She patted him three times in rapid succession on the chest, as if cajoling him to stand patiently as he was for a moment, turned and whisked inside.
He had, he only now recalled rather ruefully, completely overlooked having his mailing address changed from here, his old quarters, to the new house on St. Louis Street, when he made the move. Not that it was vitally important; his business mail all continued to go to the office, as it always had, and of personal correspondence he had never had a great deal, only his courtship letters with Julia, now brought to a happy termination. He would stop by the post office, on his way home, and file the new delivery instructions, if only for the sake of an occasional stray missive such as this.
Meanwhile she had come back with it. "Here ! Isn't it good you just happened to come by this way?"
He gave the inscription a brief glance, simply to confirm it, as he took it from her. "Mr. Louis Durand," in spidery penmanship; the three capitals, M, L, and D, standing out in black enlargement, the minuscule letters too finely traced and too diminished in size to make for legibility. However, it was his own name, there could be no mistaking that, so he questioned it no further; thrust it carelessly into the side pocket of his coat for later reference and promptly forgot about it.
Their leavetaking was as exclamatory and enthusiastic as their greeting had been. She kissed him on the forehead in a sort of maternal benediction, waved him steadily on his way for a distance of the first three or four succeeding house-lengths, even touched her apron to the corner of her eye before at last turning to go inside. She wept easily, this Madame Tellier; wept with only a single glassful of wine, or at sight of any once-familiar face. Even those she had once ruthlessly evicted for non-payment of rent.
He accomplished his errand, he returned to his office, he absorbed himself once more in the daily routine of his work.
He discovered the letter a second time only within the last quarter of an hour before leaving to go home, and as equally by accident as it had been thrust upon him in the first place by happening to thrust his hand blindly into his pocket, in search of a pocket handkerchief.
Reminded of its presence, he rested himself for a moment by taking it out, tearing it open, and leaning back to read it. No sooner had his eyes fallen on the introductory words than he stopped again, puzzled.
"My own dearest Julia :"
It was for her, not himself.
He turned to the envelope again, looked at it more closely than he had on the street in presence of Madame Tellier. He saw then what had misled him. The little curl, following the "Mr." so tiny as almost to escape detection, was meant for an "s."
He went back to the paper once more; turned this over, glanced at the bottom of its reverse side.
"Your ever-loving and distressed Bertha."
It was from her sister, in St. Louis.
"Distressed." The word seemed to cast itself up at him, like a barbed fishhook, catch onto and strain at his attention. He could not pry it off again.
He did not intend to read any further. It was her letter, after all.
Somehow the opening words held him trapped, he could not stop once they had seized his eyes with their meaning.
My own dearest Julia:
I cannot understand why you treat me thus. Surely I deserve
better than this of you. It is three weeks now since you have left
me, and in all that time not a word from you. Not so much as the
briefest line, to tell me of your safe arrival, whether you met Mr.
Durand, whether the marriage has taken place or not. Julia, you
were never like this before. What am I to think? Can you not
imagine the distracted state of mind this leaves me in--
14
He waited until after they were through their supper to speak of it, and then only in the mildest, least reproachful way.
He took it out and gave it to her, after they had entered the sitting room from the dining room, and settled themselves there, she across the lamplit table from him. "This came for you today. I opened it by mistake, not noticing. I hope you'll forgive me."
She took the whole envelope first, and studied it a second, this way and that. "Who's it from ?" she said.
"Can't you tell?"
Just as he was about to wonder why the script in itself did not tell her that, she had already withdrawn its contents and opened them, and murmured "Oh," so the question never had a chance to form itself in his mind. But whether the "Oh" meant recognition of its sender or merely recognition of the nature of the letter, or even something else quite different, there was no way for him to distinguish.
She read it rather quickly, even hurriedly, her head moving with each line, then back again, in continuous serried little twitchings. Then reached the bottom and had done.
He thought he saw remorse on her face, in its sudden, still abstraction, that held for a moment after.
"She says--" She half-tendered it to him. "Did you read it?"
"Yes, I did," he said, slightly uncomfortable.
She put it back in the envelope, gave the latter two taps where its seam was broken.
He looked at her fondly, to soften the insistence of his appeal. "Write to her, Julia," he urged. "That is not like you at all."
"I will," she promised contritely. "Oh, I will, Louis, without fail." And twisted her hands a little, about themselves, and looked down at them as she did so.
"But why didn't you before now?" he continued gently. "I never asked you, because I felt sure you had."
"Oh, so much has happened--I meant to, time and again I meant to, and each time there was something to take my mind off it. You see, Louis, this has been the beginning of a whole new life for me, these past few weeks, and everything seemed to come at one time--"
"I know," he said. "But you will write?" And he took up and lost himself in his newspaper.
"The very first thing," she vowed.
Half an hour went by. She was, now, turning the leaves of a heavy ornamental album, regaling herself with the copperplate engravings, snubbing the text.
He watched her covertly from under lowered lids a moment. Presently he cleared his throat as a reminder.
She took no notice, went ahead, with childlike engrossment.
"You said you would write to your sister."
She looked slightly disconcerted. "I know. But must it be right tonight? Why won't tomorrow do as well ?"
"Don't you want to write to her?"
"Of course I do, how can you ask that? But why must it be this instant? Will tomorrow make such a difference ?"
He put his newspaper aside. "A great deal in time of arrival, I'm afraid. If you write it now, it can go off in the early morning post. If you wait until tomorrow, it will be held over a full day longer; she will have that much more anxiety to endure."
He rose, closed the album for her, since she gave no signs of intending to do this herself. Then he stopped momentarily, looked at her searchingly to ask: "There's no ill-feeling between you, is there? Some quarrel just before you left that you haven't told me about?" And before she could speak, if she had meant to, put the answer in her mouth. "She doesn't write as though there had been."
The lines of her throat, extended for an instant, dropped back again, as if he'd aborted what she'd been about to say.
"How you talk," she murmured. "We're devoted to one another."
"Well, then, come. Why be stubborn? There's no time like the present. And you have nothing to occupy yourself with, that I can see." He took her by both hands and had to draw her to her feet. And though she made no active sign of resistance, he could feel the weight of her body against the direction of his pull.