“He doesn’t look well, does he?” the chattering childish voice was saying.
“Let’s go, Millie,” he said suddenly. He took her arm and went toward the door. He turned his head to say to her. “I’d like to see those four children sometime.” They were going toward the car, across the grass. “I’m coming back to see them. Careful, Millicent — your dress is caught on the door.” He disengaged her skirt carefully and helped her in.
“Good-bye,” said Joan quietly. She turned and went back into her house and shut the door. She sat down in a straight-backed chair and waited to hear the sound of the motor begin. But it did not begin.
The door opened and he was back. He had shut the door and he was at her feet, kneeling, his head on her knees. But no, she would not touch his head, his shoulders. She held herself by the arms, away from him. She was thinking over and over again, No one has ever taken care of me. I wish I were a small thing so someone would call me “little girl”—That was how silly she could be, she cried furiously in her heart, dreaming that anyone could call a great creature like her “little girl”!
“I understand,” she was saying aloud. “Of course I understand how you cannot leave a little thing like that—” She had begun so patiently and quietly, understanding. For Roger to leave Millicent would be as though she were to leave Paul. She could understand that. Then why was all this bitterness welling up in her? It lay upon her tongue, like bitter gall. “What a pity,” she was saying dryly, bitterly, “what a pity women are not all born small and pretty and weak! Women don’t need anything except little weak pretty hands and faces, little slender bodies.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” he said. He lifted up his head to stare at her.
She laughed, holding herself away from him. “I mean, go back to taking care of her!”
But he was looking at her as one of the children might have looked at her if she had turned suddenly harsh, who had never been harsh. He was frightened because she was pushing him away.
“But I came back to tell you I couldn’t bear it not to see you anymore. There isn’t any life for me away from you.”
His long body was folded absurdly at her knees. His hair was gray at the temples, as gray as her own. But she loved him. He could come here into this house as the children had come. Some day he might so come, if she did not send him away now, if step by step he came his own way.
“I need you,” he cried out at her. Then she let herself go. She released herself and took his head into her hands and pressed it against her bosom. It was right, this head against her bosom. This was right — this deep relief.
“Oh, how I’ve needed you, your strength. I’ve been so tired,” he said brokenly.
“Yes, I know — I understand … Hush — I know—”
He sighed, like a child giving itself to sleep. She looked down upon his face. He had closed his eyes. The lines were gone out of his face now, for this moment. He was at rest in her, leaning on her.
“… Roger!” Millicent’s voice came crying from the car.
He sprang to his feet at the sound. The lines sprang back again about his mouth, his eyes.
“I’ve got to go.”
“Yes, go,” she said.
“Roger, are you coming?”
He put the voice away. She could see him putting it away from between them. He took her hands.
“This isn’t the end, you know. It’s the beginning. I don’t know what the end will be. But I’ll go on until I find it. I’m coming back.” He had her hands still. She nodded, smiling. He laid her hands down gently and she let them lie in her lap as he had laid them. He was gone. She had now only the moment of his head against her bosom. She felt still the touch of his head upon her bosom, his face there, the stigmata of love. He needed her. It was enough for love’s beginning, whatever was the end.
She heard Paul whimpering, awake from sleep, and at his voice she rose and went back to him. The boys would be coming home from school, too. Yes, she could hear Frankie now, his voice calling down the road, “Singin’ wid a sword in mah hand, O Lord — singin’ wid a sword in mah han’.”
She looked out of the door as she passed. The car was gone. And down the road marched the two boys, hand in hand, to the tune of Frankie’s singing. He had taken off his shoes and stockings and was walking barefoot. The spring sunshine poured down upon them. She paused on her way to the kitchen and began to sing with them as they drew near, her voice big and fresh, “Singin’ wid a sword in mah hand, O Lord—”
After all, she need not hurry. The day was still at noon.