The Reef

by Edith Wharton

  XXVII

  Darrow had no idea how long he had sat there when he heard Anna's handon the door. The effort of rising, and of composing his face to meether, gave him a factitious sense of self-control. He said to himself: "Imust decide on something----" and that lifted him a hair's breadth abovethe whirling waters.

  She came in with a lighter step, and he instantly perceived thatsomething unforeseen and reassuring had happened.

  "She's been with me. She came and found me on the terrace. We've had along talk and she's explained everything. I feel as if I'd never knownher before!"

  Her voice was so moved and tender that it checked his start ofapprehension.

  "She's explained----?"

  "It's natural, isn't it, that she should have felt a little sore at thekind of inspection she's been subjected to? Oh, not from you--I don'tmean that! But Madame de Chantelle's opposition--and her sending forAdelaide Painter! She told me frankly she didn't care to owe her husbandto Adelaide Painter...She thinks now that her annoyance at feelingherself so talked over and scrutinized may have shown itself in hermanner to Owen, and set him imagining the insane things he did...Iunderstand all she must have felt, and I agree with her that it's bestshe should go away for a while. She's made me," Anna summed up, "feel asif I'd been dreadfully thick-skinned and obtuse!"

  "YOU?"

  "Yes. As if I'd treated her like the bric-a-brac that used to be sentdown here 'on approval,' to see if it would look well with the otherpieces." She added, with a sudden flush of enthusiasm: "I'm glad she'sgot it in her to make one feel like that!"

  She seemed to wait for Darrow to agree with her, or to put some otherquestion, and he finally found voice to ask: "Then you think it's not afinal break?"

  "I hope not--I've never hoped it more! I had a word with Owen, too,after I left her, and I think he understands that he must let her gowithout insisting on any positive promise. She's excited...he must lether calm down..."

  Again she waited, and Darrow said: "Surely you can make him see that."

  "She'll help me to--she's to see him, of course, before she goes. Shestarts immediately, by the way, with Adelaide Painter, who is motoringover to Francheuil to catch the one o'clock express--and who, of course,knows nothing of all this, and is simply to be told that Sophy has beensent for by the Farlows."

  Darrow mutely signed his comprehension, and she went on: "Owen isparticularly anxious that neither Adelaide nor his grandmother shouldhave the least inkling of what's happened. The need of shielding Sophywill help him to control himself. He's coming to his senses, poor boy;he's ashamed of his wild talk already. He asked me to tell you so; nodoubt he'll tell you so himself."

  Darrow made a movement of protest. "Oh, as to that--the thing's notworth another word."

  "Or another thought, either?" She brightened. "Promise me you won't eventhink of it--promise me you won't be hard on him!"

  He was finding it easier to smile back at her. "Why should you think itnecessary to ask my indulgence for Owen?"

  She hesitated a moment, her eyes wandering from him. Then they came backwith a smile. "Perhaps because I need it for myself."

  "For yourself?"

  "I mean, because I understand better how one can torture one's self overunrealities."

  As Darrow listened, the tension of his nerves began to relax. Her gaze,so grave and yet so sweet, was like a deep pool into which he couldplunge and hide himself from the hard glare of his misery. As thisecstatic sense enveloped him he found it more and more difficult tofollow her words and to frame an answer; but what did anything matter,except that her voice should go on, and the syllables fall like softtouches on his tortured brain?

  "Don't you know," she continued, "the bliss of waking from a bad dreamin one's own quiet room, and going slowly over all the horror withoutbeing afraid of it any more? That's what I'm doing now. And that's whyI understand Owen..." She broke off, and he felt her touch on his arm."BECAUSE I'D DREAMED THE HORROR TOO!"

  He understood her then, and stammered: "You?"

  "Forgive me! And let me tell you!...It will help you to understandOwen...There WERE little things...little signs...once I had begun towatch for them: your reluctance to speak about her...her reserve withyou...a sort of constraint we'd never seen in her before..."

  She laughed up at him, and with her hands in his he contrived to say:"NOW you understand why?"

  "Oh, I understand; of course I understand; and I want you to laughat me--with me! Because there were other things too...crazier thingsstill...There was even--last night on the terrace--her pink cloak..."

  "Her pink cloak?" Now he honestly wondered, and as she saw it sheblushed.

  "You've forgotten about the cloak? The pink cloak that Owen saw you withat the play in Paris? Yes...yes...I was mad enough for that!...It doesme good to laugh about it now! But you ought to know that I'm goingto be a jealous woman...a ridiculously jealous woman...you ought to bewarned of it in time..."

  He had dropped her hands, and she leaned close and lifted her arms tohis neck with one of her rare gestures of surrender.

  "I don't know why it is; but it makes me happier now to have been sofoolish!"

  Her lips were parted in a noiseless laugh and the tremor of her lashesmade their shadow move on her cheek. He looked at her through a mist ofpain and saw all her offered beauty held up like a cup to his lips; butas he stooped to it a darkness seemed to fall between them, her armsslipped from his shoulders and she drew away from him abruptly.

  "But she WAS with you, then?" she exclaimed; and then, as he stared ather: "Oh, don't say no! Only go and look at your eyes!"

  He stood speechless, and she pressed on: "Don't deny it--oh, don't denyit! What will be left for me to imagine if you do? Don't you see howevery single thing cries it out? Owen sees it--he saw it again just now!When I told him she'd relented, and would see him, he said: 'Is thatDarrow's doing too?'"

