Chapter SEVEN: Stephens Explains Himself

It was perhaps a mistake not to have told all this to Andrée. She had been almost all the afternoon in the woodshed with two baby kittens she adored, quite happy there in the dim light and the quiet, and determined to avoid the possibility of a motor ride with her father. When she came in to dress for supper, everyone was calm again, and Mr. Stephens’ name wasn’t mentioned. After supper Gilbert had to return to the city, and his wife and Edna went with him to the station, but Andrée said she had a headache, and remained behind. She sat in a corner of the veranda, still in the same vague and happy mood in which she had passed the afternoon, glad to be alone.

Presently she saw a familiar figure in the lighted doorway, and she called out, cheerfully--

“Hello, Mr. Stephens!”

“Hello!” he answered, but to her amazement, instead of coming to her, he went on toward the steps.

“Where are you going?” she asked. “To the drugstore? I’ll come with you.”

“No,” he answered. “No ... I was going for a walk.”

“Wait a minute!” she said, and jumping up, went over to him.

“What’s the matter?” she asked. “You’re--queer! Why don’t you sit down and talk to me?”

He glanced uneasily at the row of dark figures rocking behind them.

“Well ... under the circumstances ...” he murmured.

“What circumstances?”

“You know what your father said--”

“No, I don’t, and I don’t care, either. Tell me!”

“Not here.”

“Then let’s walk!”

They strolled over the lawn, beyond earshot of the veranda.

“Well,” said he. “We had--words. He told me not to speak to any of you again. I said, of course, I’d speak to you as long as you cared to speak to me.... But--”

“How beastly!” cried Andrée. “How horrible! But please don’t pay any attention to it. Edna and I never do.”

“At first I thought I wouldn’t. They’re free agents, I thought; it’s up to them to say whether they want to drop me or not. I’ve never had much respect for parental authority, in regard to adults. But when I’d thought it over--I saw it wouldn’t do. It’s not fair to you. You’re not free agents. It puts you in a rotten position.”

“So you’re not going to speak to us?”

“No, not that.... I’m going away to-morrow morning.”

“No! No! Don’t! I couldn’t bear to think you were driven away like that! Please don’t go!”

“I must. I’ve told Mrs. Dewey already. I--the whole thing has made me--sick. I’ve got to go!”

Andrée stopped short.

“Very well!” she said. “If that’s all you care....”

“It has nothing to do with--caring.”

“If you valued our friendship--as I do--”

“You don’t!” he cried. “You don’t! You can’t! You don’t know me.... I’m just a sort of--of freak--to amuse you on your holiday.”

“Look here!” said Andrée, sternly. “What makes you think that? You’re the last person in the world I’d have expected to be--silly and sensitive and imagining things like that. Can’t you see that Edna and I like you?”

“I thought you did.... But to tell you the truth, I never know, with people like you, how much is real, and how much is politeness. I’m not polite; I’m not used to politeness.”

“No one else ever thought that Edna and I were very polite,” she observed, laughing.

“But I can’t make you out!” he cried. “I never realized what a difference there was.... You’re a mystery to me.”

“Don’t think like that,” said Andrée, rather sharply. “What I admired so much about you was your way of looking at everyone as simply _human_.”

They had turned down the road in the direction of the big hotel; in the dusk he could see her face, and never had anything seemed to him less simply human. She looked to him so wonderful, so strange, so troubling; all his ideas about the frank and sensible companionship that ought to exist between man and woman were dissolving in her spell. Never had he felt less companionable--or less human. He was exalted and very unhappy. Humility was not one of his virtues; he had an honest consciousness of his own worth, and he did not feel humble now, but he was frightened. He knew very well that he was in love with her, and in a silly, unreasonable way, too. He saw no justification for adoring a woman, but he adored this one.

“Well ...” he said. “Why do you like me, anyway?”

“Because you’re _real_,” answered Andrée, promptly. “And honest. And specially because you haven’t any limits.”

“Oh--outside the pale!” he cried, very much hurt.

Andrée was surprised.

“Why do you always think things like that?” she asked. “You seem to think that matters so much--that--that artificial difference. It doesn’t to me.”

“It has to. I know I’m touchy. I’m ashamed of it, but I can’t help it. I’m always looking for slights, and I generally find them.... But what did you mean then by my not having any limits?”

“I meant a sort of feeling--that I could tell you anything. You might not always understand, but you’d try. You’d listen. I couldn’t imagine you ever saying ‘This is _too_ much!’ like Father. You haven’t put up any boundaries.”

