A dram of poison

To Clementine

Chapter I

THE TALL MAN Switched on the light. "I won't be a minute," he said.

The shorter man looked aromid the room, which was a laboratory. He ambled over to gaze, without understand-mg, at some apparatus.

"It's here somewhere," said Paul Townsend, lifting and shifting papers on the desk, opening the left top drawer. "Letter I meant to mail. Simply forgot. Now where . . . ?" He was an extremely good-looking man, six feet high, in prime state at thirty-seven. His handsome face wore a little fussy frown.

"Take your time," said Mr. Gibson, who was older, in no hurry whatever, and who liked to browse. "What's all this?"

"Ah . . ." Paul Townsend found the letter. "Got it That? That's poison."

"What have you done? Made a collection?" Mr. Gibson peered at a double rank of little square-bottomed bottles aligned to the fraction of an inch, neatly labeled, behind the glass doors of a cupboard.

"Lot of the stuff we use seems to be poisonous," Paul Townsend told him. "So best it's locked up." He came, dangling his letter between two fingers, and peered, too. "Sure is quite a collection," he said innocently.

"Looks like some gourmet's spice cupboard," said Mr. Gibson admiringly. "What are these good for?"

"Different things."

"I never heard of ninety per cent of them."

"Well ..." said Paul Townsend in a forgiving way.

"Death and destruction," murmured Mr. Gibson, "in small packages." He put his forefinger on the glass door. (He fleetingly remembered having once been a little boy pushing his finger, just so, against the glass of a candy counter.) "Which would you advise?"

"What?" said Townsend, batting his long eyelashes.

Mr. Gibson smiled; delicate lines spread from his eye-comers like tiny peacocks' tails. "I'm taking a poetical view," he said whimsically, "of two dozen bottles of death. I don't think the way you do. Can't help it. Teach poetry, you know." He mocked himself good-humoredly and declaimed, "To cease upon the midnight with no pain . . ."

"Oh," said Townsend a little stupidly. "Well, if you mean what will knock you out quick and easy, take that one."

"That one?" Mr. Gibson made no sense of the polysyllabic word on the label to which his host now pointed. He couldn't think how it could possibly be pronounced by a human tongue. The number on the label was 333, which was simple and stuck in the brain. "What will it do?"

"Just kill you," said Paul Townsend. "No taste. No smell."

"No color," murmured the other.

"No pain."

"How do you know that?" Mr. Gibson had fine gray eyes and they were lit with intelligent curiosity.

Townsend blinked again. "Know what?"

"That there is no pain? Or no taste, for that matter? Fella's knocked out, as you say. You can't ask him, can you?"

"Well, I . . . understand there's just no time for pain," said Townsend a little uncomfortably. "Ready?"

"Quite a place," said Mr. Gibson, giving a last look around,

Townsend had his finger on the light switch. "Wait a minute . . ." He frowned. He was like a housewife with unexpected company. He saw deficiencies in his housekeeping. "I see something should have been put away Maybe it wouldn't kill you, but . . . Now who left that out, I wonder? Would you mind turning away for a second?"

"Turning? Oh. Not at all." Mr. Gibson obligingly

turned his back and stared at a cupboard full of breakers and tubes on the opposite wall. It's glass door made quite an efficient mirror, if you selected with your mind only the reflections, out of all you were seeing with your eyes. So Mr. Gibson idly watched Paul Townsend take a small tin of something from a table top, produce a key from a hiding place, put the tin inside the poison cupboard, re-lock the door, rehide the key. "O.K.," said Townsend. "Sorry, but I like to be absolutely careful."

Mr. Gibson said, "Of course," softly. It didn't occur to him to confess to his acquaintance that he now had a very good idea where the key was kept. This Townsend was a friendly chap who had happened to be eating a meal in the same off-campus restaurant and who had offered Mr. Gibson a ride home on this chilly January evening. No need to explain to the man. Mr. Gibson hated to embarrass him. And surely it did not matter.

He began to muse, instead, on poison. Why were there substances created of which men must not eat? Fire, water, air ... all good for man . . . could yet, in quantity, in excess, or out of place, destroy him. Was it possible that poisons, too, had all their measures? Were they, in proper quantity, or place, or time, good, too? In minute quantity perhaps? Was it a question of discovering how much, or where, or when?

"What's that number Three Thirty-three good for?" he asked as they left the building.

"Nobody knows yet," Townsend said amiably. "But it wouldn't be a bad way to die."

Mr. Gibson had no wish for death. He forgot about it and looked up at the moon. "It is a beauteous evening, calm and free . . ." he murmured.

"Nice night," agreed Townsend. "Little chilly, though. I'll drop you off now. Thanks for waiting. Then I'll get along home."

"Don't forget to mail your letter," said Mr. Gibson in friendly prose. "There's a box on my comer."

It was Mr. Gibson's birthday. Characteristically, he hadn't mentioned it. He was fifty-five years old.

He made his thanks and his good night and walked up one flight to his big and only room. He lit the lamp, took off his shoes, placed tobacco handy, selected his book. He was a bachelor.

It was quiet there. It was cozy in a masculine way. It was a little backwater and in it Kenneth Gibson was content. To himself, it seemed that his life had been spent in a series of little backwaters. He had never breasted the full turbulence of the center currents, but like a gentle, unresisting leaf had slipped along the edges of the stream, been caught and held in this or that small stopping place, slipped out, only to be carried into another and yet another, until he. had sailed finally into this particular quiet reach where there was no storm but only the gentlest of ripples from time to time.

He had his niche of usefulness. He liked his work and liked his life. He had a feeling that it was soon over. If another ten or twenty years went by softly in the same pattern it would not seem long. He wasn't an aggressive or an ambition-pressured man.

Four weeks after his fifty-fifth birthday, Mr. Gibson went to a funeral. There he met a young woman named Rosemary James.

It was old Professor James who had given up the ghost. The college rallied to its own. He had been retired for some eight years, had fallen, indeed, into irascible irrationality. But he had once been the college's own and so he must have a well-patronized funeral. The word was given.

Other faculty members met his only daughter, Rosemary, for the first time that day. But Kenneth Gibson met her most significantly because of a quality he had that he, himself, thought of as a weakness. He had the gift, or the burden, of empathy.

To himself, it was a weak sensitivity. Oh, he had learned, in fifty-five years, to manage it pretty well. It had hurt him very much during the First World War.

Having been bom in the first month of a new century he was, of course, eighteen years old in 1918. He had grown up in a very small town in Indiana, a backwater, with a father who owned a hardware store and was a cheerful tactless man, and a mother named Maureen (Grady) who was a little woman with a fanciful mind. He had gone from the village high school directly to the war, because it had seemed the fervently "right" thing to do at the time.

Young, compact of body and muscle, spruce and neat —for Kenneth Gibson from the beginning was one of those

people who always look washed and orderly by some natural gift—even then, he had evidently had an affinity for paper and ink. He went through the war, in the fierce breeches and puttees of the day, as a clerk. Cheerful, willing, and meticulous, he had made a good one. But, although he marked paper with ink in some not unperilous places, he never actually got into a battle. So, when it was all over, nobody knew nor was anyone told that this lad was numb with horror. Nobody ever knew how his essentially fastidious soul had been lacerated by the secrets of slaughter he had come to know and had had to bear. Nobody, in those days, would have conceded the wounds in his mind to be either plausible or important. There were too many horrors experienced. He had only been able to imagine them.

Saying nothing, he dived for sanctuary and healing into books. He went to college. He escaped .flaming with the youth of that time because he was older than, and a little out of' step with, his classmates. Besides, he was busy healing his invisible wounds in his own way.

His father died the year he got his Master's. His mother was left in straitened circumstances, so Kenneth helped support her in her own place. He did not transport her, for he knew this would not be kind. But he took the burden. It never occurred to him, while he worked at his first meagerly paid teaching job, sent money to his mother, and even helped his younger sister Ethel on her way through college at the same time, that all this was any sacrifice. It simply seemed that his own life, as he saw it, had hit one of those backwaters. To clerk through the war was such, surely. To be a young teacher with family responsibilities was only another. He hewed to the line. He had to. No giddy young days for him.

In 1932 his mother, after an expensive illness, died, and he mourned her, but the depression was on the land and whoever had forborne to fire him from his job while his mother was alive, forbore no longer.

Ethel, eight years his junior, was out of school by this time, of course, and she was earning, and she helped him, for she too had a sense of responsibility and was reliable. He was deep in debt while he scrambled for odd jobs during those bad times.

When, at last, he got another modest teaching job he went into this backwater thankfully. It was a long grind

to work off his debts, lean quiet years. But he did it. He learned to take a good deal of pleasure in seeing the old obligations melt slowly away as he satisfied them. When at last he was free and moderately prospering, the world was into the tense months after Munich.

He was thirty-seven by now, a bachelor. Of course a bachelor. He had never had enough to offer a woman of his own. Security. Prestige. Whatever. Before he got around to risking any personal alliance came 1941, and he went to war the second time.

Naturally, he clerked. Well-seasoned, perfectly at home with paper, he spent the war years in an office in a backwater—bearing this and indeed glad of it—for his soul could still wince. But never quite understanding what he was doing there that mattered at all. He only knew that somebody thought it was his duty, which he, of course, did.

In 1945 he emerged from this and met his sister Ethel in New York and said goodbye. Ethel, his only kin, had never married either. (Was it something about the mother and father?) She was a grown woman—getting along herself, in fact—thirty-seven years old. Never a beauty, Ethel, but clever and industrious, and well established in a good job. Ethel did not need him. In fact, she frightened him a little, at that time, by her ease in the turbulent business world, her blunt courage, her perfect independence.

He admired her for it very much. But he said an affectionate, but not woeful, goodbye and came to California to a job in the English Department of a small liberal arts college in a little city that sprawled and spilled over a sunny valley. His permanent backwater.

Here, for ten years, without even a glimpse of his only kin, he taught about poetry—to football players, coeds, and all variety of young people—by a kind of moral supremacy. Kenneth Gibson was obviously no Bohemian wretch with wild eyes and rebellious ideas and, equally obviously, no silken aesthete looking down a haughty nose upon the bourgeoisie. He was, rather obviously, a nice decent well-contained little man, five feet eight, still taut and compact, by no means showing his age, although his fair hair had inconspicuous threads of white in it—a most respectable man, with fine gray eyes, with a nice mouth that often wore a touch of humor on it.

The young were rocked by the fact that this man

actually took this stuff seriously. It behooved them to look into it themselves and see what it was worth, then.

So he did his work well, quite often succeeding in communicating his own conviction that poetry was not necessarily sissy . . . which was an achievement greater than he realized, poetry having the repute it has today.

He had his books, his acquaintances, his solitude, his work, his cozy room, and the beauty of trees, the magnificence of sky, the lift of the mountains on the horizon, and the music of men's ancient thoughts, to sustain his spirit. He had his life and he thought he foresaw how it would end. But then he met Rosemary James at her father's funeral.

Chapter II

R. Gibson sat decorously with his colleagues in the gloomy little chapel and endured the cruel, but necessary, ceremony by a little trick he had of deliberately disengaging a lot of his attention. When it was over he realized, with a pang of outrage, that off at the side, behind the curtain in the "family room," Rosemary James had been sitting through it all alone. If he had known! He had never met the girl—poor thing—but if he had known, he would have churned up the community to find somebody —anybody—to be with her. Or he would have sat in there himself. He hated a funeral—anybody's funeral—and he found himself imagining her ordeal, and furious that it had been.

When he took her hand, beside the grave, he felt the vibration of her lonely anguish. He knew in the marrow of his bones that she was exhausted and in despair and had to have hope. Had to have something, however trival, ahead of her. She could die without it.

So standing in the sunshine, on the sad turf, with the flowers heaped behind them, he said to her, "Your father must have many papers. I wonder if any of them should be published."

"I don't know," said Rosemary.

"I wonder," said Mr. Gibson. "Would you like me to go through them for you? We can't tell. There may be valuable things."

"Oh," she said, "I suppose there might. I wouldn't know." She seemed timid, poor thing.

"I'd be very glad to help if I can," he said gently.

"Thank you, Mr.—Gibson?"

"Then may I come over . . . perhaps tomorrow?"

"Please do," she said tremulously. "It's very good of you. Won't it be a trouble?"

"It will be a pleasure," he said. The word was deliberate. To speak of pleasure at the graveside was rough, was shocking. But she needed to have inserted into her imagination such a word.

She thanked him once more, stumblingly. A shy young woman, too upset, too bewildered, to have any poise. Not a child, of course. In her late twenties probably. Slim ... in fact a pitifully thin body, trembling now with strain and fatigue but standing up to it somehow. A white face. Frightened blue eyes, with little folds of skin at the upper outer edges that came down sadly. A lined white brow. Limp, lifeless brown hair. An unpainted mouth, pathetically trying to smile and yet not smile. Well, she could Jook forward now, if ever so little, to tomorrow.

"We'll see," said Mr. Gibson, and he smiled in full. "Who can tell?" he added cheerfully. "We might find some treasure."

Her eyes changed shape and he saw the flicker of wonder, of hope, and he was quite pleased with himself.

On his way home, he fumed. Poor thing! Looked as if a vampire bat had been drinking her blood. And perhaps he had. The arrogant angry old man whose" brain had betrayed him and who lived out his final decade flubbing about helplessly hunting his own thoughts, which kept eluding him. Mr. Gibson was so very sorry for the girl. Poor, unattractive, tired, beaten creature—terrible ordeal shouldn't have been there all alone!

The Jameses lived on the first floor of an old house near the campus. The moment Mr. Gibson entered the hall, he received the news of poverty and deeay and a sense of darkness. If this place had ever had any colors, they had now all faded down into a uniform muddiness that defeated light. Everything, although quite clean, was

somehow stained. Everything was old. And there was a clutter that comes of never having guests and therefore never seeing one's home with a fresh eye.

Nevertheless, he perceived that Rosemary had smoothed her dull hair carefully, that her dress was fresh from the ironing board, and that she had a string of blue beads oil. It was typical of Mr. Gibson that these observations did not make him want to smile. They made him want to weep.

She greeted him timidly and seriously. She took him with nervous dispatch directly to the old man's lair.

"Well," he said in fiat astonishment.

The old flat-topped desk was heaped with pieces of paper, lying at mad angles to one another.

"It looks like a haystack," said Rosemary with a spirited aptness that surprised him.

"Sure does." He appreciated her phrase. Smiled over it. "And it's our job to find the needle. Now come, you sit here. We'll start in the middle of the top and dig our way straight down to the bare wood. O.K. with you?"

They sat down. Mr. Gibson began to spin out of his own substance an atmosphere of cheerful, purposeful, organized endeavor. Soon she was breathing less shallowly and her lips were parted. She was intelligent.

But after a while absolutely nothing could save the situation from tragedy but a sense of humor. The old professor had scratched on paper during many hours. But his handwriting was atrocious, and worse, what he had written, where it was decipherable, seemed to have no reasonable meaning.

Mr. Gibson, in automatic defense, began to force himself to see the funny side. "If that is a capital T, as it may be for all I know," said he in semicomical despair, "then the word can be 'Therefore.' What do you think? Of course, it might just as well be 'Somewhere.' "

"Or 'However'?" said Rosemary earnestly.

