She gloated too, for she relished that innocent glee when he congratulated his own mind. When himself was his own guest of honour, and he stood genially at the front door.

So she smiled. What other woman could ever reward a lucky phrase with such magic of wistful applause?

"I apologize for them. They didn't mean to be rude."

She was so young and straight in her plain frock, so blessedly unconscious of herself. He thought of her fine strong body, the ungiven body that was so much her own, near him again after all the miracles of life that divide flesh from flesh and then bring it again within grasp; her sweet uncommanded beauty, irrelevant perhaps, yet so thrillingly a symbol of her essence. The n.o.ble body, poor blasphemed perfection, worshipped in the dead husks of statue and painting and yet so feared in its reality. He had to remind himself that it was irrelevant. How could any man with a full quota of biology help dream of mastering that cool, unroused detachment? Ah, he had already had all of her that was imperishable: her dreams, her thoughts, her poor secret honesties. She had given him these, and nothing could spoil them.

He had agreed with himself that his love was merely for her mind. (Distressing thought!) It was only the ridiculous need of keeping this pa.s.sion to themselves that darkened and inflamed it. If it could be announced it would instantly become the purest thing on earth. It would be robbed of its sting. He imagined an engraved card: Mr. and Mrs. George Granville have the honour to announce the betrothal of Mr. Granville's mind to that of Miss Joyce Clyde Nothing Carnal "Let me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediments."

But this would satisfy no one. Perhaps not even themselves. And people don't like things to be pure: itcasts a rebuke on their own secrets.

"Joyce, let's make our announcement at this party."

"What announcement?" She looked startled.

"Why that our minds are engaged."

Her hand, in his, tightened a little, reproachfully.

"George, before you go down. Who is this Mr. Martin?"

"I don't really know; some friend of Phyl's. I never saw him before. She says he's going to do a portrait of her. I think he's kidding her."

He turned toward the stairs and then called her back.

"Listen," he said softly. "When I say something, after dinner, about putting the car away, that's your cue.

Slip away and come with me. I want to show you something."

XII

The kitchen, that had been a core of fiery heat all day, was now more comfortable. Lizzie sat in an easy slouch, elbows on the oilcloth table cover, enjoying her own supper before attacking the great piles of dishes. The cleansed air, drifting through the open window, struck pleasantly on the moist glow of her body. There was a light tread on the back steps and the squeak of the screen door. The cook felt too deservedly slack to turn, but removed her mouth from the ear of corn just far enough to speak.

"Back early, ain't you?"

"Yeah. Brady's shofer was coming this way in their station wagon. Save me walking later on."

"Didn't expect you so soon, nice night like this."

"Well, Brady's bus was coming. Say, that fellow's got a nerve, all right."

Nounou tossed her hat on the shelf; ran her hands through her hair, sat down wearily in the other chair.

"Kids in bed?"

"Sure, before dinner. I'm glad you're back. You can give me a hand with the dishes."

"Where's all the folks?"

"On the porch."

Nounou got up, glanced cautiously through the pantry window, then took a cigarette from her bag and lit it. Lizzie, a native of Dark Harbour, reflected sombrely on the ways of metropolitan nursemaids.

"There's ice cream in the freezer if you want some."

"No, thanks. Brady's man blew me in the village. Gee, that boy's fresh."

Lizzie was a little annoyed at this repet.i.tion. It was a long time since any one had paid her the compliment of being fresh.

"It's the weather. Hot days and cool nights always makes trouble."

A brief silence. The kettle steamed softly on the range, Lizzie gnashed at her corncob, Nounou blew a gust of smoke and measured the stacks of dishes with a gloomy eye. Washing up was no part of her job, but she was somewhat in awe of the older woman; and the cook's dogged abstraction as she leaned over her food suggested that she had matter to impart.

"This place is certainly dead," Nounou grumbled. "Two miles to walk to the village, and a movie one night a week. Gosh, what a dump to spend summer in. Honest, Liz, I'm so tired workin', if I'd got that insurance o' mine paid up I'd quit a spell."