“I see,” he said, gravely. “Well ... it’s true, to some extent. I don’t pretend to understand everyone, but I can say I’ve never seen a soul yet that was really--well, altogether strange to me. There’s always something in common.... Now, with women, you know. Lots of these fellows--writers and all--they like to call woman a mystery. I know I said you were, but now I’m speaking in a general sense. My idea is--”

He stopped and looked a little anxiously at Andrée, and was reassured by her quiet attention. He had long ago grasped that strange quality of comprehension in her; she was not particularly clever or original, but she could grasp everything. She didn’t know; she saw. It was like a seeress gazing into a crystal; she might not comprehend the significance of what was presented, but she _saw_, so clearly and justly. Experience in talking to feminine comrades had taught him how dangerously inclined they were to make personal applications; this girl would never do that. He went on, a little more easily.

“I don’t see anything mysterious in women,” he said. “I haven’t any use for what you call ‘chivalry.’ I’d defend a woman--any woman, anywhere, but it wouldn’t be because I--well--felt any reverence; it would be because she was weaker. I wouldn’t try to make life easy for women--or for anyone.... Only a fair show. I’m a man; I expect to take a man’s part in the world. And I look to women to take their own part, and do their own work, and shoulder their own burdens.... Here’s the drug-store; shall we have a soda?”

Andrée assented and they went into the shop, which was filled with couples engaged in the same pursuit. He found a stool for Andrée, but there was none for himself; and he stood beside her, seriously consuming an elaborate thing of nuts, marshmallow, syrup and ice-cream. He was conscious all the time that he was enjoying a luxury; this thing was to him no frappé, but a symbol, a part of his share of the benefits of civilization. He would have liked to arrange for every one of the workers of the world to have a due allowance of such confections. His thoughts at that moment were very far from Andrée; he was, in fact, concerned with the memory of a hokey-pokey vendor on the lower East Side, surrounded by dirty children pitifully eager for his poisonous wares. He might have been disappointed to know how personally Andrée had applied his words--and then, he might not have been.

His words--“I’m a man, and I expect to take a man’s part in the world,” had given her a curious thrill.

“He is a man!” she thought. “More so than anyone I’ve ever met.” She glanced back over her shoulder at him, but his blue eyes were fixed upon the bourgeoisie consuming their unearned luxuries. She thought that among all the men there he stood forth notably as soldier, sturdier, oddly impressive in his utter honesty. And not bad-looking. His short blond hair showed a neat, well shaped head, the mouth beneath his absurd little mustache was a well cut one, resolute and very kindly; he carried himself splendidly.

“Well!” he said, at last. “Let’s be getting on!”

Andrée got up, still thoughtful. He turned in the direction of Pine Villa, but she protested.

“I don’t want to go back now!”

“Better,” he said cheerfully. “Your mother’ll be worried.”

This did not please Andrée, for she felt that any such dutiful ideas should have come from herself. She was about to say something a little disagreeable, when they caught sight of Claudine coming down the road, always an unmistakable figure by her gait and her bearing. The young man was disconcerted; he had no way of knowing how she had regarded her husband’s hostility, and he was very much in dread of her politeness. It was too dark to see her face; he had to wait for her voice, and to his great relief, it came to him tranquil and friendly. She didn’t say anything remarkable, only “Good evening,” but it implied for him all sorts of astounding and exquisite things. She didn’t mind his taking a walk with the matchless Andrée....

“I hope you’re not converting Andrée,” she said, in just the light and agreeable tone she would have used toward any of the bourgeoisie. “I shouldn’t like her to be a Revolutionary.”

“I’m not, myself,” he answered, seriously. “Did you ever read Dostoievsky, Mrs. Vincelle?”

“Yes,” she answered, secretly amused at his fatal responsiveness.

“Well, I think that fellow’s idea is the best philosophy I’ve ever come across. I believe to some extent in Conscious Evolution, but not so much through the development of a new type of humanity as through the development of compassion. You know. The kingdom of Heaven on earth. I think it’s compassion rather than intelligence that can save the world. If you can learn to pity, you learn to help.”

“Presupposing a little energy,” said Claudine. He was very much aware of her resistance; she did not wish to argue; she had a dread of being serious; she was never, never, to be convinced. Her mind and her opinions were unalterably formed; she was willing enough to listen, to think, but she accepted nothing. It was altogether different from talking to Andrée.

