Chapter VI: Night Thoughts

HE could not get to sleep for a long time.

Of course, he could not take Monica’s proposal seriously. They had both been a little mad. She hadn’t known what she was saying. She didn’t really mean it. He couldn’t take advantage of a young girl’s romantic emotions. It would be simply too caddish.... The best thing to do would be to ignore the incident. Yes, the next time they met he would just behave as though nothing had happened. No doubt she would be grateful and relieved....

This mood of chivalry lasted for perhaps three quarters of an hour, when abruptly his thoughts took another turn. He had a sudden vision of her looking at him with scornful eyes. Women didn’t appreciate that kind of masculine chivalry. It would hurt her pride, and she would despise him....

Well, what could he say to her? Not, after their kisses to-night, that he didn’t really care for her that much.... It would be a lie....

Well, if he felt that way, why not take her up?

The trouble was that it was impracticable. He couldn’t go to live there again. Mrs. Case would have something to say about that. She had foreseen this very situation. A realistic mother, Mrs. Case.... No, it wouldn’t do at all. Agreeable as Monica’s proposal was, as a young man of the world he had to realize that it must be foregone....

To be sure, he had this apartment. And after his mother had gone back to Vickley--

Yes, why not?

Monica, he told himself, was old enough to know what she was doing. He wasn’t exactly seducing her. She had made the offer herself. And he would be a fool to say no....

He played in imagination with the idea, and it was infinitely alluring.

Of course, he must not let Monica enter into this relationship with any false romantic ideas of its seriousness. He would have to make it clear to her that it was just--well, a temporary and passing sort of thing....

If Monica were older, and had had more experience in the ways of the world, she would take all this for granted. But that was not the case. And the thought of making these explanations to her was not very pleasant.

As a matter of fact, it would all be terribly serious to her. She would be committing a sin, for the sake of their love. Because she thought he was a married man.... It was hardly fair to her....

But if he told her the truth, she would want him to marry her....

That, of course, was entirely out of the question. The deception would have to be kept up--or else, for that idea didn’t please his imagination, he would have to make clear to her why he didn’t want to get married....

He could imagine her saying reproachfully: “You mean--you don’t want to get married to _me_!”

Well, all right, take it that way. He supposed he would get married some day. But he had no intention of doing so for a long time....

“But why don’t you want to marry me, Norman?”

What could he answer to that? He might say that this wasn’t really love.... But she would indignantly deny that. And she would be right, so far as she was concerned. It really was love, with her.... And what was it with him? He remembered how he had walked up and down in front of her house, wanting desperately to go in and see her.... If he had felt that way about a young woman of his own social class, would he have doubted whether it was love?... Yes--that was why he was subjecting his emotions to so brutal an inquisition: because she was a stenographer and the daughter of a woman who ran a rooming-house! That was why he must not permit himself to think of this as love! Madness, folly, a young man’s casual amusement, a convenience, a chance not to be passed up--call it anything but love! But what was the truth?

He wanted her. He liked her. He was happy in her presence. He thought about her all the time ... the curve of her mouth, the tilt of her chin, the steady look out of her eyes, the way she tossed back her bobbed hair, the smoothness of her arms, the poise of her young body--he knew these charms by heart.... Wasn’t that love?

Oh, not so romantic and poetic as some sorts of love, perhaps. But it was real. Oh, it was real enough!

And yet he didn’t want to marry her.

Well, and why didn’t he? Simply because she wasn’t the sort of girl he had ever thought of marrying. Because she was a stenographer. Because her mother ran a rooming-house. Because her family was poor. Because she had none of the airs and graces of his own familiar middle-class world.... And because he was an Overbeck of Vickley.

Perhaps it _was_ mere snobbishness.... But still--could he and a girl of such a different background get along together as man and wife?

That, however, implied that he still belonged to Vickley. He reminded himself that he had actually left all that sort of thing behind him. He wasn’t his father’s son, any more. He could marry anybody he liked.... And what could be a more appropriate wife for a struggling young man of uncertain prospects than a girl like Monica, able to take care of herself and make the best of narrow circumstances? It wasn’t at all a question of her fitting into his world, but of his fitting into hers! And the answer to that seemed to be the fact that he had been very happy living there at her house....

He hastily summoned up in his mind the differences between them. Her lack of education.... He was interested in art and ideas, in abstractions which she would never be able to understand.... Not, indeed, that most girls cared much for art and ideas; but at least some girls knew how to talk about them....

It did not seem to him, just now, to matter greatly. After all, one did not marry a wife for the sake of intellectual conversation. And Monica was no goose, either. She had a sensible little head on her young shoulders. And her own struggle with poverty had taught her what life was.... When she knew the truth about his child--she wouldn’t be shocked....

His mother might not like such a match, but she would have to accept it.... He was running his life to suit himself, not his family.... If he and Monica could be happy together, what else mattered?

Abruptly there flashed into his mind what his friend Hal would say about such a marriage. “_Nostalgia de la boue._” He had always chaffed Norman with having a common, earthy streak in him--just because, before he too had fallen under the spell of Hal’s ethereal inamorata, he had entertained a sufficiently realistic college-boy passion for a pretty young waitress in Boston.... Well, his affair with that girl had probably been healthier than his and Hal’s mooning over that art-struck vixen Isabel.... Homesickness for the mud? Possibly. If he hadn’t been an Overbeck from Vickley, he’d probably have married that waitress back in Cambridge. It was shame at finding that he couldn’t take that affair as lightly as the young-gentlemanly code demanded, that had made him break off with her. He had never told anybody but Hal how he really felt about that girl; and Hal had only laughed at him. But she had given him a taste of simple, earthy young love, reckless and sweet; and it was the memory, somewhere in the back of his mind, of her unhesitating and passionate surrender, that had made him so afraid of Monica. Well, he had been his father’s son at Cambridge; he couldn’t marry his waitress sweetheart. But he could marry Monica now--if he was really free from Vickley. _Nostalgia de la boue?_ Say rather homesickness for the honest, fragrant earth! In Isabel he had had enough dealings with the unattainable stars; and in his Vickley fiancée, with the middle region of respectable compromise....

Vickley would hear about his marriage with Monica, of course; and Vickley would think it a final degradation. Vickley would take it as his surrender of any hope of ever making good and coming back. Well, let them! He did not want to go back to Vickley. And if marrying Monica prevented that, so much the better!

There was nothing about Monica’s family that he really need be ashamed of. They were self-respecting, hard-working people. He had liked them all.... Something Dr. Zerneke had said, when she was scolding him, came into his mind: “If one of those girls were your wife, your behavior would be admirable.” Well, why shouldn’t Monica become his wife?

Yes, why not tell her the truth and ask her to marry him?

But he would rather wait until his mother had gone back to Vickley.... And it wasn’t a thing to be decided on impulse. He would take the rest of the week to think it over....

A week to think it over.... And he fell asleep to dream of happiness in Monica’s passionate young arms....