" 'However' is a distinct runner-up," he drawled. "Or even 'Whomever.' "

"'Whatever'?"

"I have a psychic feeling there's an T in it. How about 'Wherefore'? 'Wherefore art thou Romeo?' D'you know, Miss James, the word might even be 'Romeo'." It was heavy work to be light about this.

"Oh, I don't think so," she said seriously. And then she looked startled. Then she giggled.

It was as if a phoenix had risen from some ashes. Her giggle was rather low-pitched and melodious. The tiny folds at the upper-outer comers of her eyes were built for laughter. It was their function. They were droll. The eyes themselves lost their dusty look and became a little shiny. Even her skin seemed to gain a tinge of color.

"I'll betcha we could make it read anything we like," said Mr. Gibson enthusiastically. "Do you know anything about the Bacon-Shakespeare ciphers?" She didn't. She listened while he told her some of the wild aspects of that affair.

After that, while she was still relaxed and amused, he said gently, "You know, I think we had best look at the bottom of the pile."

"Earlier, you mean?" She was intelligent. "I think so, my dear."

"He . . . tried so hard." Her handkerchief came up. "It was brave to keep trying," he said. "It really was. And we'll keep trying, too."

"There are mounds—" she said bravely, "of papers in the drawers. Some typewritten . . ." "Hurray."

"But Mr. Gibson, it wall take so much time . . ." "Of course," he said gently. "I never expected to go through it all in an hour. Did you?" "You mustn't get tired." "Are you tired?" He thought she was. "I wondered . . . Do you drink tea?" "When I am offered any," he said.

She rose awkwardly and went to fetch the tea which had been her own bold idea. Mr. Gibson waited by himself staring soberly at the desk and all this waste of paper. He didn't think they were going to find any treasure. Also, he knew that he had, once again, been foolish and rash. He'd let an impulse lead him. When would he learn not to do these things? He had given hope where there was not much real chance. He had best softly kill the hope he'd raised. But he feared very much that it was too important to her.

While they drank tea and ate some thin store cookies ... a tiny feast she'd made as dainty as she could . . . Mr. Gibson fejt that he must pry.

' ' Do you own this house?" he asked her.

"Oh, no. We only rented this half."

"Will you stay on here?"

"I can't.. It's too big. Too much for me."

He feared she meant too expensive. "Forgive me for asking, but is there money? Funds of any kind?"

"I can sell the furniture. And the car."

"Ah, a car?"

"It's ten years old." He saw that she swallowed. "But it must be worth something."

"Your father's income was . . . for his lifetime?"

"Yes."

"There is nothing?" he guessed sharply.

"Well . . . the furniture . . ." She stopped pretending that the furniture was of any value and met his eyes. "I will just have to get a job. I don't know just what . . ." She twisted the beads. "I hoped . . ." Her eyes went to the papers.

"Can you type?" he asked quickly. She shook her head. "Have you ever held a job. Miss James?"

"No, I . . . Dad needed me. When Mama died I was the only one left, you see."

It was easy for Mr. Gibson to understand perfectly what had happened to her. "Have you anyone who can advise you?" he asked. "Relatives?"

"Nobody."

"How old are you?" he asked her gently. "Since I am old enough to be your father, you mustn't mind if I ask these things."

"I am thirty-two. And it's late, isn't it? But I'll find something to do."

He thought she needed somewhere to rest, above everything. "Have you a friend? Is there some place you could go?"

"I'll have to find a place to live," she said evasively. He divined that there was no such friend. The difficult old man no doubt had driven all well-meaning people away. "The landlord wants me to be gone by the first of March," Rosemary said. "He wants to redecorate. It certainly needs it." She made a nervous grimace.

Mr. Gibson cursed the landlord silently. "You're' in a predicament, aren't you?" he remarked cheerfully. "Let me snoop around and see what kinds of jobs there are. May I?"

Her eyes widened again. The flesh lifted. The look was wonder. She said, "I don't want to be any trouble . . ."

"That wouldn't be any trouble," he said gently. 'T can send out feelers, you know. Perhaps easier than you could. 'Wanted: well-paying job for person with no business experience whatsoever.' Look here, my dear, it's not impossible! After all, babies are bom and they've had no business experience and yet they eventually do get jobs." He'd coaxed a smile out of her. "Now, we may find something here, but I had better say this. Miss James. It is neither easy nor is it a quick thing to find a publisher. It's very slow, I'm afraid. Nor is there very much money for academic kinds of writing."

"Thank you so much for being so kind, Mr. Gibson. But you don't have to be."

She wasn't rejecting him. In the droop of her body was all her weakness and fatigue. But she was, nevertheless, sitting as straight as she could, and looking as competent as was possible. She was trying to free him.

But what she had just said was not true, alas. He did have to be kind. He did have to try to help her . . . and keep her going with tidbits of hope. He couldn't imagine how to do otherwise.

He said easily, "I'll tell you what. Suppose I come again . . . let's see . . . on Friday afternoon? We'll attack the typewritten stuff. Now don't you disturb it. Meantime, I'll snoop. And I did enjoy the tea," he told her.

She did not thank him all over again, for which he was grateful as he got out into the living air.

Mr. Gibson was troubled all during Thursday because he knew he was being weak and wouldn't let himself think about it.

When he went again on Friday (He had to! He'd promised) the typewritten pages in the professor's lower desk drawers turned out to be, for the most part, correspondence which on the professor's side became progressively more angry and less coherent as the nerve paths in his brain had begun to tangle and cross one another. Mr. Gibson pretended it was very interesting. It was. But as tragedy. Not treasure.

Nevertheless, Mr. Gibson strung out the task and kept calling. Oh, he knew exactly what he was doing. When he thought about it he did not approve at all. It was weak. He had entangled himself, and every visit wove another

Strand into the web. And he knew better. Nobody knew better than he that he ought to withdraw gracefully. She was no burden of his.

He could withdraw. In modem days, in the United States of America, no corpse lies on the street slain by destitution. There were charities and public institutions. There was social succor. Nor would Rosemary blame him if he slipped out of her affairs. She would only continue to be grateful for all he had done or tried to do so far.

But he was incapable of this kind of common sense. By now, he knew exactly how to make her smile. No organized charity could know this. It was a little ridiculous how much this weighed with him. As he knew. But he'd just gotten into the whole business too far. He had seen himself do it, but he had looked away. So had Rosemary seen it. She had even warned him. But now it was too late. He had constituted himself as the holder of the carrot of hope before this donkey's nose . . . without which she might stop, cease, or even die. . . .

Meantime, dealers came to look at the furniture and offer contemptuous minimums. The books were worth pitifully little in cash. One day a man said he'd give fifty dollars for the ancient car. By the time Rosemary conferred with Mr. Gibson and decided to accept it, he had withdrawn even this offer. Her possessions were without value.

Meantime, also, Mr. Gibson snooped for jobs in Rosemary's behalf. He discovered that there were indeed some which did not demand experience. They definitely required good health and some strength, instead. Rosemary did not have these qualifications, either. On the contrary, it was evident to Mr. Gibson that she was heading for a serious breakdown. He was able to see her rooms become even more neglected because she could do nothing about it. He guessed that she was able to keep her person neat only by a terrible effort, by a stubborn flickering of innate pride. Otherwise, she was limp with the inertia of physical and emotional exhaustion. And to call, to talk, to coax a little ease into her face, three times a week, this—although vital—was not really enough.

What was she to do? This began to obsess him. She had no funds, no strength. She seemed to eat . . . he wasn't sure how well. She'd have no place to eat, or sleep, soon, for the 1st of March loomed closer.

On the 25th of February he marched in and announced peremptorily that he had just paid the rent here for April. "You need the time. You must have it. All right. You owe me the money. That's nothing. I have owed money . . ."

She broke and cried until he was alarmed.

"Now, mouse," he said. "Please . . ." His throat ached with hers.

So she told him she was afraid her mind was going, as her father's had gone, because she was so weighted by a numbness and a languor. He, appalled, insisted upon bringing his own doctor to take a look at her.

The doctor scoffed. Old Professor James' trouble was not inheritable. This woman was frighteningly run-down. Underweight. Malnourished. Anemic. Nervously exhausted. He knew what she needed. Medicine, diet, and a long rest. He seemed to think he had solved everything.

Mr. Gibson chewed • his lips.

"Say, where do you come in, Gibson?" the doctor asked amiably. "In loco parentis?"

Mr. Gibson said he guessed so. He bought the med-cines. He gave her orders. He knew that this was not enough.

The same evening, one of his colleagues, casually encountered, nudged his ribs and said, "You're a sly one, Gibson. I hear you're shining up to old James' daughter these days. When's the wedding, hm?"

Chapter III

ON THE IDES of April, in the afternoon (for he always came after classes, by daylight), Rosemary was sitting in a mud-colored old armchair in her living room, Mr. Gibson could remark the fluff of dust accumulating along its seams. He thought to himself. It is impossible for anyone to be healthy in this dreadful place. I have got to get her out of here.

She had her hair pulled back today and tied in a hank at the back of her neck with a faded red ribbon. This did not make her look girlish. She looked haggard.

She said, as piimly as if she'd memorized it, "I feel so much better. The medicine is doing me good, I'm sure. And to know what the trouble is, that's been comforting." She dragged her eyelids up. "Mr. Gibson, I want you to go away . . . not come any more."

"Why?" he said wih a pang.

"Because I am nobody of yours. You shouldn't worry about me. You weren't even a friend of ours."

Mr. Gibson did not misunderstand. "Surely, I am a friend now," he chided gently.

"You are," she admitted with a dry gasp, "and the only one. . . . But you have helped me. It is enough. Congratulate yourself. Please."

He got up and walked about. He admired her spunk. He approved of it. But he felt upset. "What will you do on the first of May?"

"If nothing else . . . I'll go to the country," she said.

"I see. You feel distressed about me? You don't want me to try to help you any more?"

She shook her head dumbly. She looked as if she had spent her very last ounce of energy.

"They tell me," mused Mr. Gibson aloud, looking at the horrible wallpaper, "that it is more blessed to give than to receive. But it does seem to me, in that case, somebody has to be willing to receive. And do it graciously," he added rather sternly. She winced as if he had slapped her. "Oh, I know it isn't easy," he assured her quickly.

Then he hesitated. But not for long.

The trouble was, his imagination had been working. He ought to have known that if a thing can be vividly imagined, it can be done. It probably will be done. He sat down and leaned forward earnestly.

"Rosemary, suppose there was something you could do for me?"

"Anything I could ever do for you," she choked, "I'd be bound to do."

"Good. Now let's take it for granted, shall we, that you are grateful and stop repeating that? It's a terrible bore for both of us. And I do not enjoy seeing you cry, you know. I don't enjoy it at all."

She squeezed her lids together.

"I am fifty-five years old," he said. Her damp lids opened in surprise. "I don't look it?" He smiled. "Well,

as I always say, I've been pickled in poetry. I earn seven thousand a year. I wanted you to know these . . . er . . . statistics before I asked you to marry me."

She clapped both hands over her face and eyes.

"Listen a minute," he went on gently. "I've never married. I've never had a home made for me by a woman. Perhaps I have been missing something ... in that alone. Now there's a skill you have, Rosemary. You know how to keep a house. You've done it for years. You can do it, and very nicely, I'm sure, once you feel strong again. So I was thinking . . ."

She did not move nor even look between her fingers.

"It might be a good bargain between us," he went on. "We are friends, whatever you say. I think we are not incompatible. We've had some pleasant hours, even in all this difficulty. We might make good companions. Can you look at it as if it were to be an experiment? A venture? Let us not say its forever. Suppose we found we didn't enjoy being together? Why, in these days, you know, divorce is quite acceptable. Especially ... Rosemary, are you a religious woman?"

"I don't know," she said pitifully behind her hands.

"Well, I thought," he continued, "if instead of a holy pledge ... we made a bargain . . ." He began to speak louder. "My dear, I am not in love with you," he stated bluntly. "I don't speak of love or romance. At my age, it would be a little silly. I neither expect romantic love nor intend to give it. I am thinking of an arrangement. I am trying to be frank. Will you let me know if you understand me?"

"I do," she said brokenly. "I understand what you mean. But it's no real bargain at all, Mr. Gibson. I am no use to anybody . . ."

"No, you are not, not at the moment," he agreed cheerfully. "I wouldn't expect you to do the wash next Monday, you know. But I am thinking, and please think seriously too. . . . Although there is one point I'd like to make quickly. I don't want to cheat you."

"Cheat me?" she said hoarsely.

"You are only thirty-two. Be frank with me."

She took her hands down. "How can I say I'd rather go on the county?" she said with sudden, asperity.

"You could say it if it is •so," he told her grinning. The

air in the room lightened. Everything seemed gayer. "Did you ever have a hobby, Rosemary?" he asked her.

"A hobby? Yes, I . . . once or twice. I had a garden. For a while I . . . liked to try to paint." She looked dazed.

"Let me confess, then. I am presently enchanted by the idea of making you well again. Of getting you up, Rosemary, and yourself, again. As a matter of fact, it is exactly as if to do so was a hobby of mine. Now then. Now, thafs honest." He settled back. "How I'd like to!" he said wistfully. "I really would. I'd like to put you in a bright pleasant place and feed you up and see you get fat and sassy. I can't think," he sighed, "of anything that would be more fun."

She put her hands over her face and rocked her body.

"No?" he said quietly. "If the idea repels you, why of course it's not feasible. But what will you do, Rosemary? What will become of you? Don't you see that I can't stop worrying? How can you stop me if I can't stop myself? I wish you would let me lend you money, at least." He fidgeted.

"I can cook, Mr. Gibson," she said in a low voice.

He said in a moment, "Then, I'm afraid you will have to begin to call me Kenneth."

She said, "Yes, Kenneth, I will."

They were married on the 20th of April by a justice of the peace.

One of the witnesses was Paul Townsend. This came about because, in the five-day flurry and excitement, when Mr. Gibson was house-hunting as hard as he could, he bumped into Paul Townsend, confided his problem, and Paul solved it.

"Say!" His handsome genial face lit up. "I've got just the place for you! It'd be perfect! My tenant left a week ago. The painters will be gone tomorrow What a coincidence! Gibson, you're in!''

"Where am I in?"

"In my cottage on the lot adjoining my own place. A regular honeymoon cottage."

"Furnished?"

"Of course, furnished. It's a little far out."

"How far?"

"Thirty minutes on the bus. You don't drive a car?"

"Rosemary has a car of sorts. An old monster. Not evep worth selling."

"Well, then! There's a garage for it. How does this sound? Living room, bedroom, bath, big den—lots of bookshelves in there—dinette, kitchen. There's a fireplace . . ."

"Bookshelves?" said Mr. Gibson. "Fireplace?"

"And a garden."

"Garden?" said Mr. Gibson in a trance.

"I'm a nut on gardening myself. You come and see."

Mr. Gibson went and saw, and succumbed.

