The Breaking Point Read online

  IX

  Elizabeth had gone about all day with a smile on her lips and a sort ofexaltation in her eyes. She had, girl fashion, gone over and over thetotally uneventful evening they had spent together, remembering smallspeeches and gestures; what he had said and she had answered.

  She had, for instance, mentioned Clare Rossiter, very casually. Ohvery, very casually. And he had said: "Clare Rossiter? Oh, yes, the tallblonde girl, isn't she?"

  She was very happy. He had not seemed to find her too young orparticularly immature. He had asked her opinion on quite importantthings, and listened carefully when she replied. She felt, though, thatshe knew about one-tenth as much as he did, and she determined toread very seriously from that time on. Her mother, missing her thatafternoon, found her curled up in the library, beginning the firstvolume of Gibbon's "Rome" with an air of determined concentration, andwearing her best summer frock.

  She did not intend to depend purely on Gibbon's "Rome," evidently.

  "Are you expecting any one, Elizabeth?" she asked, with the frankdirectness characteristic of mothers, and Elizabeth, fixing a date inher mind with terrible firmness, looked up absently and said:

  "No one in particular."

  At three o'clock, with a slight headache from concentration, she wentupstairs and put up her hair again; rather high this time to make herfeel taller. Of course, it was not likely he would come. He was verybusy. So many people depended on him. It must be wonderful to be likethat, to have people needing one, and looking out of the door andsaying: "I think I see him coming now."

  Nevertheless when the postman rang her heart gave a small leap and thenstood quite still. When Annie slowly mounted the stairs she was alreadyon her feet, but it was only a card announcing: "Mrs. Sayre, Wednesday,May fifteenth, luncheon at one-thirty."

  However, at half past four the bell rang again, and a masculine voiceinformed Annie, a moment later, that it would put its overcoat here,because lately a dog had eaten a piece out of it and got most awfulindigestion.

  The time it took Annie to get up the stairs again gave her a momentso that she could breathe more naturally, and she went down verydeliberately and so dreadfully poised that at first he thought she wasnot glad to see him.

  "I came, you see," he said. "I intended to wait until to-morrow, but Ihad a little time. But if you're doing anything--"

  "I was reading Gibbon's 'Rome,'" she informed him. "I think every oneshould know it. Don't you?"

  "Good heavens, what for?" he inquired.

  "I don't know." They looked at each other, and suddenly they laughed.

  "I wanted to improve my mind," she explained. "I felt, last night, thatyou-that you know so many things, and that I was frightfully stupid."

  "Do you mean to say," he asked, aghast, "that I--! Great Scott!"

  Settled in the living-room, they got back rather quickly to their statusof the night before, and he was moved to confession.

  "I didn't really intend to wait until to-morrow," he said. "I got upwith the full intention of coming here to-day, if I did it over thewreck of my practice. At eleven o'clock this morning I held up aconsultation ten minutes to go to Yardsleys and buy a tie, for thisexpress purpose. Perhaps you have noticed it already."

  "I have indeed. It's a wonderful tie."

  "Neat but not gaudy, eh?" He grinned at her, happily. "You know, youmight steer me a bit about my ties. I have the taste of an Africansavage. I nearly bought a purple one, with red stripes. And Aunt Lucythinks I should wear white lawn, like David!"

  They talked, those small, highly significant nothings which are only thebarrier behind which go on the eager questionings and unspoken answersof youth and love. They had known each other for years, had exchangedthe same give and take of neighborhood talk when they met as now. To-daynothing was changed, and everything.

  Then, out of a clear sky, he said:

  "I may be going away before long, Elizabeth."

  He was watching her intently. She had a singular feeling that behindthis, as behind everything that afternoon, was something not spoken.Something that related to her. Perhaps it was because of his tone.

  "You don't mean-not to stay?"

  "No. I want to go back to Wyoming. Where I was born. Only for a fewweeks."

  And in that "only for a few weeks" there lay some of the unspokenthings. That he would miss her and come back quickly to her. That shewould miss him, and that subconsciously he knew it. And behind that,too, a promise. He would come back to her.

  "Only for a few weeks," he repeated. "I thought perhaps, if you wouldn'tmind my writing to you, now and then--I write a rotten hand, you know.Most medical men do."

  "I should like it very much," she said, primly.

  She felt suddenly very lonely, as though he had already gone, andslightly resentful, not at him but at the way things happened. And then,too, everyone knew that once a Westerner always a Westerner. The Westalways called its children. Not that she put it that way. But she hada sort of vision, gained from the moving pictures, of a country of widespaces and tall mountains, where men wore quaint clothing and the womenrode wild horses and had the dash she knew she lacked. She was stirredby vague jealousy.

  "You may never come back," she said, casually. "After all, you were bornthere, and we must seem very quiet to you."

  "Quiet!" he exclaimed. "You are heavenly restful and comforting. You--"he checked himself and got up. "Then I'm to write, and you are to makeout as much of my scrawl as you can and answer. Is that right?"

  "I'll write you all the town gossip."

  "If you do--!" he threatened her. "You're to write me what you're doing,and all about yourself. Remember, I'll be counting on you."

  And, if their voices were light, there was in both of them the senseof a pact made, of a bond that was to hold them, like clasped hands,against their coming separation. It was rather anti-climacteric afterthat to have him acknowledge that he didn't know exactly when he couldget away!

  She went with him to the door and stood there, her soft hair blowing, ashe got into the car. When he looked back, as he turned the corner, shewas still there. He felt very happy affable, and he picked up an elderlyvillage woman with her and went considerably out of his way to take herhome.

  He got back to the office at half past six to find a red-eyed Minnie inthe hall.