She wanted to throw her arms around him then, but she controlled herself, even her hands. She introduced everyone, she sent for tea. The men asked Edward Dicer questions about the war and he parried them politely but restlessly.
After half an hour he asked Josephine: “Have you the time? I must keep track of my train.”
They might have noticed the watch on his own wrist and taken the hint, but he fascinated them all, as though they had isolated a rare specimen and were determined to find out all about it. Even had they realized Josephine’s state of mind, it would have seemed to them that she was selfish to want something of such general interest for her own.
The arrival of Constance, her married sister, did not help matters; again Dicer was caught up into the phenomenon of human curiosity. As the clock in the hall struck six, he shot a desperate glance at Josephine. With a belated appreciation of the situation, the group broke itself up. Constance took the Dillons upstairs to the other sitting room, the two young men went home.
Silence, save for the voices fading off on the stairs, the automobile crunching away on the snow outside. Before a word was said, Josephine rang for the maid, and instructing her that she was not at home, closed the door into the hall. Then she went and sat down on the couch next to him and clasped her hands and waited.
“Thank God,” he said. “I thought if they stayed another minute—”
“Wasn’t it terrible?”
“I came out here because of you. The night you left New York I was ten minutes late getting to the train because I was detained at the French propaganda office. I’m not much good at letters. Since then I’ve thought of nothing but getting out here to see you.”
“I felt sad.” But not now; now she was thinking that in a moment she would be in his arms, feeling the buttons of his tunic press bruisingly against her, feeling his diagonal belt as something that bound them both and made her part of him. There were no doubts, no reservations, he was everything she wanted.
“I’m over here for six months more—perhaps a year. Then, if this damned war goes on, I’ll have to go back. I suppose I haven’t really got the right—”
“Wait—wait!” she cried. She wanted a moment longer to taste, to feel fully her happiness. “Wait,” she repeated, putting her hand on his. She felt every object in the room vividly; she saw the seconds passing, each one carrying a load of loveliness toward the future. “All right; now tell me.”
“Just that I love you,” he whispered. She was in his arms, her hair against his cheek. “We haven’t known each other long, and you’re only eighteen, but I’ve learned to be afraid of waiting.”
Now she leaned her head back until she was looking up at him, supported by his arm. Her neck curved gracefully, full and soft, and she leaned in toward his shoulder, as she knew how, so that her lips were every minute closer to him. “Now,” she thought. He gave a funny little sigh and pulled her face up to his.
After a minute she leaned away from him and twisted herself upright.
“Darling—darling—darling,” he said.
She looked at him, stared at him. Gently he pulled her over again and kissed her. This time, when she sat up, she rose and went across the room, where she opened a dish of almonds and dropped some in her mouth. Then she came back and sat beside him, looking straight ahead, then darting a sudden glance at him.
“What are you thinking, darling, darling Josephine?” She didn’t answer; he put both hands over hers. “What are you feeling, then?”
As he breathed, she could hear the faint sound of his leather belt moving on his shoulder; she could feel his strong, kind handsome eyes looking at her; she could feel his proud self feeding on glory as others feed on security; she heard the jingle of spurs ring in his strong, rich, compelling voice.
“I feel nothing at all,” she said.
“What do you mean?” He was startled.
“Oh, help me!” she cried. “Help me!”
“I don’t understand what you mean.”
“Kiss me again.”
He kissed her. This time he held on to her and looked down into her face.
“What do you mean?” he demanded. “You mean you don’t love me?”
“I don’t feel anything.”
“But you did love me.”
“I don’t know.”
He let her go. She went across the room and sat down.
“I don’t understand,” he said after a minute.
“I think you’re perfect,” she said, her lips quivering.
“But I’m not—thrilling to you?”
“Oh, yes, very thrilling. I was thrilled all afternoon.”
“Then what is it, darling?”
“I don’t know. When you kissed me I wanted to laugh.” It made her sick to say this, but a desperate, interior honesty drove her on. She saw his eyes change, saw him withdrawing a little from her. “Help me,” she repeated.
“Help you how? You’ll have to be more definite. I love you; I thought perhaps you loved me. That’s all. If I don’t please you—”
“But you do. You’re everything—you’re everything I’ve always wanted.” Her voice continued inside herself: “But I’ve had everything.”
“But you simply don’t love me.”
“I’ve got nothing to give you. I don’t feel anything at all.”
He got up abruptly. He felt her vast, tragic apathy pervading the room, and it set up an indifference in him now, too—a lot of things suddenly melted out of him.
“Good-by.”
“You won’t help me,” she murmured abstractedly.
“How in the devil can I help you?” he answered impatiently. “You feel indifferent to me. You can’t change that, but neither can I. Good-by.”
“Good-by.”
She was very tired and lay face downward on the couch with that awful, awful realization that all the old things are true. One cannot both spend and have. The love of her life had come by, and looking in her empty basket, she had found not a flower left for him—not one. After a while she wept.
“Oh, what have I done to myself?” she wailed. “What have I done? What have I done?”
