Chapter IV: Post Mortem on a Dead Romance

“NOW,” said Gilbert Rand, in their compartment that evening, “do you want to tell me about this Cambridge girl, or shall I ask you questions?”

“You’d better ask me questions. It’s never seemed quite real to me. I haven’t readjusted myself to it as a reality even yet.”

Gilbert took out a pencil and paper.

“What was her name? I think you referred to her as Isabel.”

“Yes, Isabel Drury.”

Gilbert wrote it down.

The porter opened the door and looked in. “Did you ring, sir?”

“No, but we could do with a little more air.”

The porter opened the upper air-vents and went away.

Gilbert went on with the inquisition.

“Her age?”

“Twenty-five.”

“And yours was twenty-four. Well,” said Gilbert with satisfaction, “that clears up the matter of responsibility, at any rate. What was she? Stenographer, salesgirl, or what?”

“I suppose,” said Norman slowly, “you’d call her an art student. She was studying art in Boston.” He was finding it difficult to put this matter in objective terms. Isabel had been to him a romantic mystery and a psychological puzzle and a symbol of the strangeness of life. But that wasn’t what old Gilbert wanted to know....

“Art student.” Gilbert wrote it down. “Where did she come from, do you know?”

Something of the satisfaction of old Gilbert’s tone reached his mind. He began to see Gilbert’s game. Isabel was to be made out as scarcely respectable. A Bohemian encounter. And, though that had in truth been the spirit of the affair, some perverse desire for fair play made him block that simple interpretation with some contrary facts.

“Her father was a professor of Latin in a boys’ school. They had a place on the edge of Cambridge. Poor but terribly respectable.” And he added: “I was a guest at their home, more or less, when it happened.”

Gilbert frowned. “How did you come to know her?”

“The Drurys were neighbors of a classmate of mine. I spent a good many week-ends at his home. There were neighborhood parties, and Isabel was often there. We saw a good deal of each other that last winter and spring.”

“What was your classmate’s name?” Gilbert asked casually.

“Hal Sibley.” Then Norman looked suspiciously at his questioner. “See here, you mustn’t get him mixed up in this!”

“Why do you say that?” Gilbert inquired blandly. “Was he interested in her too?”

Norman flushed. “We were both romantic about her. But leave Hal out of this.” A disgust for these vulgar necessities of self-defense rose in him like nausea, and he said: “I couldn’t forgive myself if I thought you were trying to do that!”

“Trying to do what?” asked Gilbert coldly.

“Shield me by dragging in my friend.” Old Gilbert needn’t pretend he didn’t know what he was up to. “No, no--it won’t do. I’m not that kind of coward.”

“I only wanted, my boy,” said Gilbert softly, “to take into account all the possibilities of the situation.”

“Just the same, we’ll leave Hal out of this discussion.” A flicker of amusement in old Gilbert’s eyes made him feel a little ridiculous, and he added defensively: “He wouldn’t have dragged me in, if it had been he that was in this mess.”

“You prefer not to consider that possibility?” asked Gilbert smoothly.

Norman had the feeling of having mismanaged this matter. He had made it look as though he were quixotically shielding his friend. “Oh, go into it if you insist,” he said impatiently. “Only it’s a waste of time. I merely wanted to make it clear that I’m not going to try to--sneak out of my responsibility.”

“Very well,” said Gilbert, “we’ll leave it at that for the present. Now as to the girl’s family: any brothers?”

“No. An only child.” And Norman reflected that a girl’s brothers were her traditional protectors. That should please old Gilbert. He smiled; it was odd to think of Isabel as the menace against which he was being protected. He? His respectability, rather. The thing was out of his hands. Vickley was protecting itself. His career, his marriage, his reputation--these things belonged to Vickley. And old Gilbert had promised to guard them....

“And the girl--” Gilbert was asking, “beautiful, I suppose?”

Her image came powerfully before him--her slight figure, her pointed face with its grey-green eyes and shock of auburn hair. Beautiful? “In a sullen, discontented way: yes.” That, he thought, was sufficiently objective.

“And you fancied yourselves hopelessly in love with one another?”

“Not exactly.” He must try to explain it to old Gilbert. “I had been crazy about her all year--ever since I met her. Hal had talked to me about her. His favorite word for her was ‘elusive.’ And she was just that. She played with us in an imaginative sort of way. But she seemed emotionally untouched. She was scornful of the idea of love.”

“Yes?” said Gilbert.

“But when I was going away that summer, she seemed sorry we weren’t going to see each other any more. I stayed over a couple of weeks, at the Sibleys, before I came home. We saw more of each other. She told me things about herself--her ambitions. And she took me to see Springer’s pictures one day, just before I left. Coming back to her home that night, we lost ourselves in the woods. That was when we became lovers.”

“You lost yourselves in the woods?”

