“Polarized!… You do find nice apologies for things,” said the Professor. “Polarized!”
“That was precisely it. I was as incapable of independent action as a magnetized watch. From that time, I behaved to her, and to her alone; no matter where I was or what I was doing. When I played bridge with the boys in the smoking room, it was all I could do to tell a king from a two-spot.”
“Well, well, well,” said Fred. “But let’s have a little less theory and a little more narrative.”
“No—that’s where you’re wrong; for the exquisite beauty of this episode is entirely in the incidents and overtones.… However, if you’re getting impatient for the dénouement, I’ll cut it short for you.”
“For heaven’s sake don’t” said the Professor.
The three men sat silent for a moment, all three of them faintly smiling, as if in a queer kind of communion of spirit. The waiter removed the ice-cream plates and deposited coffee-cups and a silver pot of coffee. Cigarettes. Afterward, perhaps, a little syrupy glass of green Chartreuse. Fred poured the coffee, and Bill struck a match. Might they not—thought the Professor—adjourn afterward to the Parthenon, for Turkish coffee? But no, it would be too late. Already after nine. And already as delightful an evening as it could be. This story—how it opened like a flower! Bill’s odd and secret life, opening like a flower. Life was like this—the emptiness and sharp nostalgia of a departure, and then an unexpected and beautiful story. From the North Station, on a winter’s eve, to Smet-Smet, whose eyes were closed for a kiss.… But wasn’t Smet-Smet the hippopotamus goddess?… The Professor felt himself frowning; but, thanks to the warm burden of Burgundy, frowning with an amiable remoteness. He blew the ash from his cigarette—phhhh.
“That night, after the bridge-game, the adventure took a swift step forward, I knew it would—I knew it couldn’t be long deferred. We went out and climbed up to the boat-deck—B Deck. It was dark there, there were no lights, and not a soul in sight. The night was surprisingly warm—I suppose we must have been getting into the Gulf Stream. We went to the forward end of the deck, where we could get a wide view over the bridge and bow to the black sea, and stood there for five minutes without a word. Her hand was under my arm. And then, just naturally, without any preliminaries of excitement, we kissed.”
“Ah!” said Fred. “I knew it.… I notice these spiritual adventures always end in a kiss.”
“You needn’t be so superior about it—I was quite conscious of that ironic fact, even in the act of kissing. I thought to myself—‘Now, Bill it’s all over with you; you’ve now definitely let yourself in for it.’ And in a way I was very unhappy about it. I foresaw all the wretched complications, the evasions, the concealments, the necessities for furtiveness and secrecy, and the inevitableness—or is it inevitability?—with which this furtive-ness must poison the relation between us. I also foresaw the awful physiological or biological or psychological determinism which, in such a situation, carries one forward a little farther with each meeting, until disaster is reached. There is something magnificent and horrible in that. Relentless Nature. She has no pity on us. Once you give in to her at all, in the smallest particular, you’re a gone goose. There can never be any backward step. You begin by merely gazing, then you touch hands—ah, that exquisite first touch!—and then you embrace and kiss, and then you kiss more passionately, and the next time more passionately still—there is no breaking that spell except by flight. And there we were on a ship, where no flight was possible.…
“Everything, of this sort, was implied in that first rather shy and fugitive kiss. And what was not implied she immediately went on to say. She said that she had fallen in love with me the minute she saw me: she had begun to tremble violently, and had wanted to come right up to me, there on the deck, and speak, but had not dared. She had then quite deliberately waited till I had taken my seat in the dining saloon, in order that she might seat herself at the same table. Astounding. And then she said, when we began to talk, my voice—just think of it, my voice!—put the finishing touch on it. She said her reason simply forsook her. And when, in the morning, I lifted Smet-Smet to my lips and kissed adoringly the beautiful terracotta mouth, it appears that I had put an enchantment on her that would never, never be broken. She knew then, once and for all, that the thing was fatal.
“Of course, I replied in kind. I said all sorts of absurd and frantic things. I told her—what was true enough—that I had never in my life seen anyone so beautiful, and that I, too, in the same way, had been completely swept off my feet. Isn’t it extraordinary, the madness that comes over one on these occasions? I held her in my arms and stared into her eyes and said ‘Lovely! Lovely! Lovely’ over and over again. And nevertheless, I was thinking to myself ‘I must get out of this,’ and wondering how soon I could decently make my escape. And the very fact that I was aware of this duplicity, of this horrible treason, made me redouble the ardor of my embrace and the ecstasy of my speech. I had allowed her to assume that I was as much in love with her as she was with me; and in the face of this, and of the really appalling intensity with which she loved me, I saw nothing for it but to surrender unconditionally, at the same time hoping that the good ship Imperator would break all records and reach New York at least three days before she was due.”
“Zeus and Atropos!” murmured the Professor. “Now if it had been Fred, he’d have been wishing that it was a World Cruise.”
“You bet,” said Fred. “Shall we proceed to whisky and soda?… Let’s have a whisky and soda.”
He signaled the waiter and gave the order. Bill unrolled a long oilskin tobacco-pouch and began filling his charred and battered pipe.
“However,” he resumed, “we weren’t so far sunk that we could ignore the practical social difficulties that lay ahead of us. And so the disagreeable element of secrecy was introduced at once. I explained that I had friends on the ship, and that I would therefore have to be very careful; she, on her part, added that of course there was her mother to be considered. We couldn’t simply surrender ourselves to this—passion—and blindly ignore all consequences. We would have to plan a kind of cold-blooded campaign of discretion and secrecy, not to say deception. So it was arranged that we should have three hours a day; one in the morning, one in the afternoon (when her mother always took a rest), and one in the evening after the bridge-game and before I joined my three friends in the smoking room. In this way, we thought, we could probably keep the thing as inconspicuous and normal as the usual sort of ship-acquaintance, and avoid anything in the nature of gossip. This was unpleasant, and gave me a bad moment of panic—if only because, in this illicit way, it took our affair for granted, and gave it a twisted kind of legality. I was now in the position of an accepted lover, but without in the least being in love. I, who had never in my life been unfaithful to my wife, and never desired to be, and I didn’t even now desire to be, was being railroaded into a clandestine liaison of really grandiose proportions.… Here’s how.”
“How,” said Fred.
“How,” said the Professor.