The wedding took place at three in the afternoon in a drab office with no fanfare and not much odor of sanctity. The justice was a matter-of-fact type who mumbled drearily. No one was present except the necessary witnesses. Mr. Gibson had thought it best to ask none of his colleagues to watch him being married, in this manner, to this white-faced woman in her old blue suit who could scarcely stand up, whose gaunt finger shook so that he could scarcely force the ring over the knucklebone.

Then of course Rosemary had no people. And Mr. Gibson's only sister Ethel, although asked, for auld lang syne, could not come. She wrote that she supposed he would know what he was doing at his age, and she was happy for him if he was happy—that she would try to come to visit one day, perhaps during the summer, and then meet the bride. To whom she sent love.

It was an ugly dreary wedding. It made Mr. Gibson wince in his soul, but it was quick, soon over. He was able to take it as just necessary, like a disagreeable pill.

Chapter IV

PUL TowNSEND lived, together with his teenage daughter and his elderly mother-in-law, in a low stucco house of some size on a fair piece of land. Beside his driveway lay the driveway pertaining to the cottage. The cottage was built of brick and redwood and upon it vines really did grow. Mr. Gibson's books and papers (although

Still in boxes), and his neat day-bed, were already there in the large square shelf-lined room off the living room, and the lumbering old car that Professor James had bought years ago was already standing in the neat little garage when Mr. Gibson brought his bride home in a taxi. He opened the front door and led her in, making no attempt at the threshold gesture. He sat her down in a bright blue easy chair. She looked as if she were going to die.

But Mr. Gibson had his own ideas of healing and he plunged in, heart and soul. He had wangled a week away from his classes. He proposed to use it to settle. But the cottage had aroused in his own breast some instincts he'd never known about. He also proposed to make a home.

So, during that first hour, he bustled. He poured out his enthusiasms, all going forward. He made her look at color. Did she like the primrose yellow in the drapries? (He thought privately that the clean, fresh colors in this charming sun-drenched room would be health-giving in themselves.) Where would he put his record player? he wondered aloud, forcing her to consider the promise of music. Then he officiated in the kitchen. He was not a bad cook, himself, but he begged her advice. He did all he could to interest and tempt her.

Rosemary could not eat any supper. She was not ready for a future. She was collapsing after an escape from the past. There would be a hiatus. He feared she'd die of it.

So he insisted that she go at once to bed, in the soft-hued bedroom that would be hers alone. When he judged she was settled,, he brought her the medicine. He touched the dry straw of her sad hair. He said, "Rest now." Her head turned weakly.

He spent the evening unpacking books and listening . . . sometimes toptoeing to her door to listen.

The next day she lay abed, unable to move, as good as dead. Only her eyes asked for mercy and patience.

Mr. Gibson had lots of patience. He was undaunted and took pains to make some very silly puns each time he brought her a snack to eat. He hooked up the record player and let music penetrate the whole little house. He believed in humor and in beauty and in color and in music and he mined the deepest faiths he had . . . for he knew he could heal her.

On the second morning, he went in to remove her breakfast tray and saw that she was lying against the

pillow with her face turned to the window. Between the dainty white margins of the curtains there was visible a patch of ground planted with roses. On her face, for the first time in his knowledge of her, lay a look of peace.

"I used to love to sit on the ground with my hands in the dirt," she said to him. "There is something about earth on your hands . . ."

"Yes, there is. And something about light. And something about running water, too. Don't you think so?"

"Yes," she said stirring.

He thought this particular "yes" had a most pK>sitive sound to it. He went softly, however. He took care not to nag at her, not to bother.

On the third day Rosemary got up and dressed in a cotton frock. She began to make a brave effort to eat, as if she owed this to him. In the evening, he built a fire (for there is something about a fire, too) and he read to her. He read some poetry. It gave him such pleasure to realize that she was going to be the best pupil he had ever had. She listened so intently. It was lively to listen so. It was a spark of life which he would fan.

Once she said to him, during that evening, with a look of pain, "You are so sane." It made him wince to understand how eight years of her life had been spent alone with that which could not have been called sane. No wonder, he said to himself. No wonder it has nearly killed her.

Now his week off began to go leaping by. She helped dust some books. She couldn't, of course, dust many. Mr. Gibson had to go back to work on the Monday, so on Friday Mrs. Violette came in.

Mrs. Violette was produced for them by Paul Town-send. She was a cleaning woman; she worked for the Townsends in the afternoons. But she was a young person, very slim and quick, with shining black hair and skin of a soft peach color and a countenance of a smoothness and design that was foreign. At least there was something odd, and not plain American, about her looks—Near Eastern perhaps. One couldn't place her.

Mrs. Violette didn't concern herself with being placed. She was cool and detached, taciturn and competent. One knew that she could keep this little house clean with the back of one of her slim strong buff-colored hands. Mr. Gibson thought she would do admirably. She was not,

thank heaven, some garrulous woe-loving old creature reduced to drudgery by adversities. She was fresh and self-respecting. She would be fine. Rosemary agreed, but wondered if it wouldn't cost too much.

"Until you are perfectly well," he told her, "Mrs. Violette is an economy. Now that's just sensible."

"At least you make it sound sensible," Rosemary said with a touch of life and opinion.

So Mr. Gibson went back to his classes on the Monday, convinced that Rosemary wasn't going to die.

He rode the buses. He wasn't much of a driver, for an automobile was a thing he had known, all his life, how to do without. So he left the ancient car in the garage until such time as Rosemary might wish to use it. She understood it, which was more than he did, and he rode his thirty minutes, brooding and half-smiling to himself over little schemes. For he was possessed by the joy of nurture which is closely akin, if not identical with, the deep joy of creation. He had never known this in his Ufe before. It absolutely absorbed him.

Rosemary was eating well. She was stuffing herself to please him. (Ah, so it did!) When he came home, the little house would be shining from the administrations of Mrs. Violette, and Rosemary would recount to him how many eggs she'd had, how many glasses of milk, what toast. . . . And he'd say she'd be fat as a pig pretty soon and feel a sting behind his eyes.

One afternoon he came walking home, the two blocks from the bus stop, to see her sitting on the ground at the far side of the house, near the roses. He altered his course and stepped softly toward her on the grass. She looked up and her face was dirty where she had swipetl an earthy hand across her nose. She was patting and combing the earth around one rose bush with hef bare fingers.

This earth was dampish and richly dark. She told him it was in good tilth. Mr. Gibson squatted down to admire and, at the same time, to taste and turn and enjoy a word that was new to him. What a wonderful word! Tilth. He understood it immediately.

She said the roses needed mulchng and he learned about mulch. She showed him how delicately she had pruned this one rose bush, how the buds must be left to grow outward. She seemed to understand what the plant needed. It seemed to him that she felt toward this one

plant— all she could manage yet—much as he felt toward her, Rosemary. He didn't say so. When he helped her to her feet, it seemed to him that she sprang up rather lightly. It made him happy.

Then one Saturday morning, puttering in his room, he realized that, while he could hear Mrs. Violette in the kitchen, he missed another presence in the house. He looked out of all the windows and at last saw Rosemary sitting in the back-yard grass, in the sun, with a hairbrush in her hand. She was brushing her hair in slow rhythm and while he watched she did not cease to brush her hair. Something about the scene startled him. The rhythm, the sensuous rhythm, the ritual of it, the strangeness . . . Rosemary was a woman. She was a mystery. One day, when he had brought her to full life and health as he would do, why, he did not know with whom he would be living in this house! He did not know Rosemary, herself. ...

Paul Townsend turned out to be an ideal landlord. He was genial and easy, but he did not intrude. One day, however, when three weeks had gone by and the Gibsons could be presumed settled in, Paul invited them to supper.

It was their first social event.

Rosemary wore her best dress. Mr. Gibson admired it aloud. It was a dullish blue, a pleasant enough dress. But he fussed a little. As soon as ever she felt just like it, he told her, she must buy at least two new dresses... maybe three. Rosemary quietly promised that she would. She accepted everything he urged upon her these days with no more weak spilling of grateful tears. In fact, she was full of grace in the matter of receiving.

They walked across the double driveway to Paul Town-send's house.

While not grand, this was certainly the home of a solvent man. Paul Townsend, a chemicaf engineer, owned the plant and laboratory down near the college, and it must return him if not a fortune at least a pleasant living.

He was a widower. Mr. Gibson had never known his wife, alive. Her picture was in this house many times. It was a little sad to -see how young the pictures were. She did not look as if her daughter could be this tall Jean, fifteen, and in high school. A pleasant child, with a cropped and tousled dark head, fine white teeth in a ready smile, excellent company manners. Then there was

Paul's mother-in-law, Mrs. Pyne, a cripple, poor soul, who inhabited a wheel chair.

Supper was not formal but nicely served and stiffly, politely eaten. Mr. Gibson watched Rosemary. Was she nervous about these people? Was it a strain? Was she strong enough?

The old lady asked kind commonplace questions, and told kind commonplace statistics about herself and the family. She had a thin, rather delicately boned face, and the tact not to mention her own disabilities. The young girl kept her place among her elders, served the meal, cleared the table afterward, and then excused herself to do her homework. Paul was a considerate host, full of good will and social anxiety.

But there are just so many commonplaces. Mr. Gibson set to work to dissolve the stiffness of this first meeting of Rosemary and her nearest neighbors. He was bound Rosemary was going to find it easy and pleasant to move into a world of friendly give and take. In fact, he talked a good deal for a while. At last, by prying and prodding for mutual interests, he discovered how to egg Paul on to talk about his garden. Rosemary began to listen and contribute. Mr. Gibson was eager to learn. Once Paul asked a silly punning question . . . whether Mr. Gibson had a sense of humus. Mr. Gibson was inspired to reply, "Not mulch." And Rosemary giggled. The old lady smiled indulgently and kept listening pleasantly as the session grew quite animated.

At ten o'clock they took their leave, for Mr. Gibson did not want Rosemary tired out. After the good nights and the kind parting phrases, they crossed the roofless porch at the front of Paul's house. They came down the five steps and crossed the double driveways in the soft chill air of night time. They went in at their own back door, skirting the shining new garbage cans, symbolic of a functioning house. They crossed the pale dim orderly kitchen and entered the living room, where a lamp had been left burning. The sense of home flowed into Mr. Gibson's heart.

"Wasn't that fun?" said he. "I thought you were having a good time."

Rosemary stood there, in the blue dress, slowly shrugging off the dark sweater from around her shoulders. She looked brooding and intense. "I have never known," she

said vibrantly, "it was possible to have so good a time. I never, never, knew . . ."

It rather shocked him. He could think of nothing to reply. She tossed the sweater into her chair and sat down and looked up at him and smiled. "Read to me, Kenneth, please," she said coaxingly, "for just ten minutes? Until I simmer down?"

"If you drink your milk and eat your cookies."

"Yes, I will. Bring four."

So he fetched the nourishment. He opened a book. He read to her.

Afterward, she licked a cookie crumb from her forefinger. She thanked him with a drowsy smile. . . .

Kenneth Gibson went into his room, which had by now acquired the look of all the places he had ever lived for long, the mellow order, the masculine coziness. He went to bed a little bewildered. He was beginning not to understand her.

Chapter V

ON THE 19th of May, Rosemary got up before him to make his breakfast. She had on a new cotton frock, for "around the house," she said. It was pink and a particularly springlike pink, somehow. She chattered away. She would like to try feeding the border with a new kind of fertilizer. Paul Townsend said it did wonders. Did he think $3.95 was too much to spend on it? And would he like roast lamb for dinner? Did he prefer mint sauce or a sweet mint jelly with his lamb? Wasn't the early sun on the little stone wall a lovely sight! Pale gold on the gray. Why was sunlight, in the morning, so crisp—and then, by noon, more like cloudy honey?

"Shadows?" he speculated. "Some day you should try to paint what you see, Rosemary."

She wasn't good enough, she said, although to try.,, At least, she announced, tossing her head, Mrs. Violette must wash and starch the kitchen curtains. They'd be nicer crisp to match the mornings. Didn't he think so?

Mr. Gibson sat there at the table, watching her and

Kstening, and his eyes suddenly cleared. Scales fell. He saw Rosemary, not as she had been, or as he had been thinking of her, but as she was, this morning.

The crisp frock showed a figure that, while slim, certainly could not be called skinny any more. Neither was it bent and hollow with the posture of weakness. On the contrary, she sat quite upright and above her snug waist swelled a charming bosom, and the shoulder bones were covered with sweet flesh. Then her hair! Why, her hair was thick and shining and full of chestnut lights! Where had it come from? Whence this face? This face was not pasty white nor did the flesh droop in sad rumples. It was almost firm, and sun-gilded to a rosy-gold, and the lines in her forehead were a maturity (more interesting than the bare bold brow of youth could be). Her blue eyes were snapping with the range of her thoughts among her projects for this day. The odd little fold in the flesh at the comers was so characteristic, so significant of her fine good humor. Her whole face was so animated and ... he didn't know what to call it but . . . Rosemaryish. And that low bubbly chuckle of hers was constantly in her throat.

His breast swelled. Why, she is well! he thought.

Mr. Gibson hid this for a secret temporarily while he smiled and patted all her plans on the back encouragingly .. . and said goodbye.

But he rode the bus with a joyful booming in his heart. She is well again! Rosemary is alive and well! He had as good as raised her from the dead.

All day long, the miracle rang in his heart. He would come back to it, back to it, and, every time, it boomed and rang like bells.

When he came home, to admire the lamb and watch her dainty hunger, and hear how the day had gone and was already only a foundation for tomorrow, he said firmly, "Tomorrow night, Rosemary, we are going to celebrate."

"Are we? Why?"

"Can you drive ten miles? Can the Ark go ten miles?"

"Why, sure it can," she said gaily. "I don't see why not."

"Then we are going out for dinner—to a restaurant I know. Out on the highway. Oh, you'll like it."

"But why?"

"To celebrate." He was mysterious.

"Celebrate what, Kenneth?"

"It's a secret," he said. "I may tell you tomorrow." "What on earth are you talking about?" "Never mind," he said shyly.' He almost hated to share his very miracle—even with her.

In the evening of the next day (which was a Friday), the ancient car proceeded noisily out upon the highway, west of town. It rode high and old-fashioned, in a gait that was both stately and lumbering, like a stout matron who nevertheless has her dignity. Rosemary, in a new white dress with a splash of red roses on the bodice, with a big soft red wool scarf tied around the top of her, drove them without seeming to try too hard. She is equal to this, thought Mr. Gibson with pride, because she is well. And there is no doubt about it.

Mr. Gibson had gone so far as to reserve a table, for this little restaurant was very popular, both on account of its fine French cooking and its atmosphere, which was dim and smoky and smelled deliciously of sauces. It wasn't cheap either. But this was a celebration.

They drank a little wine. They ate hugely of one delectable dish after another, and Mr. Gibson teased by refusing to explain the reason for the reckless expense of this expedition. It was delightful to be together in the midst of the smoke and the savory smells and the soft buzz of other people's conversations. Mr. Gibson knew he was preening himself. He knew that Rosemary was, too. As if they were actors or masqueraders, and out of themselves and yet being themselves in a freer truer way. He couldn't help feeling on the suave side, and a bit of a gay dog. He enjoyed it. Rosemary looked as if she felt that she was rather lovely. And so she was, he decided.

