第106章

She still thinks of him as Mr.Durrett's foreman."The time flew.Her presence was like a bracing,tingling atmosphere in which I felt revived and exhilarated,self-restored.For Nancy did not question--she took me as I was.We looked out on the world,as it were,from the same window,and I could not help thinking that ours,after all,was a large view.The topics didn't matter--our conversation was fragrant with intimacy;and we were so close to each other it seemed incredible that we ever should be parted again.At last the little clock on the mantel chimed an hour,she started and looked up.

"Why,it's seven,Hugh!"she exclaimed,rising."I'd no idea it was so late,and I'm dining with the Dickinsons.I've only just time to dress.""It's been like a reunion,hasn't it?--a reunion after many years,"Isaid.I held her hand unconsciously--she seemed to be drawing me to her,I thought she swayed,and a sudden dizziness seized me.Then she drew away abruptly,with a little cry.I couldn't be sure about the cry,whether I heard it or not,a note was struck in the very depths of me.

"Come in again,"she said,"whenever you're not too busy."And a minute later I found myself on the street.

This was the beginning of a new intimacy with Nancy,resembling the old intimacy yet differing from it.The emotional note of our parting on the occasion I have just related was not again struck,and when I went eagerly to see her again a few days later I was conscious of limitations,--not too conscious:the freedom she offered and which Igladly accepted was a large freedom,nor am I quite sure that even Iwould have wished it larger,though there were naturally moments when Ithought so:when I asked myself what I did wish,I found no answer.

Though I sometimes chafed,it would have been absurd of me to object to a certain timidity or caution I began to perceive in her that had been absent in the old Nancy;but the old Nancy had ceased to exist,and here instead was a highly developed,highly specialized creature in whom Idelighted;and after taking thought I would not have robbed her of fine acquired attribute.As she had truly observed,we were both conventional;conventionality was part of the price we had willingly paid for membership in that rarer world we had both achieved.It was a world,to be sure,in which we were rapidly learning to take the law into our own hands without seeming to defy it,in order that the fear of it might remain in those less fortunately placed and endowed:we had begun with the appropriation of the material property of our fellow-citizens,which we took legally;from this point it was,of course,merely a logical step to take--legally,too other gentlemen's human property--their wives,in short:the more progressive East had set us our example,but as yet we had been chary to follow it.

About this time rebellious voices were beginning to make themselves heard in the literary wilderness proclaiming liberty--liberty of the sexes.

There were Russian novels and French novels,and pioneer English novels preaching liberty with Nietzschean stridency,or taking it for granted.

I picked these up on Nancy's table.

"Reading them?"she said,in answer to my query."Of course I'm reading them.I want to know what these clever people are thinking,even if Idon't always agree with them,and you ought to read them too.It's quite true what foreigners say about our men,--that they live in a groove,that they haven't any range of conversation.""I'm quite willing to be educated,"I replied."I haven't a doubt that Ineed it."She was leaning back in her chair,her hands behind her head,a posture she often assumed.She looked up at me amusedly.

"I'll acknowledge that you're more teachable than most of them,"she said."Do you know,Hugh,sometimes you puzzle me greatly.When you are here and we're talking together I can never think of you as you are out in the world,fighting for power--and getting it.I suppose it's part of your charm,that there is that side of you,but I never consciously realize it.You're what they call a dual personality.""That's a pretty hard name!"I exclaimed.

She laughed.

"I can't help it--you are.Oh,not disagreeably so,quite normally--that's the odd thing about you.Sometimes I believe that you were made for something different,that in spite of your success you have missed your 'metier.'""What ought I to have been?""How can I tell?A Goethe,perhaps--a Goethe smothered by a twentieth-century environment.Your love of adventure isn't dead,it's been merely misdirected,real adventure,I mean,forth faring,straying into unknown paths.Perhaps you haven't yet found yourself.""How uncanny!"I said,stirred and startled.

"You have a taste for literature,you know,though you've buried it.

Give me Turgeniev.We'll begin with him...."Her reading and the talks that followed it were exciting,amazingly stimulating....Once Nancy gave me an amusing account of a debate which had taken place in the newly organized woman's discussion club to which she belonged over a rather daring book by an English novelist.Mrs.

Dickinson had revolted.

"No,she wasn't really shocked,not in the way she thought she was,"said Nancy,in answer to a query of mine.

"How was she shocked,then?"

"As you and I are shocked."

"But I'm not shocked,"I protested.

"Oh,yes,you are,and so am I--not on the moral side,nor is it the moral aspect that troubles Lula Dickinson.She thinks it's the moral aspect,but it's really the revolutionary aspect,the menace to those precious institutions from which we derive our privileges and comforts."I considered this,and laughed.

"What's the use of being a humbug about it,"said Nancy.

"But you're talking like a revolutionary,"I said.

"I may be talking like one,but I'm not one.I once had the makings of one--of a good one,--a 'proper'one,as the English would say."She sighed.

"You regret it?"I asked curiously.