“Neither of which I know anything about,” she said. “And if I have done anything for Jared, it is nothing in comparison to what he has done for me. He has given me a new interest in life, which I badly needed. His youth, his enthusiasm, his energy, his extraordinary gifts are, well, quite bewildering and certainly exciting.”
He leaned forward in his chair, his hands clasped on his knees. “My dear lady, may I ask? I’m his only living relative, you know. Are you by any chance — lovers?”
She hesitated before the sudden confrontation. Then she used the narrow dagger that Jared had so innocently plunged into her heart a few days ago.
“He does not think of me in that way,” she said quietly.
He leaned back in his chair and his hands relaxed.
“Ah, I am almost sorry to hear you say that. He is so lonely.” She wondered, watching the mobile handsome face, if she were going to dislike this man. “He told me something about a girl,” she said.
“Yes, there is one in the offing — the very far offing. He’s really not ready for marriage, I’m afraid. He’s devoted to his work, as you know, and all these ideas floating about in his own mind — I doubt he is ready to undertake any permanent relationship. I dread it, for I saw Ariadne wither under exactly the same sort of — obliviousness, shall I say? Barnow — Jared’s father — was a, well perhaps one should say he was a disorganized genius. He was highly talented, one of those brilliant men of whom in college one expects everything, but when they get into the practical world, all their talents disintegrate.
“Ariadne was mad about him. They were both mad, for that matter. She was a beautiful debutante. Our family was — well, it doesn’t matter now, but she could have married anyone and she chose Barnow. The marriage was doomed — an exquisite girl, but spoiled — oh yes, who could help spoiling her? The only daughter — there were just two of us and our parents were, well, never mind, but they were disappointed in young Barnow as a son-in-law. I suppose divorce was just ahead, but death struck first. Barnow was on his way to an exciting new job in the West somewhere and Ariadne was with him. They were driving, and probably quarreling. At any rate, they were crossing the Rockies, one of those dreadful passes, you know, still icy in early spring, and their car went over a cliff.”
“How horrible!” Her voice was a whisper.
“Horrible,” he agreed, “and I thought of suing someone, for there was no barricade, you know. But it was explained to me that it was safer not to have a barricade, you know, on those heights, where no barricade would hold on the rocks, but people might trust to it and drive at high speed, and so if there were no barricade they would realize they must be careful. But being careful was one thing Ariadne never was, nor Barnow, either. Anyway, Jared was left to me as his only relative, for my parents had died a short time before of natural causes, first my father of a cerebral something and then my mother out of sheer willfullness, I do believe, because she wouldn’t live without him, and I never forgave her for it. I adored her and I hated my powerful, domineering father, who of course hated me in return and poured out his love on Ariadne. But why am I telling you all this about the most confusing and confused family that ever lived? Oh, yes, it’s to explain Jared. So you see I’ve had to let him simply grow up in his own way, because I knew nothing of how to bring up a child.”
“You’ve never married?”
“I’ve not been so lucky,” he said abruptly.
She felt the central coldness of this man, yet not, perhaps, a basic chill so much as an absolute restraint, self-imposed in some fashion she did not as yet understand. Something was hidden in this man, be was wary in spite of his frankness.
“A tragic story,” she said, “and I am glad you told me. It will help me the better to understand Jared.”
She touched a bell near her and Weston came to the door.
“Put a log on the fire,” she directed, “and bring us cocktails in half an hour.”
She understood now why Jared was impulsive and searching everywhere for life. He had been prepared for nothing and realizing the emptiness out of which he had sprung her heart turned toward him in a fresh surge of love and compassion. She faced the ascetic figure opposite her.
“Tell me something about French poetry,” she said.
… “I don’t know,” Jared said.
She was alone with him as the clock approached midnight and the old year neared its end. An hour ago his uncle had risen to his feet.
“I never watch the end of an old year,” he told them. “At my age it is only painful. If you will excuse me, I will thank you for a pleasant evening and take my leave.”
He had bowed to her and smiled at Jared. “Good night — and sweet dreams.”
“I don’t know,” Jared now repeated. “He wanted to come. He wanted to meet you. He said I was changed and he wanted to know why. I asked him how I was changed, and he said something was crystallizing in me, whatever that means. He lives a frightfully controlled life.”
“Controlled by whom?” she asked.
“Himself. And I was wrong about his ever having a mistress. He’s never loved a woman.”
“He told you that?”
“Yes — when I told him about you.”
“What did you tell him about me?”
“That I am hopelessly in love with you. And he said that he envied me because he’d never been in love, not with a woman, that is. And suddenly I understood him completely. He’s so damnably — good. He won’t accept love on any other terms but the highest. So he doesn’t accept love at all. He’s lived alone with his books and his paintings. Even friends he keeps at a distance. Even me.”
She allowed the full tragedy of this to permeate her mind until her heart seemed physically to ache. “And do you approve of this rejection of love just because it is unorthodox?”
“Yes, I do,” he said simply. “Now that I know what love is.”
They looked steadfastly into each other’s eyes.
“And what is love?” she asked.
“I am finding out,” he said. “Someday — perhaps — I will tell you.”
The minutes had slipped away as they talked and suddenly the grandfather clock in a corner struck twelve. They waited in silence, and he reached for her hands and held them in both his own. At the twelfth stroke, he stooped and kissed her lips.
“It’s a new year,” he said. “A new year, and in it anything can happen.”
…But in the night she woke, and remembered everything that Jared had said about his uncle. In all her life only Edwin had been articulate about love and being a philosopher he had made even love a philosophy. Thinking of him, she could imagine him declaring in his gently dogmatic fashion that love had manifold forms, and none of these was to be summarily rejected. Thus remembering him, she found herself contrasting the two older men, Edwin so free in his own fashion within the limitless boundaries of his organized freedom and Edmond so controlled within his self-imposed restriction. Each in his own way proclaimed the supreme meaning of love, the one by acceptance and delight, the other by refusal and abstinence. The difference defined the nature of the two men, the one accepting and joyous in spite of age and infirmity, the other diffident, hiding himself in a mist of words, signifying — what? And Jared, how was it with him? Would love enlarge or confine him? For that matter, what would love do to her? Neither question could be answered as yet. She did not know the limits of love. She had only acknowledged love. She had declared, by such acknowledgment at least, its presence within her. The question now was what she would do with it — or more accurately, what it would do with her.