At dessert time, they had a drop of brandy with their coffee. Then without warning these two people-of-the-world fell into a fit of childlike hilarity.

Just something he said, a turn of a phrase.

And Rosemary capped it.

And he extended it.

And they were off. The whole thing spiraled up. It got funnier and funnier. They were behaving like a pair of maniacs. Mr. Gibson laughed so hard he had to retreat behind his napkin. He felt himself aching. Rosemary had her hands to the red roses printed on her bodice as if she

were aching too. They rocked together. Their heads bumped. This was an absolute riot. They shushed each other, faces red, eyes wet, and beaming, and daring each other.

People turned mildly worried faces to look at them, and this was the funniest thing they'd ever seen. And sent them off again. Nothing on earth had ever been so funny. But never could they explain why to sinyone else. Which was extremely funny in itself.

Now people were smiling by contagion and staring with real curiosity. So they controlled themselves and made their mouths stiff and sipped brandy. Rosemary thought of one more word and said it and off they went, careening on laughter right off the earth to some other place.

It took quite a while to simmer down. But at last, just as suddenly, the little sadness fell. It was over. They mustn't try to start it up again. No. Force nothing. Sit, with the sweet contentment in their throats,' the after-taste of laughter that lies so kindly on the very membranes like a salve.

"When will you tell me what we are celebrating?" asked Rosemary gravely.

"I'll tell you now." He lifted the last drop of his brandy. "We are celebrating you. Because you are well again."

Her eyes filled with tears. She didn't answer.

He said quietly, "Well, it's late. I suppose we should

go."

"Yes." She fished the red wool thing from behind her. She seemed to be trembling. The waiter pulled the table away and they rose, moving slowly, as if still entranced, still sweetly remembering the food and the fun. He took the soft wide stole and held it, and she turned her back, and he folded it around her. He wanted to tuck it close around her throat, wanted her safe and warm. He couldn't help it that his hands were tender. Rosemary bent her head, and for one quick wonderful stunning moment she pressed the warm skin of her cheek caressingly upon the bare skin of his hand.

It was only a moment. It changed the whole world.

Mr. Gibson followed her to the little lobby and opened the door which the proprietor was helping to open (saying good night, saying that a bit of a fog had come up, suggesting caution). Mr. Gibson may have replied mechanically. He was absolutely stunned.

He had just discovered that he was in love with his wife Rosemary, twenty-three years his junior—but that didn't matter. Why, he was crazy about her! Now he understood what they meant by "in love." In love... in love ... in love!

They stepped out into a place .of strangest beauty— not like the world at all. A heavy fog but oh, how beautiful!

Rosemary stepj>ed back to rest a moment against him. Their two bodies were all that was left of the old world and all that mattered. Everywhere, veils fell. Across the road, the fields drowsed and drowned.

"Would you rather I drove?" he asked her.

"No, no," she said. "I understand the poor old Ark. Oh, Kenneth, isn't it beautiful!"

There was a vibration between them and he cherished it. It was too dear and too new and much too beautiful to mention.

They got into the car. Rosemary started the noisy old engine, and backed it out of the parking slot. Mr. Gibson strained to see, and to guide her. But he hardly knew what he was seeing. She drove slowly with full caution. The big old car went steadily. The world was invisible ahead of them and vanished behind them. They were nowhere, and yet here. Together and only ten miles from home.

Mr. Gibson didn't think behind nor too far, nor too clearly, ahead, either. He only knew he was in love, and everything—everything was piercingly different and beautiful.

The sudden headlights simply became, as if they'd just been created. A car raced toward them, head on. He knew that Rosemary took a sudden great pull on the steering wheel. That was all he knew but a brutal noise, one flash of pain, and then from his senses the world was gone, altogether.

Chapter VI

TTE WAS trussed up, he was chained, like a dog in a -n. kennel. He could not, even if he had had the ambition to try, get out of this bed and away from the contraptions that imprisoned him.

"Then, she is all right?" he said. "You've actually seen her?" He tried to bend his gaze and search this face, but the girl wdth the clip-board had seated herself and was too low. He could see the top of her head, but not the eyes.

"Well, no," he heard her voice saying, "I didn't actually see her. But I was up on her floor—trying to . . . you know . . . get information? And she's all right, Mr. Gibson. Honest. Everybody's told you."

"What do you mean by 'all right'?" he queried irritably. His leg up in this undignified shocking fashion, his torso constricted somehow, his senses obstructed, the whole shock and indignity of injury upon him . . . yet he himself was "all right" in hospital parlance. What did they mean, except that he wasn't in mortal danger? (Oh, was she?)

"Told me she was out for a while and shaken up quite a bit," said the uncultivated voice, "but that's all. Now please, Mr. Gibson . . ."

He rolled his head. It seemed to be all the freedom he had. But who, he thought with a flooding woe, is going to make Rosemary smile . . . ?

"Are you in pain?" the girl said not unsympathetically. "Maybe I could come back."

"I sure am in pain," he said. "Exactly. Right inside of it. I'm in some kind of cocoon made out of fuzz and fog . .." (Fog? His heart winced.) He must have been given drugs. His tongue felt thickened but loosened, too. "I don't feel the pain, you see, but I know it is there, all around me. And it knows I know. What day is it? What time is it? Where am I?" he jested with his frightened lips.

"It's Saturday, the twentieth of May," she told him slowly and patiently. "It's nine twenty a.m. and you are in Andrews Memorial. You were brought in last night, and honest, Mr. Gibson, I'm sorry but I have to get this information for the office . . ."

"I know," he said soberly.

He was afraid, sweating afraid, that they were all lying to him. It wasn't inconceivable. Battered and broken as he was, they might, in their wisdom, have decided to conspire and keep from him a sorrow. He opened his eyes as wide as he could and strained to lift his head and peer at this girl through the fuzz and the mist. "Sit a little higher. I can't see you," he demanded.

The girl elevated herself. She thought, Gee, he's got nice eyes. On a girl, they'd be gorgeous! Wouldn't it be, though? It's like me and my sisters all got the straight hair and the boys got the natural waves. . . . She lowered her gaze so as not to be caught with such thoughts.

"What are they doing to her?" Mr. Gibson said wildly.

"Why, they got her under sedation, I guess. Least I couldn't talk to her. Probably they want to watch her a few days ..."

"That's right," he said excitedly. "Yes, that's what they must do. Keep her and watch her. You see, she hasn't been strong. She's had quite a time and this could set her back . . ." .

The girl sighed and poised her pen. "I got your name and address. Now, lessee . . . When were you bom, Mr. Gibson? Please, if you'll just let me get this blank filled out . . ."

"Sorry," he said. "January fifth, nineteen hundred. Which makes it entirely too easy to figure out how old I am. You don't even have to subtract, do you?"

The girl wrote "Yes" after "Married?" . . . "How long have you been married, Mr. Gibson?" she asked aloud.

"Five weeks."

"Oh, really?" Her voice became bright and interested. The next question on her blank was "Children?" She started to write a "No" and caught herself. "Is this your first wife?"

"My first . . . my only . . . Will you tell me one thing?" He fought to see her plain. "Is she in pain?"

"Look," the girl said, determined this time. "What can I do J Mr. Gibson? Honest to gosh, nobody's trying to kid you. They don't think she's even got a concussion. I'd know if there was anything bad. Believe me, I'd tell you."

He could see her face now, and it was kind and shiny and in earnest. "I believe you would," he said weakly. "Yes, thank you."

He was in a ward. There was no telephone. He was divided from Rosemary. He was farther from her than if he'd been a thousand miles. He said, whimsical in helplessness, "Could I send her a postcard?"

The girl said, "Now. Probably she'll be able to come down here and see you ... at least by tomorrow."

"They might let her leave before me?" said Mr. Gibson at once, in alarm.

"Well, I should think so. After all, you got to wait a while . . ."

"They mustn't let her." He couldn't bear to think of Rosemary alone. Mrs. Violette might be hired to stay, but Mrs. Violette was so remote and cool. . . . Paul Town-send would be kind, but he couldn't be with her. There was nobody, he thought in panic— Yes. Yes there was! Rosemary had no people, but he had a person. He had a sister.

"Could you send a telegram?" he asked abruptly. "I guess I could see to it for you, or the nurse . . ." "You do it. To Miss Ethel Gibson." He gave her the address. "Are you writing it down? Send this. 'Don't worry but car accident puts me in hospital. Rosemary O.K. but we need you. Can you possibly come.' " "Love?" the girl asked, scribbling busily. "Love, Ken." "Twenty words."

"Never mind. Please send it. Will you do that for me? I don't know where there is any money . . ."

"Til see about it," she soothed. "They can charge it on your bill. Now, do you feel better? Now will you tell me the answers to all this stuff?" So he told her the answers.

"O.K.," she said at last. "I guess I got the whole story of your life. Now, don't worry, Mr. Gibson, I'll surely send the telegram."

"You're very good . . ."

"So long." She smiled. She liked him. He was kinda cute. Didn't look to be fifty-five, either. With the kind of skin he had—fair, and stuck to his cheekbones. A woman would have had to have her face lifted already. And him married only five weeks to his first wife. She thought it was cute, and a little bit amusing. "Don't worry so much about your bride," she said affectionately.

"I'll try not," he promised. But he had received the news of her amusement and thought he would not open himself for the amusement of strangers again.

When she had gone, he thought drunkenly: Story of my life. She hadn't got any of it. . . . Then his whole life's story went by him in a rush, and his heart throbbed hard for the disappointment and the postponement.

But he took hold of himself and called up patience. He would heal, painfully, in time. The pain was nothing. It

could be endured. He was not reconciled to the time it would take, but he would endeavor to be.

If only Rosemary had not been set back too much! If only Ethel—good reliable sister Ethel—if she could come and keep . . . keep his house! He felt sure she would respond as he himself would have responded, of course, to such a telegram. Ethel might even fly. His sister, Ethel, was not as far away from him in time as was Rosemary, upstairs. Ethel would come and take care and, in time, all would be well again.

Meanwhile, Mr. Gibson saw that the man on his right lay stupidly inert with a tube running in a disgusting way through one nostril. The man on his right had his ear upon the pillow, under which was a magic disk that poured out a soap opera. The ward was full of men all waiting as best they could . . . and most in pain. Some of them might be in love, for all he knew.

Mr. Gibson lay remembering words, for words were good to help keep off the pain—that brute and wordless thing —and to pass the time.

... an ever-fixed mark

That looks on tempests and is never shaken;

It is the star to every wandering bark

Whose worth's

Unknown . . .

Unknown . . .

Unknown . . .

He seemed to sleep.

Later in that shapeless day they brought him a wire:

FLYING SOONEST. ETHEL.

Mr. Gibson sighed so deeply that it made his chest ache.

"And I almost forgot. Your wife sends love," the nurse said brightly.

"Does she?"

"She was pretty anxious to know how you were. Let me squinch this pillow over. Is that more comfortable?"

"I am comforted," he said quaintly. "Can you send her my love?"

"We sure can," the nurse said merrily. "I'll put it on the grapevine, right away."

People are good, fought Mr. Gibson, weak with satisfaction. People are really awfully good. Good nurse. Good sister Ethel. This misery would pass.

Chapter VII

"GOOD TO come!" he said to her, the next morning. "So very good to come. So glad to see you."

"Think nothing of it, old dear," said Ethel, standing in her old familiar way, with the effect of being on both feet instead of settling her weight on one and using the other for balance, as most do. Ethel was a woman of some bulk. Although she wasn't fat, her waist was solid, her legs sturdy, her shoulders wide. She was wearing a tweedy suit of severe cut and a tailored blouse, but her short gray-threaded hair was uncovered and her square ringless hands were ungloved.

"Pretty state of affairs this is," she said in her hearty voice. She had bright brown eyes in a face that would launch no ships. (Ethel looked a good deal like their father had, he realized suddenly. Now that she was forty-seven.) "How do you feel?" she inquired.

"Don't ask me. You wouldn't want to hear about it. I want you to go to Rosemary ..."

"I've been to Rosemary."

"You have?" He felt stunned.

"It's ten A.M. my lad," said Ethel. "And I got off that plane in the middle of the night and the milk-train or whatever I took landed me here at five a.m. I've met your landlord. I've seen your house. I've had a bath in it. And I got in to see Rosemary because she is in a semiprivate room, whereas all kinds of indecent things were going on in this ward, or so they implied." Ethel glanced at the man with the tube in his nostril and did not flinch.

Mr. Gibson gave out a weak "Oh," feeling somewhat flattened by her energy.

"Woke up your Mr. Townsend, I guess. Must say he was very amiable about it. When I identified myself, he let me in. Nothing to it."

"Paul's a good fellow . . ."

"Very charming," said Ethel dryly, "one of those dream-boats, eh? And a rich widower, too? My! Quite a little house you live in, Ken."

"Isn't it?"

"I put my things in what I judged to be Rosemary's room." Her wise glance understood everything.

"Yes," he said feebly. All at once, he could not imagine brisk, sensible, energetic Ethel in the little house, at all. He said impatiently—because she gave the effect of a gale blowing a sudden gust that disrupted a certain neatness and order of his thoughts— "Tell me, Ethel. How is Rosemary?"

"Not a scratch on her," said Ethel promptly. "She's a little unhappy. So sorry it happened. Worried about you. And so forth. I understand she was doing the driving."

"Yes, it's her car . . ." he began.

"Which car is pretty much of a mess, so Mr. Town-send tells me. I can't quite visualize . . ." Ethel frowned. "Usually it is the driver who gets the worst of it. Seems the other car hit yours right smack on the side where you were sitting."

"Other car . . ." Mr. Gibson winced.

"Two men in it. Neither one hurt, except superficially. You seem to have got the worst of it. Only a few bones broken, Ken? Sounds to me you are lucky to be alive to tell the tale."

"I can't tell the tale," he said testily. "I can't remember a thing about it."

"Just as well," said Ethel. "Spares you some interviews. It's going to be a kind of impasse, I'm afraid. Nobody will dare sue anybody."

"Sue?" He felt bewildered.

"You see, they were on the left in the fog, where they shouldn't have been. But Rosemary turned left, which was wrong of her. And the police smelled alcohol on both your breaths."

"A drop of brandy . . ." murmured Mr. Gibson sadly.

"The cops have literal minds."

"Rosemary." Mr. Gibson did not go on, discovering that all he wanted was to be saying her name.

"She's a nice girl, Ken," said his sister.

"Yes," he said relaxing.

Ethel grinned at him. Her eyes had such a wise look.

kind and indulgent. "I gather that you have been up to some good deeds."

"Well . . ."

"She couldn't say enough, Rosemary couldn't. According to her she was broke and ill and down and out. I suppose this appealed to you."

Ethel was teasing but Mr. Gibson felt dead .serious. "She was badly run-down. That's exactly why I wanted you . . ."

"Drastic, wasn't it?" Ethel cocked one brow.

"What was?"

"To marry her."

"It may seem so . . ." he said stiffly, on the defensive.

"She's on the young side, isn't she?" his sister said. "Let's see. You are fifty-five. Well, she thinks you are a saint on earth—and perhaps you are." She grinned affectionately.

