第56章 XI(2)

"No. I guess he felt this coming. Probably it came quicker than he expected. Now I can see that he hasn't been well for several days. But he would never let anything about illness be said. He thought talking of those things made them worse."

"You have relatives--somebody you wish me to telegraph?"

She shook her head. "No one. Our relatives out West are second cousins or further away. They care nothing about us. No, I'm all alone."

The tears sprang to his eyes. But there were no tears in her eyes, no forlornness in her voice. She was simply stating a fact. He said: "I'll look after everything. Don't give it a moment's thought."

"No, I'll arrange," replied she. "It'll give me something to do--something to do for him. You see, it's my last chance." And she turned to ascend the stairs. "Something to do," she repeated dully. "I wish I hadn't cleaned house this morning. That would be something more to do."

This jarred on him--then brought the tears to his eyes again. How childish she was!--and how desolate!

"But you'll let me stay?" he pleaded. "You'll need me. At any rate, I want to feel that you do."

"I'd rather you didn't stay," she said, in the same calm, remote way. "I'd rather be alone with him, this last time. I'll go up and sit there until they take him away. And then--in a few days I'll see what to do --I'll send for you."

"I can't leave you at such a time," he cried. "You haven't realized yet. When you do you will need some one."

"You don't understand," she interrupted. "He and I understood each other in some ways. I know he'd not want--anyone round."

At her slight hesitation before "anyone" he winced.

"I must be alone with him," she went on. "Thank you, but I want to go now."

"Not just yet," he begged. Then, seeing the shadow of annoyance on her beautiful white face, he rose and said: "I'm going. I only want to help you."

He extended his hand impulsively, drew it back before she had the chance to refuse it. For he felt that she would refuse it. He said, "You know you can rely on me."

"But I don't need anybody," replied she. "Good-by."

"If I can do anything----"

"Pat will telephone." She was already halfway upstairs.

He found Pat in the front yard, and arranged with him to get news and to send messages by way of the drug store at the corner, so that she would know nothing about it. He went to a florist's in New York and sent masses of flowers. And then--there was nothing more to do. He stopped in at the club and drank and gambled until far into the morning. He fretted gloomily about all the next day, riding alone in the Park, driving with his sister, drinking and gambling at the club again and smiling cynically to himself at the covert glances his acquaintances exchanged. He was growing used to those glances. He cared not the flip of a penny for them.

On the third day came the funeral, and he went. He did not let his cabman turn in behind the one carriage that followed the hearse. At the graveyard he stood afar off, watching her in her simple new black, noting her calm. She seemed thinner, but he thought it might be simply her black dress. He could see no change in her face. As she was leaving the grave, she looked in his direction but he was uncertain whether she had seen him. Pat and Molly were in the big, gloomy looking carriage with her.

He ventured to go to the front gate an hour later.

Pat came out. "It's no use to go in, Mr. Norman," he said. "She'll not see you. She's shut up in her own room."

"Hasn't she cried yet, Pat?"

"Not yet. We're waiting for it, sir. We're afraid her mind will give way. At least, Molly is. I don't think so. She's a queer young lady--as queer as she looks--though at first you'd never think it. She's always looking different. I never seen so many persons in one."

"Can't Molly MAKE her cry?--by talking about him?"

"She's tried, sir. It wasn't no use. Why, Miss Dorothy talks about him just as if he was still here."

Pat wiped the sweat from his forehead. "I've been in many a house of mourning, but never through such a strain as this. Somehow I feel as if I'd never before been round where there was anyone that'd lost somebody they REALLY cared about. Weeping and moaning don't amount to much beside what she's doing."

Norman stayed round for an hour or more, then rushed away distracted. He drank like a madman--drank himself into a daze, and so got a few hours of a kind of sleep. He was looking haggard and wild now, and everyone avoided him, though in fact there was not the least danger of an outburst of temper. His sister--Josephine--the office--several clients telephoned for him. To all he sent the same refusal--that he was too ill to see anyone. Not until the third day after the funeral did Dorothy telephone for him.

He took an ice-cold bath, got himself together as well as he could, and reached the house in Jersey City about half past three in the afternoon. She came gliding into the room like a ghost, trailing a black negligee that made the whiteness of her skin startling. Her eye-lids were heavy and dark, but unreddened. She gazed at him with calm, clear melancholy, and his heart throbbed and ached for her. She seated herself, clasped her hands loosely in her lap, and said:

"I've sent for you so that I could settle things up."

"Your father's affairs? Can't I do it better?"

"He had arranged everything. There are only the papers--his notes--and he wrote out the addresses of the men they were to be sent to. No, I mean settle things up with you."

"You mustn't bother about that," said he.

"Besides, there's nothing to settle."

"I shan't pretend I'm going to try to pay you back," she went on, as if he had not spoken. "I never could do it. But you will get part at least by selling this furniture and the things at the laboratory."

"Dorothy--please," he implored. "Don't you understand you're to stay on here, just the same? What sort of man do you think I am? I did this for you, and you know it."

"But I did it for my father," replied she, "and he's gone." She was resting her melancholy gaze upon him. "I couldn't take anything from you. You didn't think I was that kind?"

He was silent.