whenever you do want to throw a veil over one of your pieces, you always call on the prestige of your ancestors."

Adelaide raised her eyebrows.

"Really," she answered, "there isn't anything so very conspicuous about having had a grandfather."

"No," her hostess echoed, "even I, so well and favorably known for my vulgarity--even _I_ had a grandfather."

"But he wasn't a connoisseur in tapestries, Minnie darling."

"No, but he was in pigs, the dear vulgarian."

"True vulgarity," said one of the men, "vulgarity in the best sense, I mean, should betray no consciousness of its own existence. Only thus can it be really great."