"I haven't," said Mr. Gibson indignantly, "the slightest intention of being a saint on earth or anywhere else—"

Ethel laughed at him. "Soft-hearted old Ken. I needn't have worried. You'd never take up with a blonde, now, would you? It would be a poor thing, a waif or a stray . . ."

"I'd hardly say . . ." he began.

"She's obsessed with gratitude," said Ethel, wearing now a faint frown. "Devoted to you. Of course . . ." she resettled her weight, "as I gather, she took care of her father for some years?"

"Yes, some years. She certainly did."

"Deeply attached, then," said Ethel. "And you come along. I suppose she's transferred . . ."

Mr. Gibson moved his head inquiringly.

"Father-image," said Ethel.

He lowered his eyelids.

"She claims you saved her life and reason," Ethel went on. "I wouldn't be surprised, either. It would be just like you."

"In loco parentis?" said Mr. Gibson lightly.

"That's obvious enough," said Ethel carelessly, "to anyone who knows even the rudiments of psychology. Well, good luck to you both."

"She is a dear girl," said Mr. Gibson quietly.

"I'm sure she is," said Ethel in her indulgent way. "And you are rather a dear, yourself. Well, here I am.

Got a month's leave of absence and all set to take over."

"So good," he murmured, feeling very tired.

"Your house is cute as a button, Ken, but it sure is a long haul on that bus. Give me three thousand miles on a nice safe airplane. Bus drivers are such a ruthless breed. The insensitive way they slam two tons of juggernaut through the innocent streets. Terrifies me."

"Terrifies you!" He rallied to tease and praise her. "Come now, not Ethel the intrepid! How are you, my dear?"

"A little fed up," she said frankly. "A little tired of the subway. In fact, Ken, I'm thinking I rather like your climate." She lifted her strong chin.

"Gk>od," he said. "We'll make a native of you in six weeks."

"Well, we'll see. Now, what do you want? What can I bring you? What shall I do for you?"

His heart, which had shriveled a little, let go and expanded. "Be here," he begged. "Live in my house. Take care of Rosemary for me."

"Can do," said Ethel, and he relaxed against his sense of her strength. "Poor old boy," she said lovingly. "We are not—are we?—getting any younger. . . . Although you are the smart one."

"I?"

"To live as you do. Right out of the rat race. Letting the world go by. I think I'll resign from the fray myself. And acquire innocence."

"Innocence?"

"Dear old Ken," she said. "You and your poetry."

Late that very afternoon the hospital discharged Rosemary.

"After all," said Ethel cheerily, "there are so few beds and so many people so much worse off. And I am here to take care of Rosemary. If I had realized, I could have brought her clothing . . . but no matter. We'll take a taxi."

To Mr. Gibson her voice was patter . . . patter he scarcely heard. His attention was bent upon his wife Rosemary, upon the state of her body and her soul.

There she was, standing at the foot of his bed, wearing the white dress with the red flowers on it, and dirt)' and crumpled the dress was. She hugged around her the red

stole. Her face was too pale for the strong red that wrapped her.

"Are you sure . . .?" said he. He didn't think she looked well enough to go out of the hospital.

"I'm so sorry," burst Rosemary. "So sorry! Oh, Kenneth, I wish it had been me. I'd have done anything in the world rather than hurt you . . ." She was quivering with the need to say this.

"Oh, come now," said Mr. Gibson in some alarm. "We had an accident. Now, mouse . . . it's nothing to worry about." He thought. It's set her back, alas. "Here's Ethel come all this way," he soothed . . . "Your sister, Rosemary." (He had to give her something. He gave her Ethel.) "The two of you are going to have a fine time." He looked as bright and easy as he could. "I just have to lie here with my leg hung up like the Monday wash— until the bones take a notion to mend. But it will mend—"

He had coaxed no smile. Rosemary said, "I turned to the left, you see. I thought ..."

"You are not to blame," said Ethel a little loudly and very firmly. "There is no blame."

"Of course not," cried Mr. Gibson, appalled at this, "Of course you are not to blame! What an idea! Now, Rosemary, don't think about it. Please. Just wipe it out of your mind. Be like me. I don't remember a thing about it, you know. Just whammo . . . and here I am." He smiled at her.

"Don't you?" she said a little pathetically. She moistened her lips. "How do you feel?"

"I feel ridiculous," he said crisply, "and pretty undignified, believe me." But he was powerless to reach behind that white-faced stare. He feared she was still shocked, still fighting against the fact of the accident, still trying to wish it away. "Take her home, Ethel," he begged. "Now Rosemary, I want you to do as Ethel says. I want you to rest."

"Yes. I will, Kenneth. I wasn't hurt at all."

"Good night, then," he said gently. "And Ethel, you take care of her." (He thought. Oh yes, she has been hurt. She has been set back. Oh, too bad!) He said aloud, "I want you to be well, Rosemary?"

"Yes," she said. "I will be well." Just as if it was something she'd do to please him.

Then she was gone.

Ethel shepherded her charge into the taxi and then made conversation. She was sorry for this stranger, her sister-in-law. (And in-law, she presumed, was exactly all.) However had this poor thing got herself into such a false and ridiculous position? Her brother. Ken, was such a dreamer, such an unrealistic soul. The whole affair was pitiful. Ethel set out to comfort Rosemary.

"You really shouldn't entertain this feeling of guilt," said Ethel kindly. "There is no such thing as guilt, you know."

"I don't feel that exactly . . ." said the sad mouth, the low voice of Rosemary. "I feel so sorry. I hate so to to see him . . ."

"Of course you do," soothed Ethel. "He has done a great deal for you. I know. Just like him."

"Kenneth—" began his wife in a voice more resolute and shrill.

But Ethel cut in. "He's an old dear. But so vulnerable. Some people, of course, are like that. Charity does something for them. Expresses some need. Fills some deficiency."

Rosemary said, faintly breathless, "I love your brother very much. I think he's wonderful. I hate — "

Ethel looked at her and pitied her. "Naturally," she said. "We can only hate the ones we love, you know."

"But I don't hate him" said Rosemary. "I couldn't. Possibly."

"Of course not," said Ethel. "That is the trouble. Of course, you 'couldn't possibly.' But you are still a young woman, Rosemary. That is just a fact and none of your fault. You really needn't feel guilty about it."

"But . . ."

"We understand," intoned Ethel. "We understand these things. Now. My dear, just try to relax. Just don't brood about the accident. Tell me, what are those incredible masses of flowers? Geraniums! I never saw such a sight. Now, I'm here to see that you rest and recover. Frankly, I am delighted. It makes a break for me that I have wanted for a long time. You see, I'm quite selfish, Rosemary. We all are."

"I suppose so," said Rosemary dispiritedly.

"You will soon feel strong and well . . ."

"Yes."

Ethel herself felt strong and well and pleased with the feel of the helm in her hand.

Mr. Gibson lay thinking about Rosemary. It had been a flat and almost stupid exchange between them. Lugubrious. Also conventional. Nothing like what he had wanted. But what else could it have been, here in the crowded ward, with the slack eyes of the man with the tube, the curious eyes of the man on the other side, both fixed on the spectacle of Rosemary. And Ethel, also there.

Mr. Gibson braced himself. Wait then. In no such public spot as this would he declare his love. Nor would he declare at all until he felt less unsure of himself than he felt. today. What did he know about love, anyhow? He could have mistaken a fatherly joy for the other thing. Little enough he knew about that, either. Bachelor that he had been. (Innocent.) And of course another mistake was quite probable. Whatever he felt, Ethel could be right about Rosemary. Ethel was a shrewd and worldly woman, and her judgment deserved attention. He may have taken a gesture of loving gratitude in the wrong way entirely. Of course Rosemary was grateful to him. He squirmed at the thought of it. He had made her stop saying so. But that might have contributed to her—obsession, as Ethel called it. Well, he would have to be rid of that —be sure that wasn't warping and interfering. ...

His heart was beating in slow rhythm, a kind of dirge-time.

For should I but see thee a little moment, Straight is my voice hushed . . .

He felt very much aware of his broken self and the harsh truths of the hospital, the bum of the taut sheet upon his skin, the uncozy light. The scene in the restaurant was long long ago . . . the other side of the mist ... far—and receding like a dream.

Certainly, certainly, the last thing he would do was upset Rosemary any more than she was upset, right now. He didn't want to upset her ever. To have one's adopted father . . . (Mr. Gibson's mind fled from finishing this thought. It was too abhorrent!) He had better swallow down what might be only some foolishness of his ... at least for the time being. Ah, poor girl—to blame herself because she happened to be driving. But Ethel was sensible. Ethel's sound common sense would pull her out of that. He could not. He couldn't be there.

Mr. Gibson sighed and his ribs ached. Sometimes he felt pitiable, rather than ridiculous, to be so strapped and tied together as he was. So stopped . . . right in the midst of all he had been accomplishing. But he must endure. At least his sister Ethel had come. . . . God bless her!

Chapter VllI

DAYS BEGAN to take on shape and they went by. At first Ethel and Rosemary came together to see him every afternoon. It was not long before he ceased to look forward to this visiting hour. They spoke with such common-place cheer. They stood beside his bed and, all down the ward, others stood and spoke in the same way. Mr. Gibson felt as if he were in the zoo and human beings came here to make noises at the animals that communicated good will but little else. As if men in a hospital ward had lost their reason, their ideas, their imaginations. They were bodies healing, and nothing more.

During the second and third weeks, Ethel often came alone, saying that Rosemary was resting. And Ethel gave the cheerful trivial news. Mrs. Violette was a great expense, but they would keep her if Ken insisted. The weather was charming. Rosemary? Oh, Rosemary was being sensible, eating well, getting along fine. Mr. Gibson beat down a jealous sense that the two of them got on and the house ran too well without him. He wished he could get out of here. He didn't say so. He said he was getting along fine, too.

Paul Townsend dropped in once or twice, and spoke cheerful commonplaces. Shame this had to happen. Everyone well at home. Getting along fine.

Only when one or another of his fellow teachers came and the talk went—as it had gone so many years of his life—flitting through remembered books, did Mr. Gibson receive a sense of nourishment from the visitation.

One day, Rosemary came alone. Ethel had been speaking more and more seriously of staying on permanently. Today she had gone looking around for jobs. To Mr.

Gibson's shock, Rosemary proposed to go job-hunting herself.

"After all," she said, and she was standing on both feet, much as Ethel did, "a substitute is going to finish off your year, Kenneth, and then it is summer. You are not the richest man in the world. . . . You shouldn't work at anything this summer, after these injuries. . . . And in spite of the insurance, you know we can't recover all the cost of all of this." She looked very bleak for a moment. "But there is no reason why I can't help. I'm well now ..."

She was well enough. She looked physically quite sound. He didn't know what made him fidget. He seemed to catch overtones of Ethel's briskness and practicality in Rosemary's voice . . . The new man in the right-hand bed was frankly listening to every word being said, and Mr. Gibson couldn't quite black out his own consciousness of this fact, either.

"A woman needn't be a parasite," said Rosemary, "unless, I suppose, she's married to some fabulous captain of industry who can afford a parasite . . ."

"Or likes them," he murmured. "Some men are old-fashioned." He revised his thought, sternly. "If you would enjoy a job," he told her, "of course, Rosemary. How... how is the garden?"

"All right, I guess."

"Have you tried to paint the little wall?" He was groping back after something far away, the other side of the fog.

"No," she said. "I haven't. I could never be a painter, Kenneth. Just a dabbler. Ethel says, you know, people go in for things like that in retreat from reality, and I'm afraid I haven't been aware enough of the . . . well, the economic world . . . the commercial world . . . the real world."

(Mr. Gibson thought to himself, Yes, this is Ethel. But it is good for her.)

"I guess I was more or les? sheltered for too long," said Rosemary.

"We-ell . . ." he considered. "I dunno as I would call it that." A prison is a shelter, he was thinking, in a way. But . . .

"I see now," she said vigorously. "There was something too dreamy and not quite tough enough about the

way I let things go on. If I'd had more sense ... if I had faced up to facts ... I needn't have ever gotten into such a state as I was in . . ."

"As you were" he said admiringly. "You sound like a very determined young woman now."

"I am." She smiled. The praise had pleased her. "There are jobs I could do, now."

"Yes." He knew. Jobs for rude health. First stepping-stones toward working experience. "Well," he sighed, "I never proposed to keep you wrapped in what the British call cotton wool . . . forever." He looked at the detestable ceiling.

Curly-locks, curly-locks, wilt thou be mine?

he intoned . . .

Thou shalt not wash dishes nor yet feed the swine, But sit on a cushion and sew a fine seam, And feed upon strawberries, sugar and cream.

He'd made her laugh. (If the laugh was a bit artificial, a bit strained, perhaps this waT' because the man in the next bed was wearing such a look of shocked contempt on his whiskery face.)

"What an unbalanced diet!" cried Rosemary, attempting to be gay. '

"Much too rich and probably fattening," Mr. Gibson agreed, looking drowsy. Covertly he inspected her new briskness. Was it real? Was it Rosemary? Was he wrong to so dislike it?

"Do you need more books?" she said suddenly. "I wasn't sure . . ."

He squirmed his head. "It's an effort to hold a book, I find," he said miserably. "Maybe I have had too steady a diet of poetry. When 'life is real, life is earnest'—and there I go." His own smile felt somewhat artificial.

"Ethel has told me so much about you," said his wife. "How you always have helped people—"

"Oh, now . . ." he sputtered. He disliked this kind of pious judgment. Like everybody, he had only and ever tried to be comfortable.

"Just the same," said Rosemary resolutely, "Ethel and I are going to take care of you, for a change."

(Mr. Gibson didn't like the sound of this, one bit. But, he thought, perhaps she needed to get rid of the burden of gratitude and if this was her way, he would have to bear it.) So he told her, willing his eyes to twinkle, that he fancied this would be delightful.

After she had gone he gave the back of his head to his curious neighbor, and mused on this meeting. Rosemary's vigor and resolution, he perceived, was a strain upon her. She was pressing herself to be something she had never been. But perhaps now needed to be? Well, if she needed to feel useful to him and this was her way, why, he must acquire the grace to receive.

He would just have to shuck off his §ense of dismay, the illogical notion that he had been receiving, formerly, and now lost something precious. If Rosemary saw duty, why, he should understand this. He had seen duty and enjoyed the doing of it, often enough. He must oblierate this baseless feeling that something . . . some hidden thing ... was very wrong within Rosemary. After all, he mused in sad whimsicality', if man cannot live by bread alone, neither can woman be satisfied by cream and strawberries.

He tried to keep from his old habit of quoting in his mind. Too many poems were about love. Maybe all of them. . . .

Mr. Gibson had a bit of a shock one day, when he discovered that some badly smashed bones in his thigh had grown back together somewhat awkwardly. Unless he wished to go through a series of attempts at bone-breaking and repairing that would be expensive (and no results guaranteed) he would be lame.

He said, to Ethel, to Rosemary, this was not important. It did not really matter if he limped a little.

But when he tried to walk, when he realized how he must limp, henceforth ... it mattered some.

At last he went home. Ethel came to fetch him in a taxi. Rosemary kept the hearth: she met him at the cottage door. Still on crutches, Mr. Gibson swung himself into the living room, eager for the sense of home upon his heart.

