“Is that all?” Amelia asked.
“That’s all,” she said.
“Then there’s no truth to the gossip?”
“There’s never truth to gossip.”
“Have it your own way, my dear,” Amelia said, getting to her feet.
“I intend to,” she said and followed her friend to the door.
…Purposely during the week she reconstructed her usual life. She sat on three boards, of each of which she was a member, she consulted with her attorney over income tax matters in relation to Arnold’s will, she bought herself a sealskin jacket and small hat to match, she opened her belated Christmas presents and wrote notes of thanks. The household moved in its usual ways, surrounding her with care and comfort, and she slept well at night, postponing decision. After all, she told herself, she had not been asked to make a decision. It was possible, perhaps, and why not, simply to go on as she was, welcoming Jared when he came to visit her, accepting this remarkable friendship as a friendship and nothing more.
In this frame of mind two days before New Year’s, she gave directions after breakfast.
“Weston, Mr. Barnow will spend the next few days here.”
“Very well, madame. Shall he be here for dinner?”
“Yes. Please tell cook to begin with fresh oysters. He is fond of them.”
“Yes, madame.”
She went into the greenhouse that opened from the dining room and cut yellow snapdragons and pink carnations which she arranged for the guest room. When this was done she stood, looking about her and imagining him here, asleep in the great old-fashioned bed, or reading in the sitting room of the guest suite. She was in a tranquil mood and at this moment she thought of him with tenderness rather than desire, although she knew that desire waited. She realized, too, his loneliness, not only that he had no family except an old uncle, but the far deeper loneliness of the superior mind, dwelling in distant regions too far beyond the minds of others for ordinary companionship. She had seen her father’s loneliness, had indeed known something of the same loneliness in herself. Few women read the books that she read, or thought such thoughts as hers. Yes, she was quite right in clinging to this friendship. They were two people who communicated, in spite of the difference in their ages. Perhaps this very difference was her protection; if so, let it never be forgotten! Upon this she put away from herself everything except her joy, surely innocent, in his return.
…“Do you mind if I bring someone with me tomorrow?”
His voice, resounding over the telephone that night, seemed to echo through her quiet sitting room. Presuming she would be up late tomorrow night to see the old year out, she had eaten her dinner alone and had then come upstairs to read an hour or so and go to bed early.
“Whom do you wish to bring?” she asked now.
It was the girl, she supposed, and she felt a pang of ridiculous jealousy.
“My uncle, Edmond Hartley,” he said. “He came home unexpectedly this morning with a queer feeling that this might be his last New Year’s Eve, though he’s only sixty-seven, but I don’t like to leave him alone. I’m all he has, you know.”
“Of course, bring him.”
She spoke cheerfully enough, but she was chilled. A stranger, probably worldly wise and discerning, someone against whom she must protect herself! She went to bed disturbed at what could only be an invasion of the privacy in which her friendship with Jared had so far been conducted. She slept fitfully through the night and woke up the next morning late and ordered her breakfast sent to her room. She made no haste over the meal and it was noon before she was dressed for the day, choosing a suit she particularly liked of clear blue wool. Outside the sky was a lowering gray and the grounds, as she saw from her windows, were a darker gray, the trees, trunks and bare limbs, black with dampness. All the more reason, then, for cheer in the house, and when she went downstairs, she lit the lamps and set a match to the logs in the fireplace in the library.
About three, Jared had said, and promptly at three she saw his small car turn into the wide space, between the stone pillars at the far end of the driveway. She had waited in the library, reading desultorily, and was surprised when his uncle was ushered into the library by Jared himself. She was surprised for he, Jared, had not prepared her for this handsome debonair man, tall and slim, his silver-white hair shining above a tanned face, a trim white beard, and bright blue eyes. He came forward with outstretched hands and she rose and felt her own hands clasped in a warm handshake.
“Ah, Mrs. Chardman,” he exclaimed. “This is an imposition, an interruption, but my nephew insisted that I must come with him or he would stay with me, disrupting your plans, which I could not and would not allow. Besides, I was curious about you.”
She recovered herself sufficiently to withdraw her hands gently. “Now I am curious about you,” she said. “But I’m sure you’ll want to go to your rooms first after so long a drive. Jared, Weston has put your uncle next to you. You’ll share the sitting room between you.”
Thus she dismissed them for the moment, with a smile and glance for Jared, and waited downstairs. Three o’clock was an awkward hour, she decided, left to herself, a space equidistant between luncheon and dinner, and the hours ahead suddenly became a burden. Three instead of two, and she could not devote herself either to Jared or his uncle! But now Jared came in alone, and stooped to lay his cheek against her hair.
“I’m leaving you to my uncle,” he said. “I’ve an appointment with an engineer. We’re to discuss something I’m making. He’s a practical sort of fellow and he’ll pick holes in my dreams.”
“Don’t let him discourage you,” she said, holding his hand and looking up at him while she spoke. “I’m not sure I like people who pick holes in dreams.”
“It will be good for me, and I’ll be back for cocktails.”
With this he put her hand to his lips and was gone, leaving her waiting and half afraid.
…“In fact,” Edmond Hartley said, a few minutes later, “had I not been curious about you, I would not have presumed to descend upon you in this fashion.” He seated himself opposite her by the blazing fire and continued. “You have had the most extraordinary effect on my nephew, Mrs. Chardman, a — a maturing effect, I suppose would be the best way to express it. From a most disarranged young man, not knowing what to choose among at least half-a-dozen possibilities as his lifework — and I do assure you he could be a shining success in any one of them — he is settling with a most interesting combination of them all, and it is something I’ve not really heard much about, but it appears to be extremely useful, a science and engineering sort of thing, which I confess I don’t at all understand but which seems to me might be extremely useful. He is so much like his mother, my sister Ariadne, and again so totally unlike, her, that I am bewildered in general, and not knowing what to do, I leave him to his own devices, and consequently, I am afraid, I have not been very helpful to him. But you seem to understand him so marvelously well, that I felt I must meet you, if only to thank you and, hopefully, to gain some of your wisdom.”
This he poured forth in a mellifluous voice, rich in emphasis, his beautiful bauds active in gesture, and his blue eyes shining, extraordinarily youthful eyes, she thought, and yet the combination conveyed a central coldness which she could not immediately fathom.
“I should like to know more about Jared’s parents,” she said quietly.
He looked at her. “You are so beautifully restful,” he said irrelevantly. “I can see why Jared says he can always talk to you. I am not such a good listener. Indeed, as he very well knows, I usually do not know what he is talking about. My own preoccupations are early French poetry and English stained glass — cathedral glass.”