“We pretended we were lost. You see, everything had to be play between us. We always pretended all sorts of things. That night we pretended it was a wood near Athens.”

“A wood near Athens?”

“Midsummer-night’s-dream stuff. Perhaps you’d understand it if you knew her.”

“Was there ever any question of marriage between you?”

“There hadn’t been, up to then. I had--well, I had wanted to have a love affair with her. That was all. But in the woods, afterward, I was rather frightened about what we had done, and I said we must get married. I suppose I meant it. But fortunately she didn’t take me seriously. She laughed at me.”

“She laughed at you?”

“You see, love wasn’t a serious reality to her. It was just something to play at in idle moments. The only reality, to her, was art. She wanted to be a painter--a great painter.”

Old Gilbert rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Sort of Rosa Bonheur, eh?”

“I think she would have despised Rosa Bonheur. Gauguin was more in her line.”

“And so that was how it began?”

“Yes--and how it ended. I saw her for the last time the next day, before I went back to my rooms in Cambridge to pack. I didn’t get a chance to talk with her. She seemed to avoid that deliberately. She was more distant, more elusive, than ever.”

“Did you tell your friend Hal what had occurred?”

“Of course not.”

“And then you came home to Vickley.”

“Yes.”

“Did you write to her?”

“Three times. She didn’t reply.”

“You were not under the impression that you were her first lover?”

Norman hesitated. “I really know nothing about that. But for some reason I assumed that she had had lovers.”

“She seemed sophisticated?”

“In her talk, yes.”

“You didn’t ask her about her previous experiences?”

“One couldn’t have asked her a thing like that. But I think she wanted it to be taken for granted.”

Old Gilbert looked puzzled. “She wanted to have it taken for granted that she was not a virgin?”

“Yes. But afterward--I wasn’t so sure. I’m not, now. Or rather--I think I was really her first lover, in spite of the way she talked.”

Old Gilbert considered that helplessly, shook his head, and changed the subject.

“As to Springer,” he asked, “was he married?”

“Not at that time. He’s been married since then.”

“How did Springer behave when she brought you to his studio?”

“Springer is a great clumsy bear. He’s friendly with everybody, unless he’s in one of his suspicious moods. He was very friendly that day.”

“How well do you know him?”

“I’ve seen him only that once. Isabel told me a great deal about him.”

“Does he make much money with his painting?”

“Not yet, I’m afraid. What are you getting at?” Norman demanded.

“Were Isabel and Springer very great friends?”

Norman smiled. “She admired his work very much.”

“Do you think they had been lovers?”

“That idea had never occurred to me.”

“Let’s see,” said Gilbert. “The girl was elusive for a long time--and then suddenly friendly. The day she took you to Springer’s studio was the day she made love to you. Do you make anything out of that?”

“Nothing at all.”

“You thought of her as a mysterious and incalculable creature; but let us supply the _x_ and see how the problem works out. She had been Springer’s sweetheart. But Springer threw her over for another girl--the one whom he afterwards married. And so she consoled herself with you--perhaps trying to make him jealous. Doesn’t that clear up the strangeness of her behavior?”

Norman tried hard to be objective. “It might be true. It merely doesn’t fit in with my conception of Isabel.”

“I’ve described a very human sort of girl,” old Gilbert went on. “You had your romantic ideas about her, to be sure. Why shouldn’t she be elusive, with Springer for her lover? Until he got himself another girl. Then she turned to you. I admit that this explanation is not calculated to appeal to a young man’s vanity.”

“After all, what does it matter?” said Norman.

But Gilbert seemed to think it did matter. “You offered to marry her,” he pursued, “but in spite of what had occurred between you, she refused--because she was still in love with Springer. You wrote letters to her. It wasn’t you she was thinking about; it was Springer. And when she found she was pregnant, it wasn’t to you that she’d write, but to him. Now, does it look,” asked Gilbert, “as though she thought it were your child?”

“But, Good Lord--!” said Norman in bewilderment.

“Then Springer married the other girl; evidently refused to have anything more to do with her. And now at last she remembers you. In this emergency, your money would be a great convenience, no doubt.”

Norman shook his head. “I can’t believe that she’d lie to me,” he said.

“If you had gone to see her,” said old Gilbert with a tolerant smile, “she wouldn’t have had to lie. She’d only have had to remind you of that night in the woods, and your guilty conscience would have supplied the rest.”

“I wish to God I could believe it,” said Norman.

“Would you rather,” asked Gilbert, “believe yourself the father of her child?”

“What I wish,” said Norman, “is that I could wake up and find that this was only a bad dream.”

“That’s the way it will seem to-morrow night,” answered Gilbert cheerfully.

Norman turned toward the window, and stared out at the dark, flying landscape. Every moment was bringing him nearer to the truth. To-morrow he would know the truth. But--he wished he could see Isabel himself. This wasn’t something that old Gilbert could handle for him.