It did not come. The colors looked a bit on the cute side. The furniture was obviously "furnished" furniture. What he remembered so fondly must have been totally

subjective. Surely there were also subtle displacements. Chairs stood at other angles. He sat down, feeling pain.

Jeanie Townsend came to the door bearing flowers and greetings, and everyone had to pretend that the little house was not already bestrewn to capacity with flowers. But the child was welcome. She helped, with her presence and her good manners, this moment to go over all their heads and pass.

Then, her father ambled in after her, wearing his leisure clothes. The white T-shirt tight to his fine muscular torso set off the deep tan of his arms and neck. After the hospital ward, he was almost offiensively healthy and powerful.

"Dam shame," said he, as he had already said twice before in the hospital, "a thing like this has to happen. Guess we never know, do we? Oh thanks, Rosie."

Rosemary was serving tea with trembling hands.

"I guess you'll be well taken care of, like me," grinned Paul, "by a regular flock of females." His big brown hands were startling upon a frail cup and saucer.

"Waited on hand and foot," said Mr. Gibson, accepting with his pale claw a slab of pound cake from Ethel. (She had always considered this a great delicacy, but Mr. Gibson rather enjoyed, although of course it wasn't wise, some frosting on a cake.)

"That reminds me," said Ethel, "speaking of waiting on . . . About Mrs. Violette, Ken. She isn't worth what she is costing."

"If both of you are going into trade," said Mr. Gibson mildly, "who is going to wait on me, hand-and-foot, then, pray tell?"

"But we aren't going yet," said Rosemary quickly. "Not imtil you are perfectly well again." She was sitting on the edge of a chair and her attitude was like that of a new servant in a new situation, too anxious to find her place, and to please. He longed to say to her, "Sit back, Rosemary. This is your house."

Ethel was speaking. "Even so, when we do go off to work, Ken ... I don't like the idea of a foreigner left to her own devices. They all need supervision. They have little extravagances, you know. Things disappear from the icebox." Her somewhat craggy face was rather amused by human frailty.

Jeanie said, "We've had Mrs. Violette for more than a year. She keeps everything so clean . . ,"

"Ah," said Ethel, "but there's only you, dear. Your poor grandmother—whereas, here . . . why, there is nothing to keeping a house like this. I've kept my apartment and held a job for years. And with two of us to share off . . . both grown and able-bodied. Be a cinch." Paul said, "Rosie's fine, now."

Jeanie's eyes glistened. "I like Mrs. Violette," she said. "A waste," said Ethel. "I prefer doing for myself." Mr. Gibson, munching pound cake, knew with a pang that it would be impossible for him even to ask his sister Ethel how long she proposed to live in his house. After she had come so promptly, so generously, giving up all she had been doing for his and Rosemary's sake? He could not ever suggest that she had better go. Mrs. Violette would go, instead.

So the chairs would stand at angles that subtly annoyed him. The menu would include pound cake and certain other dishes. Rosemary wouldn't be mistress of her own house, not quite. Ethel would sleep in the second bed in Rosemary's room.

He was ashamed. He wrenched at his thoughts. How mean he was! How petty, selfish! (What a fool he was, too!) Thirty-two from fifty-five leaves twenty-three, and no matter how many times he tried the arithmetic, he never got a better answer.) He had his place, his own bed he had made, cozy among his books.

Ingrate! Here in this pleasant cottage, with two devoted women, both anxious to "take care" of him, why could he not count his blessings and give over, forever . . . wipe out and forget a foolish notion that he, Kenneth Gibson, was destined to love a woman and be loved, on any but the present terms? Which were fine ... he shouted at himself inside his head. Admirable! His days would be sunny with kindness and good will and mutual gratitude.

Paul Townsend got up and stretched. He couldn't seem to help exuding excess health. He said he had to go, he'd left off in the middle of trimming his ivy. "And by the way, Rosie," he said with his warm smile, "if you really want some cuttings there are going to be millions of them." Rosemary said, "Thanks so much, Paul, but I don't suppose I'll have the time . . ."

"Of course you'll have the time!" cried Mr. Gibson, shocked. "Don't let me be in the way ..."

She only smiled and Paul said he'd save a few dozen in water anyhow, and Jeanie, who had been seen but not heard most of this time, as she got up to go, said sweetly, "I'm awfully glad you are home again, Mr. Gibson."

By the tail of his eye, Mr. Gibson perceived on Ethel's face a look he knew very well. It was the look she wore when she was not going to say what she was thinking. This was fleetingly disturbing. In just that moment, Mr. Gibson felt quite out of touch.

"Forgot," said Paul in the doorway. "Mama sends regards and all that. Say, why don't you hob—come on over and sit with her sometimes. Gibson? She'd love it."

"I may do so, some day," said Mr. Gibson as cordially as he could, and Rosemary let the Townsends out.

"They have been so nice," she said returning. "More tea, Kenneth?"

"No, thank you." Mr. Gibson dug about in his head for a topic to mention aloud. "Jeanie is a quiet one, isn't she? Nice child."

"I don't suppose she's especially quiet with her contemporaries," Ethel said. "Although she certainly does sit like a cat watching the mouse. . . . Deeply attached to her father. Unconsciously, of course, she's scared to death he might marry again."

"Why do you say that?" inquired Mr. Gibson.

"She's bound to be," said Ethel. "And of course, he will. That's inevitable. Man in his prime and a very attractive man to women, or so I imagine. And well off, too. I doubt if he can help himself. Some blonde will catch him." Ethel took up the last piece of pound cake. "I presume he is actually only waiting for the old lady to die. Although until he gets Jeanie launched off to school or into a romance of her own, he may sense there would be trouble from that quarter."

"Trouble?" said Rosemary politely.

"The inevitable jealousy," said Ethel. "A teenager, especially, can be so bitter against a step-parent."

"I don't know Jeanie very well," murmured Rosemary rather unhappily.

"They don't intend to be known, these teen-agers," Ethel said. "They like to think they are pretty deep." She hooted.

They weren't too deep for her, the quality of its tone implied.

Mr. Gibson had known quantities of young people as they filtered through his classrooms. But the relationship, there, he reminded himself, was an arbitrary thing. They were supposed to respect him, on the surface at least. He had had many bright chattering sessions listening to the tumble of their inquiring thoughts. They'd show off to teacher. He would be the last to know them in a private or social capacity. He said rebelliously, nevertheless, "They feel deep."

"Don't we all?" said Ethel with one of her wise glances. "Shall I tell you whom I am sorry for?" she continued. "That's old Mrs. Pyne, poor soul."

"I don't feel as if I know her well enough to be sorry or otherwise," continued Mr. Gibson, for tliis was at least talk.

"Isn't it obvious?" said Ethel. "That to be old and ill and dependent upon, of all things, a son-in-law, is a pretty dismal fate? I see them wheel her out on that front porch of theirs every day and there she sits in the sun. Poor old thing. She must know, whether she lets herself admit it or not, that she is a nuisance. She must know it'll be a relief to all concerned when she dies. If ever I get old and helpless," said Ethel forcefully, "me for an institution. Remember that."

"I'll make a note of it," said Mr. Gibson with a touch of asperity. But he was doing anguished sums in his head. Take twenty years. Rosemary would be fifty-two, not many years older than Ethel was right now, and no one could be more the picture of strength than Ethel. But then he, Kenneth Gibson, would be seventy-five . . . ancient, decrepit, possibly ill . . . possibly—oh, Lord forbid!—another Professor James. Then would Rosemary be waiting for him to die?

He said wearily, "I'm afraid I had better lie down for 2l while. I'm sorry."

They sprang to assist him to his own place, where, on his own couch, among his books—his long beloveds—he tried to rest and remember without pain the bleak, the stricken pity on Rosemary's face.

One of his legs simply was not the same length as the other one. He could never conquer that little lurch in his body. He was lame. Old. Done for. So he was.

Chapter IX

LIFE IN THE COTTAGE fell quickly into a pattern. Some weeks later Mr. Gibson mused upon this. One should, he perceived, kick like a steer (if steers really do kick) in the first hour of any regime, because habit is so easily powerful and it is so soon too late.

Surely his sister Ethel had not meant to dominate. She was too fair and reasonable a person. But she had long been used to independence, to making decisions. He supposed he had been too physically weak (and too emotionally preoccupied) to notice what was happening. Of course Rosemary did not seem to think it her place to assert herself, for she was so abysmally grateful. Grateful to him. Grateful to Ethel.

However it had come about, the hours they kept were Ethel's hours. They ate on an early schedule, which made the mornings too short and too full of petty detail. Afternoons were consecrated to naps and too soon thereafter to the preparation of their early dinner. The menus reflected Ethel's preferences if only because she had them and both the Gibsons were too amiable and too flexible.

Evenings they spent a trois. These were long and dedicated to music, Ethel's choice—all severely classical, and sometimes listened to in learned solemnity. Or they conversed, about the music, Ethel leading. Ethel had many opinions and it was difficult not to listen and agree. Mr. Gibson hated arguments.

Then, Ethel liked a game of chess. Rosemary did not play. Once Mr. Gibson tried reading aloud for half an hour, but when Ethel capped the reading with a sharp and knowledgeable sketch of Mr. Browning as a Victorian lady's man, while he couldn't dispute the truth of all she said it yet made such a ridiculous picture in Mr. Gibson's mind that he put the book back upon the shelf with apologies to an old friend..

In fact he now lived with his sister Ethel.

Ethel in her long years in New York had got out of the habit of expecting social gatherings. Ethel reveled in being

one of three. For her, this was a crowd. They had few callers. Paul Townsend, or Jeanie, -dropped in once and again. Their visits were not especially stimulating. Paul was casual. Jeanie was all manners.

Mr. Gibson's old acquaintances did not drop in. He seemed divorced from the college completely, so far out in this little house, and all the work going on without him.

So he lived with Ethel, and Rosemary was there in the same house. For instance, it was, quite properly, his sister, Ethel, and not the comparatively new, the stranger female, who attended to what nursing Mr. Gibson needed, for she, of course, was better able to cope with certain physical indecencies. . . .

Mr. Gibson had begun to feel that he was in a soft but inescapable trap. He was unable to fight out of it. He didn't know that he ought to try. Rosemary deferred to Ethel in all things. Rosemary did not seem to want to be alone with him. He sometimes wondered whether anything was amiss with Rosemary. Oh, she was well and busy, willing and agreeable . . . but he and she seemed locked away from communication and he, covering his seething doubts, wore the same armor of perfect courtesy.

Mr. Gibson sat in the sunny living room one morning, which was where he tended to sit. He did not often sit out of doors, where Mrs. Pyne was to be seen a lonely figure in her wheel chair on the Townsends' porch. He had found he did not enjoy it. Perhaps the light was too cruel, and fell too harshly from the sky. Perhaps he had become used to a more cloistered effect and in physical weakness preferred it. At any rate, he sat indoors and thought to himself, this morning, that he had never met anything so grueling, so nearly maddening, as this adult atmosphere of mutual forebearance and perfect meaningless harmony.

While he pondered ways and means of rebellion, with only half a heart that ached obscurely but all the time, Mrs. Violette was dusting. (Both Ethel and Rosemary had asked him whether he minded, and he had said of course he did not mind.) He watched her swift coordinated motion with a little idle pleasure. There was no air of good will about Mrs. Violette particularly. She did her job, in her cool silent way, not caring whether he minded. She rather refreshed him. She was shifting the ornaments on the mantelpiece when she suddenly seemed to become aware of something behind her. She jerked her head around

and with that abrupt movement the cloth in her hand flicked out at a small blue vase and it fell. It smashed.

"Oh dear," said Ethel, who had come in on quiet feet, "and that belongs to Mr. Townsend."

"We can find another," said Mr. Gibson automatically.

Mrs. Violette ducked down and began to pick up the pieces. He noted the easy crouch of the knee, the slim straight back.

Ethel said, "Such a lovely blue! Didn't I speak of that only yesterday?"

"I didn't mean to do it," spat Mrs. Violette with an astonishing burst of anger.

"Of course you didn't mean to do it," said Ethel soothingly. "You couldn't help it."

Mr. Gibson watching Mrs. Violette's face found himself beginning to blink. Why was she so furious?

Rosemary came, called from her bedroom by the noise, "Oh, too bad ... I don't suppose it costs much, do you?"

Ethel said, "No, no, I've seen them in the dime store. It's not expensive."

"Please don't worry about it, Mrs. Violette," said Rosemary at once. "I just hope you haven't cut yourself."

"No ma'am," said Mrs. Violette, rising. She looked boldly at Ethel for a moment. "I'll pay for it." she said contemptuously. She walked across the room with the bits of pottery in her hand and disappeared into the kitchen.

"We can't let her pay for it," said Mr. Gibson, "when it was just an accident."

Ethel was smiling a peculiar smile. "She seems to know it was no accident," she said musingly. "How odd!"

"What do you mean, no accident?" said Mr. Gibson in surprise.

"She did it because she dislikes me, of course."

"Ethel . . . !"

"She does, you know. And I did admire the color of that vase in her hearing only yesterday. She dislikes me because I check up on her, which is more than either of you seem to do."

"But . . . what need . . . ?" he said bewildered.

"What need? Oh me," sighed Ethel seating herself. "I believe a servant could steal you blind and you'd never know, either of you."

Mr. Gibson felt like a Babe-in-the-Wood. Such a thought had never occurred to him.

"I don't think she'd steal," said Rosemary in a low voice, hesitantly. "Do you, Kenneth?"

"Of course not!" he exploded.

"Of course not," mocked Ethel. "No ' of course ' not' about it. These foreigners don't have the same ideas of honesty as you do. She wouldn't call it stealing . . . but you would, and so would I."

"What has she stolen?" said Rosemary, looking a bit flushed.

"She takes food," said Ethel, looking mysterious. "All foreigners take food. They don't think of it as property."

"She eats," said Rosemary. "That is true."

They were in conflict. Mr. Gibson held his guilty delighted breath.

"Nor any small loose-lying thing," Ethel went on, drawling. "Don't you ever take precautions, you dear sheltered people? Don't you believe in the fact of theft? I hate to think what would happen to you in less bucolic places. There is wickedness in this world."

"Really," said Mr. Gibson much annoyed. "I see no more reason to believe that Mrs. Violette would steal than to believe she broke that vase on purpose. And I was right here, Ethel. I saw what happened."

"You think you did," said Ethel, as to a very young child.

He felt shaken.

"It's the first thing she has broken," began Rosemary. "She's been quite remarkable . . ."

"Quite so," said Ethel with satisfaction. "Of course, it is the first thing. Don't you se© she resents me, and has, since the moment I came? So she breaks something I liked. I'm not blaming her. I merely understand."

Mr. Gibson had a faint sense of something fading out of his peripheral vision. "For heaven's sakes, Ethel," he sputtered. "Anyone can have an accident!" • "There is no such thing as an accident," said Ethel calmly. "Honestly, Ken, you are ignorant in some fields. Subconsciously she wanted to spite me. She likes to be let entirely alone the way you let her be. But, of course, I am not such an easy mark."