  Darrow took the onslaught in silence. He might have spoken, havesummoned up the usual phrases of banter and denial; he was not evencertain that they might not, for the moment, have served their purposeif he could have uttered them without being seen. But he was asconscious of what had happened to his face as if he had obeyed Anna'sbidding and looked at himself in the glass. He knew he could no morehide from her what was written there than he could efface from his soulthe fiery record of what he had just lived through. There before him,staring him in the eyes, and reflecting itself in all his lineaments,was the overwhelming fact of Sophy Viner's passion and of the act bywhich she had attested it.

  Anna was talking again, hurriedly, feverishly, and his soul was wrungby the anguish in her voice. "Do speak at last--you must speak! I don'twant to ask you to harm the girl; but you must see that your silenceis doing her more harm than your answering my questions could. You'releaving me only the worst things to think of her...she'd see thatherself if she were here. What worse injury can you do her than to makeme hate her--to make me feel she's plotted with you to deceive us?"

  "Oh, not that!" Darrow heard his own voice before he was aware that hemeant to speak. "Yes; I did see her in Paris," he went on after a pause;"but I was bound to respect her reason for not wanting it known."

  Anna paled. "It was she at the theatre that night?"

  "I was with her at the theatre one night."

  "Why should she have asked you not to say so?"

  "She didn't wish it known that I'd met her."

  "Why shouldn't she have wished it known?"

  "She had quarrelled with Mrs. Murrett and come over suddenly to Paris,and she didn't want the Farlows to hear of it. I came across her byaccident, and she asked me not to speak of having seen her."

  "Because of her quarrel? Because she was ashamed of her part in it?"

  "Oh, no. There was nothing for her to be ashamed of. But the Farlows hadfound the place for her, and she didn't want them to know how suddenlyshe'd had to leave, and how badly Mrs. Murrett had behaved. She was ina terrible plight--the woman had even kept back her month'
s salary. Sheknew the Farlows would be awfully upset, and she wanted more time toprepare them."

  Darrow heard himself speak as though the words had proceeded from otherlips. His explanation sounded plausible enough, and he half-fanciedAnna's look grew lighter. She waited a moment, as though to be sure hehad no more to add; then she said: "But the Farlows DID know; they toldme all about it when they sent her to me."

  He flushed as if she had laid a deliberate trap for him. "They may knowNOW; they didn't then----"

  "That's no reason for her continuing now to make a mystery of having metyou."

  "It's the only reason I can give you."

  "Then I'll go and ask her for one myself." She turned and took a fewsteps toward the door.

  "Anna!" He started to follow her, and then checked himself. "Don't dothat!"

  "Why not?"

  "It's not like you...not generous..."

  She stood before him straight and pale, but under her rigid face he sawthe tumult of her doubt and misery.

  "I don't want to be ungenerous; I don't want to pry into her secrets.But things can't be left like this. Wouldn't it be better for me to goto her? Surely she'll understand--she'll explain...It may be some meretrifle she's concealing: something that would horrify the Farlows, butthat I shouldn't see any harm in..." She paused, her eyes searching hisface. "A love affair, I suppose...that's it? You met her with some manat the theatre--and she was frightened and begged you to fib aboutit? Those poor young things that have to go about among us likemachines--oh, if you knew how I pity them!"

  "If you pity her, why not let her go?"

  She stared. "Let her go--go for good, you mean? Is that the best you cansay for her?"

  "Let things take their course. After all, it's between herself andOwen."

  "And you and me--and Effie, if Owen marries her, and I leave my childwith them! Don't you see the impossibility of what you're asking? We'reall bound together in this coil."

  Darrow turned away with a groan. "Oh, let her go--let her go."

  "Then there IS something--something really bad? She WAS with some onewhen you met her? Some one with whom she was----" She broke off, andhe saw her struggling with new thoughts. "If it's THAT, of course...Oh,don't you see," she desperately appealed to him, "that I must find out,and that it's too late now for you not to speak? Don't be afraid thatI'll betray you...I'll never, never let a soul suspect. But I must knowthe truth, and surely it's best for her that I should find it out fromyou."

  Darrow waited a moment; then he said slowly: "What you imagine's meremadness. She was at the theatre with me."

  "With you?" He saw a tremor pass through her, but she controlled itinstantly and faced him straight and motionless as a wounded creature inthe moment before it feels its wound. "Why should you both have made amystery of that?"

  "I've told you the idea was not mine." He cast about. "She may have beenafraid that Owen----"

  "But that was not a reason for her asking you to tell me that you hardlyknew her--that you hadn't even seen her for years." She broke off andthe blood rose to her face and forehead. "Even if SHE had other reasons,there could be only one reason for your obeying her----" Silence fellbetween them, a silence in which the room seemed to become suddenlyresonant with voices. Darrow's gaze wandered to the window and henoticed that the gale of two days before had nearly stripped the topsof the lime-trees in the court. Anna had moved away and was resting herelbows against the mantel-piece, her head in her hands. As she stoodthere he took in with a new intensity of vision little details of herappearance that his eyes had often cherished: the branching blue veinsin the backs of her hands, the warm shadow that her hair cast onher ear, and the colour of the hair itself, dull black with a tawnyunder-surface, like the wings of certain birds. He felt it to be uselessto speak.

  After a while she lifted her head and said: "I shall not see her againbefore she goes."

  He made no answer, and turning to him she added: "That is why she'sgoing, I suppose? Because she loves you and won't give you up?"

  Darrow waited. The paltriness of conventional denial was so apparent tohim that even if it could have delayed discovery he could no longer haveresorted to it. Under all his other fears was the dread of dishonouringthe hour.

  "She HAS given me up," he said at last.