He had to go to the desk and lower the writing-slab. He had to draw out a sheet of fresh notepaper from .the rack, and put it in place for her, slightly tilted of corner.
He had to go back and bring her over, from where she stood, by the hand. Then even when he had her seated, he had to dip the pen and place it in her very fingers. He gave her head a pat. "You are like a stubborn child that doesn't want to do its lessons," he told her humorously.
She tried to smile, but the effect was dubious at best.
"Let me see her letter a moment," she said at last.
He went back to the table, brought it to her. But she seemed only to glance at the very top line of the page, almost as if referring to the mode of address in order to be able to duplicate it. Though he told himself this thought on his part must be purely fanciful. Many people had to have the physical sight of a letter before them to be able to answer it satisfactorily; she might be one of those.
Then turning from it immediately after that one quick look, she wrote on her own blank sheet, "My own dear Bertha :" He could see it form, from over her shoulder. Beyond that she seemed to have no further use for the original, edged it slightly aside and didn't concern herself with it any further.
He let her be. He returned to his own chair, took up his newspaper once more. But the stream of her thoughts did not seem to flow easily. He would hear the scratch of her pen for a few words, then it would stop, die away, there would be a long wait. Then it would scratch for a few jerky words more, then die away again. He glanced over at her once just in time to see her clap her hand harassedly to her forehead and hold it there briefly.
At length he heard her give a great sigh, but one more of shortpatienced aversion continuing even after a task has been completed than of relief at its conclusion, and the scratching of the pen had stopped for good. She flung it down, as if annoyed.
"I've done. Do you want to read it?"
"No," he said, "it's between sister and sister, not for a husband to read."
"Very well," she said negligently. She passed her pink tongue around the gummed edge of the envelope, sealed it in. She stood it upright against the inside of the desk, prepared to close the slab over it. "I'll have Aunt Sarah post it for me in the morning."
He had reached for it and picked it up before her hands could forestall him, though they both flew out toward it just a moment too late. She hadn't expected him to be standing there behind her.
He slid it into his inside breast pocket, buttoned his coat over it. "I can do it for you myself," he said. "I leave the house earlier. It'll be that much sooner on its way."
He saw a startled expression, almost of trapped fear, cause her eyes to dodge cornerwise for an instant, but then they evened again so quickly he told himself he must have been mistaken, he must not have seen it at all.
When next he looked she was stroking the edge of her fingers with a bit of chamois penwiper, against potential rather than actual spots, however, and that seemed to be her sole remaining concern at the moment, though she puckered her brows pensively over the task.
15
The next morning, he thought she never had looked lovelier, and never had been more loving. All her past gracious endearment was as a coldness compared to the warmth of her consideration now.
She was in lilac watered silk, which had a rippling sheen running down it from whichever side you looked at it. It sighed as she walked, as if itself overcome by her loveliness. She did not stay at table as on other days, she accompanied him to the front door to see him off, her arm linked to his waist, his arm to hers. And as the slanting morning sunlight caught her in its glint, then released her, then caught her again a step further on, playing its mottled game with her all along the hall, he thought he had never seen such a vision of angelic beauty, and was almost awed to think it was his, walking here in his house, here at his side. Had she asked him to lie down and die for her then and there, he would have been glad to do it, and glad of her having asked it, as well.
They stopped. She raised her face from the side of his arm, she took up his hat, she stroked it of dust, she handed it to him.
They kissed.
She prepared his coat, held it spread, helped him on with it.
They kissed.
He opened the door in readiness to go.
They kissed.
She sighed. "I hate to see you go. And now I'll be all alone the rest of the livelong day."
"What will you do with yourself?" he asked in compunction, with the sudden--and only mometary--realization of a male that she too had a day to get through somehow, that she continued to go on during his absence. "Go shopping, I suppose," he suggested indulgently.
Her face brightened for a moment, as though he had read her heart. "Yes-!" Then it dimmed again. "No--" she said, forlorn. Instantly his attention was held fast. "Why not? What's the matter?"
"Oh, nothing--" She turned her head away, she didn't want to tell him.
He took the point of her chin and turned it back again. "Julia, I want to know. Tell me. What is it?" He touched her shoulder.
She tried to smile, wanly. Her eyes looked out the door.
He had to guess finally.
"Is it money ?"
He guessed right.
Not an eyelash moved, but somehow she told him. Certainly not with her tongue.
He gasped, half in laughter. "Oh, my poor foolish littieJulia--I" Instantly his coat flew open, his hand reached within. "Why, you only have to ask, don't you know that--?"
This time there could be no mistaking the answer. "No--! No--! No!" She was almost vehement about it, albeit in a pouty, petulant child's sort of way. She even tapped her toe for emphasis. "I don't like to ask for it. It isn't nice. I don't care if you are my own husband. It still isn't nice. I was brought up that way, I can't change."
He was smiling at her. He found her adorable. But still he didn't understand her, which was no detraction to the first two factors. "Then what do you want?"
She gave him a typically feminine answer. "I don't know." And raised her eyes thoughtfully, as if trying to scan the problem in her own mind, find a solution somehow.
"But you do want to go shopping, don't you? I can see you do by your look. And yet you don't want me to give you the money for it."
"Isn't there some other way?" she appealed to him helplessly, as if willing to extricate herself from her own scruples, if only she could be shown how without foregoing them.
"I could slip it under your plate, unasked, for you to find at breakfast," he smirked.
She saw no humor in the suggestion, shook her head absently, still busy pondering the problem, finger to tooth edge. Suddenly she brightened, looked at him. "Couldn't I have a little account of my own--? Like you have, only-- Oh, just a little one, tiny--small--"
Then she decided against that, before he could leap to give his consent, as he had been about to.
"No, that'd be too much bother, just for hats and gloves and things--" About to fall into disheartened perplexity again, she recovered, once more lighted up as a new variant occurred to her. "Or better still, couldn't I just share yours with you?" She spread out her hands in triumphant discovery. "That'd be simpler yet. Just call it ours instead. It's there already."
He crouched his shoulders down low. He slapped his thigh sharply. "By George ! Will that make you happy? Is that all it will take? God bless your trusting little heart I We'll do it!"
She flew into his arms like a shot, with a squeal for a firing-report. "Oh, Lou, I'll feel so big, so important! Can I, really? And can I even write my own checks, like you do?"
To love someone, is to give, and to want to give more still, no questions asked. To stop and think, then that is not to love, any more.
"Your own checks, in your own handwriting, in your own purse. I'll meet you at the bank at eleven. Will that time suit you?"