"What on earth are you saying?" said Mr. Gibson in amazement. "Of course, there is such a thing as an accident. She turned to look because you startled her . . . and then her hand . . ."

"Oh no," said Ethel.

"Wait a minute." Mr. Gibson turned to see what might be on Rosemary's face but Rosemary was no longer in the room. She was gone. It was disconcerting.

Mr. Gibson turned back and said severely, "I don't agree with your suspicions, Ethel."

"Suspicions?" sighed Ethel, "or normal precautions? The fact is, old dear," she continued affectionately, "all of us can't live in a romantic, poetical and totally gentle world. Some of us have to face things as they are." Her bright eyes were direct and honest and he feared they were wise. "Face reality," she said.

"What reality?" he snapped.

"Facts," said Ethel. "Malice, resentment, self-interest— the necessities of the ego—all the real driving forces behind what people do. The conscious mind, old dear, is only the peak of the iceberg. You believe so easily in the pretty surfaces . . ."

"I do!"

"Yes, you," said Ethel kindly. "You don't know a tenth of what goes on, Ken. Your head's in the clouds. Always has been. Of course I love you for it. . . . But for every saint with his head in the clouds," sighed Ethel, "I suppose there has to be somebody to take the brunt of things as they really are."

"I see no reason," said Mr. Gibson with stubborn lips, "to mistrust Mrs. Violette."

"You wouldn't see a reason to mistrust anyone," said Ethel indulgently, "until the deed popped up and hit you in your nice fastidious nose. You have always sidestepped the nasty truths of this earth, brother dear. More power to you."

He stared at her.

"Oh, I'm sorry," she said, and she did look sorry, "I shouldn't say these things . . ."

"Why not?" he cried, "if you believe them."

But Ethel evaded and said, "You are a lot like Mama was, you know? I think you should have been the woman, Ken, and I should have been born the man."

"Tell me," he cried. "What are you saying?"

"You musn't pay any attention. Your world of poetry and quixotic goodness and faith and all the rest is a pretty darned nice place. . . ."

"And your world?" he demanded. "I imagine you call it the real world, he said, goaded to some anger.

Ethel responded to the anger. "Mine?" She looked him in the eye. "It happens to be full of knives-in-the-back and all kinds of human meannesses. It cannot help but be. Men are animals, whether you like it or not."

"And you say," he groped back for something solid with which to challenge her, "That Mrs. Violette broke the blue vase deliberately?"

"Of course, she didn't consciously plan it," said Ethel. ' 'You don't understand. But she did break it to displease me, just the same."

"I don't believe itI' said Mr. Gibson. "Don't then," said Ethel. "Stay as sweet as you are . . . that's in a song, isn't it?" She grinned at him and he knew her teasing was a form of apology. "You are a lamb, Ken, and everybody loves a lamb. I cannot help it if I am no lamb, you know. Now, I haven't upset you, have I?"

He thought he felt as upset as he had ever felt in his life. He scarcely knew why, but he was afraid for Rosemary. So he struggled up, and, using his cane, he limped into the kitchen.

Mrs. Violette was briskly washing the counter. Rosemary was there too, just staring out the window. He thought she looked rather lonely.

"Now, Mrs. Violette," he said, "please understand that I will pay for the vase. It wasn't your fault." Mrs. Violette shrugged and said nothing. Rosemary said in a brisk voice, "Mrs. Violette tells me she has to leave us, Kenneth. She's going away with her husband, next week."

"Is that so?" he said unhappily. "Yeah, we're taking off to the mountains," said Mrs. Violette. "He's going after a new job for the both of us. If we get it, we'll stay on up there."

"On a ranch," said Rosemary. "How nice that will be!" She sounded rather desperately cheerful. "But we'll miss you, Mrs. Violette."

Mrs. Violette made no response. She didn't care whether she'd be missed. She wasn't even angry at Ethel any-more, for all Mr. Gibson could see.

"Ought we to try to get somebody else?" said he across to Rosemary worriedly.

"No," she said. "No. I'm able. Ethel and I can manage beautifully." He couldn't read her eyes af all.

"But if one day," he said, "Ethel were to go and live on her own, then . . ."

"Oh, she musn't do that!" cried Rosemary. "That would be a shame! Your only sister, Kenneth, and so good to come ..." He saw her hands on the round wood of the kitchen chair. The knuckles were blue-white. "Such a fine person," Rosemary said. "So wise and so good."

Mr. Gibson felt alarmed. Something was wrong with Rosemary. She was a stranger and far away and how could he tell what was the matter when she seemed shut up against him . . . when her eyes seemed to search his so . . . could it be? . . . fearfully. Ethel was right, he conceded. There must be a good deal going on that he missed. He felt lost. What anxiety, what stress could there be, to so inhabit Rosemary's eyes? "Yes," he said absently. "Of course she is."

Meanwhile, Mrs. Violette scrubbed vigorously at the sink there in the small room. Ethel came in and said jauntily, "Lunch, dears? I'll start the vegetables."

Out in the yard, Paul Townsend was working near the low stone wall. He was on vacation. School was out; Jeanie was around and about; Mrs. Pyne sat on the porch. There was no privacy.

Chapter X

MR. Gibson retired to the privacy of his own skull where he made plans.

This mysterious distress in Rosemary was intolerable. Therefore, first, he would find out what troubled her. Then, he would see to it that whatever it was troubled her no more. He felt much better, as soon as this course became plain and imperative.

He was determined, however, that he would not seek this information from. Ethel, although, curiously, he was quite sure Ethel would know all about it, for he conceded that Ethel was wise and much more alert than he. But no. He would find out what bothered Rosemary in the simplest

possible way. He would ask her. But he would do it in private.

Very well, then. This very evening he would struggle out of the hypnosis of routine. When Ethel announced bedtime, as she was so often the one to do (and night falling, and no company coming, the world still) he would not let her "tuck him in," which habit she retained although he no longer needed anyone's help in getting to bed. He would tell Ethel to go to bed herself, but he would ask Rosemary to stay. He would say to Ethel, "Ethel, I want to talk to Rosemary alone. Do you mind?"

She couldn't say she minded. Why should she mind? It would be so simple. Even as he told himself these things Mr. Gibson received a preview in his imagination. He saw Ethel's smile . . . the wise indulgent and rather amused expression she would wear, as she would nod, as she would say, "Of coiu-se I don't mind," and he knew he shrank from the prospect.

She would wear the same look that girl in the hospital had worn. Why was it so "cute" or even a little bit funny that he was fond of his wife? Come now, it was ridiculous to be this sensitive. Well, he would act, then. And when they were alone, how could he reach out to Rosemary, and reachieve her confidence?

He hobbled back into the living room after lunch, busy turning in his mind what words he could say, how gentle he would be, but how insistent. This was the hour of his siesta, but today he did not go at once into his study-bedroom to close the blinds and lie quietly upon the bed for the accustomed period. Today, he stood looking out the east window, across the driveways, seeing, but not noticing, Paul Townsend's bare torso bending and moving there at the edge of his back lawn in some gardening activity—to which he passionately devoted his vacation days.

He could hear, but did not pay attention to, the women's voices in the kitchen. He knew Mrs. Violette was ironing, that Rosemary and Ethel were clearing away the dishes, all in the routine.

He stood in the midst of routine, plotting how he would break it, when he heard Rosemary's voice go suddenly high and full of passion and protest. He heard only the emotion, not the sense of what she said.

Then the kitchen door banged. He saw Paul Townsend straighten and lift his head. He saw Rosemary come stumb-

ling, slowly and distractedly, into as much of the scene as he could see.

Saw Paul drop his long-handled weeder and go quickly toward her.

Saw his head bending solicitously.

Saw that Rosemary was violently weeping.

Saw Paul lift his arms.

Saw her sag, as if it were impossible not to do so, into their embrace.

Mr. Gibson wrenched his head and turned away. He could see nothing. The living room was dark, dark as night, to his light-struck eyes. He must have made some sound, for he heard Ethel say, "What's the matter?" He knew she was there in the room and he knew that she went to look briefly out of the window behind him before he felt her strong hand under his elbow.

She guided him into his own place . . . for he felt so stricken he needed guidance. But after a moment or two Mr. Gibson's sight cleared and he was quite calm and extraordinarily free. He sat down in his leather chair and laid his cane on the floor carefully. "What did you say to make her cry like that?" he asked quietly.

Ethel clamped her mouth tight for a moment. "Never mind, dear. Never mind," she said rather softly. "It's just that Rosemary insists upon misunderstanding some perfectly simple remark of mine. She thinks I meant to reproach her ... as if I would. Of course she's emotional . . ." Ethel touched his knee, "just now. Ah Ken. I'm sorry we saw what we saw. I don't think it meant very much. Not yet."

"Yet?" he said shrewdly.

His sister drew a sigh from her shoesoles. "Ken, I am sorry to say so, but you were so foolish . . ."

"Was I? But what I wanted to do . . ." he organized his thought painfully (he cast out the phrase "in the first place") "was to make her well," he finished.

"So you have, I'm sure," said Ethel, with kind eyes. "But did you never look ahead to afterward? Didn't you realize that Rosemary, well, would not be the same girl?"

"I know."

"She is young. At least, comparatively . . ."

"I know. I knew that."

"When she was so ill," said Ethel, "she felt old. But she is not old. Nor does she feel old any more."

Mr. Gibson resented the kindergarten simplicity of this. "I know," he repeated.

"But the foolish thing, my poor Ken . . . was to bring her here—next door to such a man. A man who even shares a hobby with her! You have practically arranged for this to happen, you know."

Mr. Gibson couldn't assimilate his new thoughts. Thoughts like this had come nowhere near his mind before. Rosemary and Paul! He said, "Then they . . . they .?" "They've been friendly. Now, Ken, Rosemary is a good girl and devoted to you. But she is younger . . ." ( I know, screamed Mr. Gibson inside his head.) "And he is just the right age for her and a most attractive man. I think I could have prophesied," Ethel said sadly.

Mr. Gibson sat still and contemplated folly. Folly to rent this little house? He could never have prophesied. Ideas like this had not entered his mind.

"Like all handsome men," Ethel went on, "he is a little bit spoiled, I suppose. Careless. He wouldn't have the self-discipline not to be charming. He can't help exuding that physical magnetism. Poor Rosemary. You mustn't blame her, either. There is no blame. She'd have no way of knowing how she would be drawn. The body dictates. These things are beyond one's control really. My dear, you ought to move away at once."

But Mr. Gibson contemplated his crime. He had cheated her after all. He had given lip-service to his foreboding of this. (Yes, he had prophesied! Now he remembered . . . although too easily, selfishly, and in such foolish delight, he had forgotten all about it.) Of course, he could not blame Rosemary. "I don't blame her," he said aloud. "There is no such thing as blame," said Ethel gently. "Once you understand. She simply could not have helped herself."

"She must be . . ." He could imagine Rosemary's pain. "But does Paul . . ."

"Frankly," said Ethel, as if she had been being anything else, "I don't know how much he is attracted to Rosemary. She's not beautiful, of course, but very nice-looking and quite a lady. She is also so near. Propinquity is such a force."

Rather drearily Mr. Gibson supposed to himself that it was. He had no doubt that Paul was attracted to her.

"From his point of view," said Ethel looking shrewd, "there will be, as I say, the difficulty about the daughter. Oh, I've seen Jeanie watching Rosemary."

So had Mr. Gibson, now that he thought of it. Jeanie was s(5 quiet, sat so still in a room, watching everyone.

"There's the old lady, too," Ethel went on. "Paul's in no position to dash gaily into . . . well, let's call it romance. . . . Move away. Ken. Rosemary is essentially loyal. It may not be too late."

"Yes, it is," said he. He had remembered something. He had been puzzled at the time. Rosemary, standing in the living room, saying with such brooding fervor ". . . never known it was possible to have so good a time. . . ." And the occasion—had it not been the first evening she and Paul Townsend had ever spent in each other's company? Wisps, he supposed, of attraction spinning between them, even then. Oh, how inevitable it had been! He saw himself—old—and now lame. '

"If you want to keep her," Ethel said, "I know you are very fond of her. And Rosemary is deeply . . "

"I'm fond of her," he said grimly, cutting ofT the detestable word "grateful" before it could offend his ears once more. "But I have no intention of . . . how shall I put it? . . . collecting for services rendered."

"You are very wise," said Ethel.

"Especially," he said rather primly, "since we discussed the possibility of divorce before the wedding."

"Ah then . . ." Ethel sighed and her face brightened. "I'm very glad. Then she knows she can be free if that seems best? Well . . . this puts a different light on the matter. You and I could make do," she added thoughtfully.

"Yes," he said.

"It's not a bad life. We'd have our work. We'd be rather cozy, out of the fray. One should plan one's old age. Ken. And neither of us with chick nor child. Perhaps we ought to stick together."

"Perhaps," he agreed.

"Not here, of course."

"No."

"If Rosemary and Paul Townsend were to marry . . ."

"No," he said conquering the shudder that threatened to destroy his poise completely, "certainly not here."

"I wouldn't be precipitous, however," Ethel warned. ' ' If Paul is not . . . That is, if the thing's one-sided. Rosemary might need us."

"She needs to be rid of her obligations," he said harshly. Or how can she know surely . . . ?"

"You are so right," said Ethel warmly. "And when you |are generous and Rosemary is honorable, as I'm sure she is, why, there's no problem."

(He knew there was a little problem all his own. But he'd take care of that.)

"She'll come to you, one day," said Ethel, "when she finds the courage. I can't tell you how relieved I am, old dear, to know that you went into this with your eyes open. I've been a little bit afraid for you. A late-blooming romance can be so devastating to a born bachelor. Now then, can you sleep a little?"

"I think so," lied Mr. Gibson valiantly.

He lay on the top of his bed. He couldn't bear to imagine, from Rosemary's point of view, her dilemma. He tried to contemplate his old age.

But on another level, his plan beat in his mind. First find out what troubles Rosemary. Then, see to it that it troubles her no more.

What is love? he thought at last with a sick descending and a thud of certainty. What is hers for me? Not my physical magnetism, heaven knows. A lame old crock. A limping horror. The fact is, I have her love, as much as I am going to get. She's fond of me. But my love for her must set her free.

He lay there half an hour or more before he remembered, with a tiny crash of dismay in his brain, that Paul Townsend was a practicing Catholic, and Mr. Gibson was not so sure that divorce would be enough.

Chapter XI

THREE DAYS WENT BY. Roscmary did not come to him. She had recovered herself. She was just the same.

He did not press her to come, or to tell him anything. He began to be afraid that she never would.

Next door, Paul Townsend worked in his garden, carelessly healthy and happy and strong and visible. Old Mrs. Pyne sat on the porch. Young Jeanie flitted in and out. The cottage ran on, exempt from life and change, in that spurious harmony.

Mr. Gibson spent much time alone with a book open. He contemplated his innocence.

Ethel was right. He did not know one-tenth of what went on. He was ignorant in most fields. Modem psychological theories were to him just theories, to play games with. He'd believed in the poetry. Honor. Courage. Sacrifice. Old-fashioned words. Labels, for nothing? Oh, long ago, he had hidden himself in books, in words, but not the harsh words of fact. Poetry! Why? Because he was too thin-skinned and not brave enough to bear realities. He had not faced facts. He did not even know what they were. He must lean on Ethel, ufi'til he learned more.