“I think it’s quite possible to be compassionate and selfish at the same time,” she went on.

“Well, there’s nothing wrong in selfishness. It’s vital. It’s a force, not a vice. As long as you want the right things.... Specially for women. An unselfish man might be a hero, but an unselfish woman couldn’t be anything but a victim.... Like a child.... Imagine an unselfish child. Of course it couldn’t survive. What you’ve got to do is to learn to feel for other people so much that it hurts your selfishness--so that you can’t be comfortable unless the rest are too.”

Claudine found his earnestness a little wearying; she wondered how the impatient Andrée could endure much of him. He was admirable, and he was very touching, and not for any Gilbert on earth would she offend him, but she wished very much that he might be somewhat less obviously there. He had had his cue to vanish; he could have put such a nice, friendly end to the acquaintance, and been entirely in the right, but instead--there he was. She had no objection to Andrée’s talking to him, but she felt that future walks were to be discouraged.

They crossed the lawn, black and spongy under the pines, and as a matter of course, she began to mount the steps of the veranda. But Andrée lingered.

“Come, my dear,” said Claudine. “Edna’s waiting for you.”

“Half a minute,” said Andrée, and her mother entered the house without her. Andrée leaned against the veranda, her head thrown back, looking up at the sky; Stephens stood before her, and characteristically, he was looking down at the earth, very thoughtful. There was a long silence, which neither of them noticed.

“Good night,” said Andrée, suddenly, and he was startled to see her holding out her hand. He took it, rather reluctantly, and she gave his a firm, strong pressure, and didn’t let go. But he drew away almost roughly.

“Good night,” he said, and walked away.

No other man she had yet seen would have done that; she was accustomed to having her imperious impulses treated with at least a semblance of rapture; she went in, more thoughtful than ever.

The truth of it was, that for young Stephens there were no trifles; everything was significant. He was a man of strong passions and dearly bought wisdom; he knew no middle course between being indifferent or quite otherwise. He had been brought up in a class where a friendship between a man and a woman was unthinkable; or any sort of careless or meaningless intercourse. If you weren’t in love with a girl, or on the point of falling in love, you never thought of her. He had developed and he had learnt much; he had a remarkable command over himself; he would have been able to go on like this for ever and ever, simply talking and talking to Andrée, and being quite impersonal, but not if she were going to hold his hand. He really resented that. Old ideas which he fancied he had outgrown came back to him now, with force; a venomous distrust for women of Andrée’s sort. As a boy, when he had seen them in the streets, exquisitely dressed, in their carriages, it had given him comfort to believe them all wanton and worthless chaff. Later, when he had begun to read novels, all this had been confirmed; he had made more than one fiery and bitter speech to his comrades on that subject; on these pampered women with their jewels, their furs, their inordinate luxuries. He was honest enough even then to admit the existence of a leaven of desire in his sullen resentment.

“It’s the dream of most fellows like me,” he had thought, “to possess a superior woman. And there’s no chance of it. No matter what we do, or become, the finest and best of them are always out of reach.”

His candid opinion of the Vincelles would have shocked them one and all. He had studied the social conditions of his country with thoroughness, and he knew they weren’t the best, or even the second best. They belonged in a place he could never get to, but there were places above to which they could never attain; he was far better aware of this than they were. He knew that Andrée was half-educated and half-trained, that she was not useful and not, socially speaking, ornamental. And he had been able thus dispassionately to judge her because she had seemed so entirely impossible to him. He knew he loved her, but he had had no hope, and, obliged to withstand her allurement, he had been able to analyze it. The intractable and wayward spirit of her was what he loved; her elusiveness. Always and forever she would do what she wanted; every breath would sway her, but not the mightiest wind from heaven would dismay or turn her from her desire. There was no constancy, no steadfastness in her, but she was honest. She was very largely made up of faults, and they were faults he loved; wilfulness, recklessness, a sort of casual and unconscious cruelty, a marvelous selfishness, innocent, unambitious, like that of a child. She would not strive, never fight for what she wanted, she would stretch out careless hands for what passing things took her fancy.

Just at the moment, he took her fancy. Well, he wasn’t going to have it that way. He was going away, to forget her, before there was any more to forget. He wanted not to see that dark, mutinous face again, or to hear that nervous and exquisite voice, that seemed always to have a sob in it. Because he _was_ constant and steadfast, and he had no wish to give so very much and to get nothing in return.