“The light that never was,” said the Professor.
“And lies and lies,” said Fred.
“Certainly.… Not that I fell in love. I didn’t. I knew I wouldn’t. There was no question of that. I was destined, in a sense, to play an entirely passive part, and I knew that from the beginning. It was she who supplied the energy for the scene—it was she who started the thing going and kept it going—for the good and sufficient reason that she had fallen in love with me. Could I refuse to play that passive part which was indicated? Could I do anything but acquiesce?”
Fred gave a little groan.
“Don’t be a boob,” he said.
“I was and am a boob. I was never so completely helpless, powerless, in all my life. Not that I wanted very much to be anything else. I was fascinated. Like the sparrow by the anaconda. I just sat and chattered, and shivered my paralyzed wings. I had no desire to run—she was far too beautiful for that—but I confess I was damned scared. For one thing, there was her nice old mother, with smooth white hair and kind eyes and knitting and everything. She hadn’t noticed a thing—but wouldn’t she be sure to? For another thing, Lovely was wearing a wedding-ring.”
“Married!”
“Married.… That gave me pause. It suggested a good many rather disquieting things.”
He broke off and meditated, with a tiny retrospective smile.
“Well, get on with the story,” said the Professor. “Don’t keep us in suspense.”
“She asked me if I played bridge. I said I did. So after dinner we had a three-handed game, in the library, till about nine o’clock. All very polite and a little formal. She’d been over to Paris, visiting her sister, who had married a Frenchman, and was on her way back to her husband in Trenton. Her husband was a manufacturer, and wealthy, I gathered. Then at nine o’clock, she said she thought she’d like some fresh air—so I suggested a turn around the deck. Mother said good night and went down to turn in, and Lovely and I went out and walked for an hour. Somehow or other, I couldn’t say a thing. I suppose because I was too uncomfortably aware of the extent to which I agitated her. But anyway, it wasn’t necessary; she talked a blue streak. All about Paris—the trip over—her sister—her mother—her husband—her shopping. Everything. A complete nonstop outpouring: as if she were trying to talk against time. Or rather, as if she were afraid of what might happen if she stopped talking. And meanwhile, she kept a fast hold of my arm with her hand, occasionally tightening her grip with an almost spasmodic intensity, and leaning her shoulder against me with obvious delight as we rounded the corners. As for me, I just shivered—for it was a coldish evening—and said yes or no or is that so or wellwell or anything at all that was sufficiently monosyllabic—for it was clear enough that she wanted to do all the talking. In fact, I had the feeling that the poor child had never, before that night with me, in all her life, had a chance to talk. For some reason, the mere sight of me had released her.… Pour and pass, Fred.
“Well. That was the first night. As we separated, she again looked at me with that same brilliantly astonished look, as if I might be some sort of divine revelation, and quite unnecessarily shook my hand. I did my best to play up, of course—not unwillingly. Good heavens! It isn’t every day in my life that a beautiful young woman pays me that sort of compliment. We looked hard and deep at each other, smiling protractedly and deliciously, and arranged for another game of bridge in the morning. And then I went into the smoking room and found Peters and Marks and the other chap and chewed the rag with them for half an hour, and so to bed.
“Next morning we had the game of bridge—all very polite and formal, just as before. Mother suspected nothing. She was just as nice and sweet and innocent as she could be. As for Lovely, I had the feeling that she hardly dared to look at me. After an hour or so of bridge, we went out for a walk, abandoning Mother; but we’d scarcely got outside when she said that she had suddenly remembered that she had something she wanted to show to me: an Egyptian thing. So she ducked below and came back in a few minutes with a curious terracotta bas-relief of an Egyptian head—a woman’s head—young, beautiful, and with the eyes closed in sleep. And yet not as if altogether asleep, either—there was a kind of drowsy and voluptuous consciousness in the face, and one felt, as it were, a tremor in the closed eyelids—as if, perhaps they were closed merely for the duration of a kiss. Anyway, that was what I felt when I looked at it—perhaps partly because I could see that it was something of this sort that she felt. She was so obviously thrilled by it! Thrilled and mystified. I took the thing in my hands and stared at it—and then, prompted by all the subtle intangibles of that extraordinary situation, I achieved what I haven’t the slightest doubt was a stroke of genius: I told her that this was the face of the Egyptian goddess of love—I made up on the spur of the moment a fantastic name for her—and then solemnly, holding the thing between my two palms, I raised the beautiful somnolent mouth to mine and kissed it.…”
“Well, I’ll be jiggered,” said Fred. “And you a married man with eight children.”
There was a pause. The waiter put down three ice-cream plates, each bearing a little green Fujiyama of pistachio ice. Detachedly, with a slight frown of preoccupation, Bill decapitated the apex of the smooth cone. The Professor watched him, smiling. It was a good story—it was going to be a good story—and the Burgundy was warming his heart. And to think that Bill Caffrey was a lecturer in economics!
“Yes, that was a stroke of genius. I could see it at once. Just exactly the right thing, the one and only thing, for me to do. She believed me—she believed in the utter sincerity of my gesture. That will give you an idea of the sort of creature she was—rapturously and incorrigibly romantic, starved for love, and utterly, utterly, utterly unsophisticated. Perhaps you can guess from that, too, how I felt about it. Half fascinated and half terrified. I was simply being taken off my feet by the force of her passion for me. My own feelings—almost nil. That’s a slight exaggeration, but you see what I mean. I knew then, as I handed Smet-Smet, or Rert-Rert, or whatever the thing’s name was, back to her—when I saw the really idolatrous expression that shone in her eyes—that she had abdicated entirely, and that heart, soul, and body she was mine. And I knew also that it was too late for me to try to run—vigorous as the impulse was.”
“Oh, come,” said Fred.
“Vigorous—but, I admit, ambiguous.… And it must be admitted, further, that I didn’t run. At least, not very much nor very fast nor very far. I escaped from her shortly afterward, and didn’t see her again till the evening. She came out of one of the main doors to the deck just as I was going in. And I was so delighted to see her, in that unexpected manner, and she looked so extraordinarily beautiful in a black satin dress, open at the throat, with a Spanish shawl over her shoulders, that I was surprised into addressing her as Lovely. Explain that how you will. I swear I had no wish, of my own, to make love to her. Yet I then and there, and from that minute on, found myself doing it. I did it like a sleepwalker—automatically. My conscience simply went to sleep. My family ceased to have any reality whatsoever. I didn’t give them so much as a thought. Her attraction to me was so profound and so powerful that I was completely polarized by it.”