"Keeps you from thinkin', don't it? If I had your job I wouldn't kick. Wear white cloes and lay out in the sun with them kids."

"You'd ought to get a place in the city. A good cook like you are could make big money."

"It ain't so dead round here as you might think. Say, you know that man was in the garden 'smorning, the one the children took such a shine to. Is he an old friend to the family?""Who? - the one that asked for a piece of cake? Never saw him before. I thought he acted kinda crazy."

"Well, they got him stayin' in the house. He must be someone they know pretty well, he calls 'em all to their first names. Say, I wish you'd seen 'em at supper, honest it was a sketch."

"Who all is there?"

"Mr. and Mrs. Brook, just usual sort o' people; and a dame they call Miss Clyde, dark and a bit serious-lookin'; and this Mr. Martin. Well, for the lovamike, when I go in to fix the table I see smoke coming out from behind that screen in the corner, I think something's afire. I run over and there's Mr.

Martin setting on the floor smoking on a cigarette. He looks at me sort of frightened, then he laughs and says not to tell anybody because he's learnin' to make rings. He stands around talkin' to me while I'm laying the table, and then Mrs. G. comes in. He says to her 'Do I have to go to bed right after dinner?'

The funny thing is he's got a cheerful kind of way about him, you don't much mind what he does, he does it so natural. Of course she knowed he was jokin', she says he can set up as late as he likes. He says it's nice to be able to do whatever you want to and he asks me if we're going to have anything good for supper. Then he asks if he can ring the gong. I always like to do that, he says. Mrs. G. and me both busts out laughing. We laughed and laughed like a couple of fools. I was trying to remember what we was laughing at. I don' know, we just screeched. He smiles too, kinda surprised. There's something about him puts me in mind of the way I used to find things comical when I was a kid. I remember one day I got sent home from school for laughing. It just struck me funny to see the harbour out there and the sunlight on the water and people going up and down the street talkin'."

Nounou tried to imagine what Lizzie looked like as a young girl, convulsed with mirth.

"They all comes in to eat. By and by, while I'm serving the consommay, he leans over and whispers to her - he's settin' at her right. No one else can hear, but I got it, I was right in back of 'em. When I'm in bed, he says, will you come and tuck me in? Well, I wish you could seen her, as red and rosy; she looks swell tonight anyhow in that silver layout o' hers. I never seen any one look prettier; I think that other dame, Mrs. Brook, was kinda sore at Mrs. G. for wearin' it."

Nounou put down her cigarette in amazement.

"You must've got them wrong," she said. "These ain't that kinda folks, you're crazy."

"You never know what kinda people people is till you live in the house with 'em. 'Course it don't mean nothing to me what-all stuff they pull. But listen what I'm telling you. This Mr. Martin is quiet, he don't talk an awful lot, but every once and a while he comes through with something that knocks 'em cold. Going to bed seems to be on his mind. Next thing he says, right out loud, 'It's nice being in bed, it gives you a chance to be alone.'

"I couldn't hear so much, bein' in an' out o' the room; an' the whole thing was on my shoulders anyways, because honest to G.o.d Mrs. G. was in some kind of a swound. I declare she didn't seem to know what-all was coming off. What with that Mr. Martin talking to me I forgot to put any bread at the places, and will you believe it she never took notice on it until Mrs. Brook piped up for some. When I pa.s.s Mrs.

