The Choir Invisible [65]
"Will you show me about this, Aunt Jessica?"
She greeted John without embarrassment or discernible remembrance of their last meeting. Her fine blond hair was frowsy and a button was missing at the throat of her dress. (Some women begin to let themselves go after marriage; some after the promise of marriage.) There were cake-crumbs also in one corner of her mouth. "These are some of my wedding clothes," she said to him prettily. "Aren't they fine?"
Mrs. Falconer drew her attention for a moment and they began to measure the cloth over the back of her finger, counting the lengths under her breath.
Amy took a pin from the bosom of her dress and picked between her pearly teeth daintily.
"Aunt Jessica," she suddenly inquired with mischievous look at John, "before you were engaged to uncle, was there any one else you liked better?"
With a terrible inward start, he shot a covert glance at her and dropped his eyes. Mrs. Falconer's answer was playful and serene.
"It has been a long time; it's hard to remember. But I've heard of such cases."
There was something in the reply that surprised Amy and she peeped under Mrs. Falconer's bonnet to see what was going on. She had learned that a great deal went on under that bonnet. "Well, after you were engaged to him, was there anybody else?"
"I don't think I remember. But I've known of such cases."
Amy peeped again, and the better to see for herself hereafter, coolly lifted the bonnet off. "Well, after you were married to him," she said, "was there anybody else? I've known of such cases," she added, with a dry imitation of the phrase.
"You have made me forget my lengths," said Mrs. Falconer with unruffled innocence. "I'll have to measure again." Amy turned to John with sparkling eyes. "Did you ever know a man who was in love with a married woman?"
"Yes," said John, secretly writhing, but too truthful to say "no."
"What did he do about it?" asked Amy.
"I don't know," replied John, shortly. "What do you think he ought to have done? What would you do?" asked Amy. "I don't know," replied John, more coolly, turning away his confused face.
Neither of you seems to know anything this afternoon," observed Amy, "and I'd always been led to suppose that each of you knew everything."
As she departed with her sewing, she turned to send a final arrow, with some genuine feeling. "I think I'll send for uncle to come and talk tome."
"Stay and talk to us," Mrs. Falconer called to her with a sincere, pitying laugh. "Come back!"
Amy's questions had passed high over her head like a little flock of chattering birds they had struck him low, like bullets.
"Go on," she said quietly, when they were seated again, "what was it about the harvest?"
He could not reply at once; and she let him sit in silence, looking across the garden while she took up her knitting from the end of the bench, and leaning lightly toward him, measured a few rows of stitches across his wrist. It gave way under her touch.
"These are your mittens for next winter," she said softly, more softly than he had ever heard her speak. And the quieting melody of her mere tone!--how unlike that other voice which bored joyously into you as a bright gimlet twists its unfeeling head into wood. He turned on her one quick, beautiful look of gratitude.
"What was it about the harvest?" she repeated, forbearing to return his look, and thinking that all his embarrassment followed from the pain of having thus met Amy.
He began to speak very slowly: "The last time I was here I boasted that I had yet to meet my first great defeat in life . . . that there was nothing stronger in the world than a man's will and purpose . . . that if ideals got shattered, we shattered them . . . that I would go on doing with my life as I had planned, be what I wished, have what I wanted."
"Well?" she urged, busy with her needles.
"I know better now."
"Aren't you the better for knowing better?" He made no reply; so that she began to say very simply and as a matter of course: "It's the defeat more than anything else