G. the peas she takes a ladlefull and holds it over her plate so long I didn't know what to do. Oh, of course, they all talk along smart and chirpy, the way folks does at a dinner party, pretend to kid each other an' all, but I can see it don't mean nothing. Mrs. Brook has some line she thinks a lot of, she springs it on Miss Clyde, I reckon you're wedded to your art she says, throwing it at her pretty vicious. It was bad for Mrs. Brook, I'll admit, setting between Mr. Martin and Mr. G. Because Mr. G. don't make up to her none, he's talking to the Clyde girl all the time; and Mr. Martin don't buzz her none neither. She singsout how much she does love children and Mr. Martin says But do they love you? A good piece of the time she has to talk to her husband, across the table, and you know that makes any woman sore at a party. Once and a while Mrs. G. comes to life and says something about what a good time we'll have to the Picnic; this Martin says Yes, he hankers to see Mr. Granville climb a tree. Mr. G. wants to know what he'll be climbing trees for. 'Why,' says Mr. Martin. 'I heard her say you'd be up a tree if that check didn't come in today.' Then Mr. Martin says he likes the way Mr. G. and Miss Clyde looks at each other, as though they had secrets together. He's got an attractive way to him, but it seems like he says whatever comes into his head. What-all way is that to behave?"

Lizzie had looked forward to telling Nounou about the dinner. Now she felt with a keen disappointment that it was impossible to describe it adequately. Besides, what she had intended to say would perhaps sound too silly. Mr. Martin looks like some old lover of Mrs. G.'s, she thought, that's turned up unexpected. He's kinda forgotten about her, put her outa his life. But she's mad about him, all her heart's old pa.s.sion is revived. Better not say too much about these things to Nounou anyhow: she might let Brady's man go too far.

"Come on, kid," she said, getting up from the table. "Give me a hand with this stuff. I gotta get this kitchen clean, the madam will be coming in here afterwhile to cut sandwiches. We get this finished, we can hit the hay."

Nounou smiled a little as she took the dish-towel.

"I'll help you clean up," she said. "Then I'm going to slip out a while longer."

XIII

Now it was dusk: dusk that takes away the sins of the world. Under that soft cone of shadow, wagged like a dunce cap among the stars, are folly and glamour and despair; but no sin. The day was going back to the pure darkness where all things began; to the nothing from which it had come; to the unconsciousness that had surrounded it. The long, long day had orbed itself to a whole. Its plot and scheme were perfect; its crises and suspenses artfully ordered; now darkness framed it and memory gave it grace. Tented over by upward and downward light, mocked by tinsel colours and impossible desires, another cunning microcosm was complete.

"I like your orchestra," said Joyce. They were all sitting on the veranda steps. From the garden and the dunes beyond came the rattling tremolo of summer insect choirs.

No one spoke for a moment. Phyllis was enjoying a relaxation after the effort of the dinner table. It was no longer necessary to think, every instant, of something to say. Darkness takes the place of conversation. It replies to everything. Like fluid privacy the shadow rose and flowed restfully about them; faces were exempt from scrutiny; eyes, those timid escapers from question, could look abroad at ease.

Reprieved from angers and anxieties, the mind yearned to come home under the roof of its little safe ident.i.ty. It had not forgotten the distractions that make life hard: quarrels, the income tax, unanswered letters, toothache: but these hung for a moment, merely a pretty sparkle of fireflies. I feel as though I were really Me, Phyllis thought. I wish there were someone to hold my hand.

I wonder if I do like it? Joyce thought as soon as she heard her own voice.

Come home, come home to yourself, cried the incessant voice of darkness. The soulless musicians of earth fiddled with horrid ironic gusto. Nothing is true but desire, they wailed and wheedled. Now they were fierce piccolo and pibroch; now they had the itinerant rhythm of bawdy limericks.

Special intensity of silence seemed to emanate from Ben and Ruth, who sat close together on the top step. In the general pause theirs was like a hard core: it was not true silence but only repressed speech.

The smell of Ben's cigar floated among the group like an argument. It had a sensible, civilized, matter-of-fact, downtown fragrance. It seemed to suggest that someone - even the crickets, perhaps - should put down a proposition in black and white. Joyce had a feeling that Ben and Ruth were waiting for any one to say anything; and that when it was said they would jointly subject it to careful businesslike scrutiny. Contents noted, and in reply would say - "Orchestra?" repeated Ben, in a puzzled voice.

"The crickets." (She tried not to make it sound like an explanation.) "I'd forgotten that nights on the Island were like this."

Martin was sitting just below her. He had been playing with the pebbles on the path, picking them up and dropping them. He turned and looked up at her.

"Like what?" he asked.

She had the same sensation of disbelief she had felt at the dinner table. One must be strangely innocent or strangely reckless to ask questions like that. George's face shone in the flare of a match: he looked emptily solemn and pensive as men always do while lighting a pipe. Joyce felt almost as though there were a kind of conspiracy against her to make her take the lead in talking.

"They fiddle away as though it was the most important night that ever happened," she said, a littlenervously. "As though they think it's a First Night and the reviewers are here from the newspapers."

"It is the most important night that ever happened," said Phyllis slowly. "It's now." There was a queer frightened tremble in her voice.

"There'll be a moon a little later," said George. He said it rather as though this would be creditable to him, as host.

"No, George, don't let there be a moon. Not everything at once, it's too much."

Something in George's outline showed that he thought Phyllis was merely chaffing him; but Joyce was more clairvoyant. For the first time she became aware of some reality in Phyllis: saw that she was more than just George's wife. There was in her some buried treasure that no one had ever taken the trouble to hunt for. Why, she's lovely, Joyce thought. In a sudden impulse she wanted to take Phyllis's hand; her own fluttered liftingly in her lap; she restrained it, for she felt that she would want to kiss George before very long and it didn't seem quite square to be in love with a man and his wife simultaneously. It would be extravagant, she supposed sadly.

"We don't need a moon," she said, "with Mrs. Granville wearing that lovely silver dress."

"It makes me feel as though we ought to do something special," said Martin.

"We can have a game of Truth," suggested George.

No one showed much enthusiasm except Martin, who wanted to know how it was played.

"Everyone must tell some thought he has had but didn't say."

Ben and Ruth felt more certain than ever that the evening was going to be a failure.

"A thought you've had ever?" asked Martin.

"No, this evening."

"You suggested it, George; you can go first," said Ruth.

"Ruth evidently believes that unspoken thoughts are always terrible."

"They can't be much more terrible than some of the things that were said at dinner," Ruth retorted.

"In this game you don't get to the really interesting stuff until after several rounds, when people get warmed up. I'll begin with a very small one. I was thinking that I mustn't forget to put away the car. - Now Ruth, what's yours?"

"That Miss Clyde probably has a very becoming bathing suit."

"I was thinking I heard one of the children calling," said Phyllis. "But it wasn't, it was only a singing in my nose."

"What a funny nose," said Martin.

"Don't you know how something seems to get caught in your nostril and makes a kind of singing when you breathe?"

Ben had had time to make a careful choice of the least d.a.m.ning of his meditations. "I was thinking that thecrickets don't really sound like an orchestra. They're more like adding machines."

"Why, that's true," George exclaimed. "They have just that even, monotonous, cranking sound. Adding up some impossible and monstrous total. Counting the stars, maybe."

"I hope you won't think my thought is rude," said Joyce. "It struck me that if it weren't for Mr. Brook's cigar I'd be convinced this is all a dream. - I don't mean it isn't a nice cigar, just that it smells so worldly."

"Well, our secret thoughts all seem fairly innocent. But we haven't heard yours yet, Mr. Martin."

"I don't think this is a very interesting game," said Martin.

George insisted. "Come, the guest of honour can't escape as easily as that. Out with it!"

"Do I have to?" Martin appealed to Phyllis. She came out of her reverie, aware that even darkness is inadequate as a sedative. The threads of relationship among them all had tightened.

"I know what Mr. Martin's trouble is," said Ruth. "He says everything he thinks, so naturally he has nothing left."

"Why, that's just it," Martin said. "How did you know? What would be the good of thinking things and not saying them?"

"You're not playing fair," George objected. "No one would be crazy enough to say everything. Besides, there wouldn't be time."