He had been strangely innocent, now he saw. . . . Socially innocent. .He had derived a good deal of innocent pleasure from the fact that students and teachers spoke to him on the campus paths, or in a corridor, or sometimes even on a street of the town. A nod, a greeting, a murmur of his name, had secured to him his identity. (I am not lost in eternity. I am Mr. Gibson of the English Department and there are those who know it.)

But he had had enough of people in the course of a day. His captive audiences, his classes, had permitted him the exercise of his voice. Then there were office hours during which he sometimes talked to students with kindness, with optimism for them, and only the most meager precautions against their guile and their flattery and their showing off had been enough. So he had felt a fullness in his days, and a shy trust in the near little world; and his privacy, his solitude, had seemed natural and pleasant and not limited. Actually he had lived a most narrow, a most sheltered, a most innocent life. He knew very little about "reality."

This must be how he had come to do, at the age of fifty-five, so stupid, so wicked, so foolish a thing. He had married a sick defenseless dependent trusting Rosemary. On the ridiculous premise that it would be an "arrangement." He now looked back upon the joyful early days with pity for his own blithe ignorance. The facts of flesh. The facts of propinquity. He had ignored all facts in a cloud of

x)mantic nonsense. Yes, the romantic sentimental silly lotion that he would be a healer! What ego! Then, worse, low could he have thought, ever, for one moment, that iiis quixotic marriage could turn into a love match? That lad been impossible from the beginning, and set forth in plain arithmetic. Thirty-two from fifty-five leaves twenty-three and ever would.

He was her father . . . emotionally. He was help, kindness, protection, and she loved him for all this, as he knew. What frightened him now was the possibility that Rosemary might go on with her bargain, until he was ancient, and never tell even herself how she wished that he would die. Rosemary might undertake to endure. She had endured eight years with the old professor.

She would not want to hurt him. Why, she had felt almost distracted with grief there in the hospital when she had blamed herself for so trivial a thing as his broken bones.

She would neither hurt him nor break her obligations. She would freeze in loyalty and cheat herself. It was possible she did not know (or let herself know) why she had gone so naturally into Paul's arms.

The more he thought about Paul and his virtues, which were many, the more Mr. Gibson felt sure that Ethel was right. Rosemary had fallen, or was going to fall, in love with him, who could not possibly represent her father, but was of her own generation, virile, charming, good and kind. She could not help it.

He perceived that Rosemary had better never know a thing about his foolishness, for what would be the good if she knew? Pity did not interest Mr. Gibson in the least. He wanted none of it. So he banished his love, exiled it forever from his heart. He would think no more about that.

He retreated deliberately. He seemed to absorb himself in reading and writing. He tried not to notice . . . which might help him not to care . . . where Rosemary was or what she was doing. If he felt depressed, he told himself this was nobody's fault but his own and it would pass.

One day he found a stanza:

The gentle word, the generous intent

The decent things that men can do or say

All these to gladdep her I freely spent

But could not touch her when she turned away.

He shut up the bcK>k. Catullus was also a fool. That was the only meaning of it. An4 a whiner, too. Mr. Gibson resolved to be no whiner. He read no more poetry.

His depression did not pass. It deepened. Night and day he lived with it and forgot how it felt to be without it. He began to assume that this was what one got used to, as one grew old.

But a change was coming. The day was coming upon which the women were going, as Mr. Gibson had once put it, into trade. They were going on the same morning, and Mr. Gibson, in his misery, did not bewail the coincidence, for he no longer yearned to be alone with Rosemary.

Ethel, accomplished secretary that she was, had gotten herself a plum of a job that let her off at four in the afternoons. This, she explained with satisfaction, would permit her to be the cook at dinner time.

Rosemary's hours were a little longer. She was going to assist the proprietor of a small dress shop, helping with the stock at first and looking forward to becoming a saleslady. It was an excellent beginning.

In further coincidence, the «me day would see the last of Mrs. Violette. Mr. Gibson was going to be alone.

On the eve of this day, the three of them sat in the living room according to habit. Music was playing low from the radio for a cultural background. Rosemary was basting white collar and cuffs upon a navy-blue dress against tomorrow. Ethel was knitting, a thing she did with uncanny skill. (Hours and hours she had sat knitting before her radio, listening to music, to political speeches, to educational programs. She preferred a radio to a record player. She'd never had a record player.)Mr. Gibson was turning the pages of a book sometimes two at a time. His face was calm and benign. The scene was domestic and harmonious, but his sense of it was not ... for this was the end of his experiment. And now all fell to dust. Rosemary was not only well, she was about to go forth and earn. She needed nothing he could give her, but much that he could not. So now he would let her go ... he agreed in his heart . . . the sooner the better.

Imagination had painted his future before him. He could see himself and his sister Ethel, mutually helpful and devoted, in some smallish apartment near the college, at work by day until they faltered, and every evening

ithel knitting, the radio on. He said to himself that he :ould make-do. He had done with much less than a demoted sister at his side. He really did not know why he should feel so disheartened, so desperately unhappy about

"It all ought to work out very nicely," said Ethel, "although I do dread the bus ride. To be at the mercy of those buses, thirty minutes each way. A waste, really. Mightn't it be wise to move a little nearer in to town?"

Rosemary's hands and head jerked. "Move?" she murmured.

"After all," said Ethel, "this is pleasant of course, but when you are working, Rosemary, you won't have the daylight hours . . . Did you prick your finger, dear?"

Rosemary said quietly, "No, Ethel. I did not."

"Ah . . . well." Ethel smiled indulgently. "We ought to think of Ken, too. Will it be wise for him to ride the buses in the fall—with that leg?"

"I hadn't thought . . ." said Rosemary in a rush, and her face came up.

"I should think I could ride on a bus," said Mr. Gibson, "without . . ." His voice caught, because he could see very plainly the red smear of Rosemary's blood on the white of the collar in her hands.

"You did run that needle into your finger, dear," said Ethel chidingly. '.'Just look at the stain. On your business clothes, too . . ."

"It will wash," said Rosemary faintly, and rose; and, walking stiffly, she bore her work toward the kitchen.

Mr. Gibson wondered what it meant. "I suppose," he said, staring at the cold grate and feeling frozen, "she pricked her finger and stained the collar because she doesn't want to go to business tomorrow."

He waited timidly for Ethel to agree.

But Ethel smiled. "I don't think so," she said, "for why should she tell a lie about that?" (Mr. Gibson faced it. Rosemary had lied.) "It happened, of course," said Ethel lowering her voice, "when I spoke of leaving here"

"Leaving—?"

"Leaving him, I imagine," said Ethel, sotto. "How she gives herself away!"

He heard her sigh, but inside himself he was collapsing and shrinking with distaste. Given that nothing is what it seems; even so, he couldn't guess what it really was. In

the old poems, man was captain of his soul, and he, so steeped in them, would never learn. How could he learn? He was old. His heart sank. Mr. Gibson felt solid, felt treason, too—he couldn't help it—and he hated it. He turned his eyes back into the book and did not look up as Rosemary returned.

"Did you use cold water?" Ethel fussed.

"Of course," said Rosemary softly. "It's nothing." She was taking up her needle, as Mr. Gibson could see through his temple somehow out of the side of his averted face. Did Rosemary know why she had run a needle into her flesh? It made him sad to think, Not necessarily.

"Now, Ken, you will be all right tomorrow?" his sister asked fussily. "Mrs. Violette will be in to finish up your shirts, you know, and she could stay and fix your lunch."

"No, no," he said. He didn't want Mrs. Violette. He looked forward to being alone.

"You do feel all right?" said Rosemary timidly anxious. "Nothing's bothering you, Kenneth, is it? You don't look as well as you did, somehow. Do you think so, Ethel?"

"I wonder if I'm not missing my work," he said resettling his shoulders. "I'm used to working . . ."

Rosemary's head bent over her sewing. He wrenched his gaze from her hair.

"You mustn't give me a thought," he said. "In the first place, I have lived alone a matter of nearly half a century, in my day . . . and secondly, the Townsends are right next door, and Paul is around." He despised himself for throwing out Paul's name.

"That's so," said Ethel. "Their new cleaning woman won't be in 'til Friday, and of course Mrs. Violette will be gone. Paul, unless he can shift the load onto Jeanie, is going to be stuck right here with old Mrs. Pyne." She seemed to take a faint malicious satisfaction from this.

"Paul is very good to the old lady," said Mr. Gibson (for jealousy he would not descend to, generous and just he would be). "I think it's extraordinary."

Rosemary looked up with a flashing smile. "I think so too," she said warmly.

Mr. Gibson turned a page, which was ridiculous. He had not even seemed to read it.

"I've wondered," said Ethel with that shrewd little frown of hers. "Are you sure that this property isn't Mrs. Pyne' s property? I suppose Paul is her heir."

Rosemary said, smiling, "Sometimes you sound terribly cynical, Ethel."

"Not at all. I am only a realist," said Ethel smugly. "At least I like to think I can face a fact."

"But can't a man be simply good and kind?" Rosemary inquired. "Really?'-'

Mr. Gibson's heart seemed to swoon. "And also good-looking?" said Ethel with a grin. "I suppose it's possible. Perhaps he is as good as he is beautiful." She cocked her head and counted stitches.

"But Paul has a prosperous business, hasn't he, Kenneth?" insisted Rosemary. "He makes money."

"He is a chemical engineer," said Mr. Gibson. "Yes . . ," (All of a sudden he saw Paul's laboratory like a vision before him and a row of bottles in a cupboard. The vision flickered and went away.)

"So he doesn't need Mrs. Pyne's money—if she has any," said Rosemary. "I just don't think he's mercenary." "Nor do I," said Mr. Gibson, valiantly. Ethel said, "Of course he isn't, as far as he knows. Lots of people never admit the most basic facts. However, almost everyone will do an awful lot for material advantage. . '. . Oh, we can kid ourselves, can't we, that it's for some fancy other reason. But whether you eat, whether you're comfortable, whether you feel secure, counts. Indeed it does. And all the time."

"I suppose it does," said Rosemary flushing. She bent over her handiwork. She seemed defeated.

Mr. Gibson found himself fearing what might be in her mind. Rosemary had come to him for material comfort, for security. . . Oh, she could not have helped herself— but she knew this now. And so did he. He had urged it. He had meant it to be so.

"Naturally it counts," he said aloud gently. "Quite naturally so. . . ." He turned a page.

Ethel said with a little snort, "What do you think a baby yells for? He yells to be warm and fed, and that is all. Let me turn to the weather. I wonder if it will be hot tomorrow."

Mr. Gibson thought to himself. To be warm. To be fed, for me to be comfortable. ... Is that what's in the iceberg? All of our iceber!B:s? Do none of us know why we do anything? Because we won't admit that we are animals? Ah, but what are we here for, then? Are we

compelled, always, and every time? In all this fluid busyness, has each of us his private doom?

He disliked the idea. He tried to face it. Ethel faced it. She was strong enough. He wouldn't hide from a fact either . . . not any more. Was it this fact that depressed him so? He seized upon it.

On the air they were talking about a bomb test, with pious hope that the terrible power would never be unleashed against fellow men.

Ethel listened and Ethel said, "Of course they'll unleash it."

"The bomb?" Rosemary was startled.

"Do you think they won't?" j

"I . . . hope they won't," said Rosemary with wide | eyes.

Ethel shook her graying head. "Be sure they will."

"How can you . . . ?" Rosemary gasped.

"It's just a question of noticing," said Ethel, "that human beings are what they are. And believe me, a weapon in the hand is as good as thrown. Don't you know—in cold fact—that anything could cause it to fall? Human beings are so primitive . . . essentially. They don't mean to be. You can't call it their fault, but their nature. For which none of us are to blame. But they get angry; once angry, they begin to call the other side a monster. There seems no reason why it is not fine and honorable and brave and good to slaughter a monster. They do not wait and try to understand or to reason differences away. They simply do not. And even if they were to try—human reason is so pitifully new and such a minor factor. . . . People will always act from the blood and the animal residue."

"How do you face a fact like that?" asked Mr. Gibson quietly.

"The bomb falling?" she said, misunderstanding. "As far as I am concerned, I'll stay put and be blown up with the world I know. I don't even want to survive. Don't tell me you do!" She looked as if he could not possibly be so childish, could he?

"No," said Mr. Gibson thoughtfully. "No ... not especially. But then, I am old.''

Doom, he thought. Well, then, we are doomed. He wasn't thinking about the bomb.

"I don't see," said Rosemary to Ethel, "how you have the courage to think the way you do."

"Courage," said Ethel, "is about the only useful trait. The best we can do is hang onto our nerves and try to understand.

What good is it to understand, thought Mr. Gibson, if we are doomed anyhow? "Then all our pretty intellectual toys . . ." he said, seeing the words he had lived by go sliding into limbo.

" 'Toys' is good," said Ethel appreciatively. "Enjoy your poetry while you may. Ken. When or if anyone survives," she shrugged, "be sure there won't be much time for poetry. Now, it hasn't fallen yet," she nodded as if to reassure them, "and I'd like to live out my allotted time just as you would. We have a built-in wish to survive that operates, this side of catastrophe." She smiled. "So let us hope," she said.

"You have no children," said Rosemary in a low voice.

"Neither have you, and let us thank God," said Ethel.

But Mr. Gibson thought, It is true. We are doomed. And the doom is in the iceberg, ' the undersea part of it. None of us have ever known why we do what we do. We only have the illusion of knowing, the illusion of choice. We are really at the mercy of dark things, unknown propulsions. We are blind dupes. That's what Ethel means by reality. Oh yes, and it is true. Mrs. Violette had to break the vase. Paul must marry someone. Rosemary must fall in love with Paul. And I made a fool of myself. But I had to. It wasn't my fault. My choices were all made by the genes I got from my mother. Ethel took more from Pa and so is different . . . but she is clearheaded, she at least can see.

My whole life has been an illusion. Everyone's life is an illusion. We are at the mercy of what's unknown and cannot be known either. One day we will blow it all up, knock the earth off its orbit, possibly, as surely as Rosemary will go to Paul, as I will send her. . . .

He sunk his head upon his breast, Paul, who was a widower, a chemist, a Catholic . . . Paul was doomed, too. Doomed to be happy and make Rosemary happy, for a little while, before the world blew up.

While he, Kenneth Gibson, woulci live with his sister and grow older . . . limp out fifteen or twenty years. Not so!

There was one rebellious act he could think of. Just

I

one. He received a tremendous heartening lift of his spirits. A little spunk—he could escape.

And he could remember the number on the bottle.

He slept a little toward morning. When he woke he knew this was the day. He would be alone.

Chapter XII

THE MORNING was bustlc. Rosemary, neat and excited, J- in the navy frock with the white, went first away.

Mr. Gibson followed her to the door. He was wearing his robe of small-figured silk, and in it, he felt the same small neat and decent man he had ever been. He did not know how white and ill he looked.

"Goodbye," she said. "Oh, please, Kenneth, take care . . . ! You worry me. I almost wish . . ."

"No, no, you must not worry." His eyes devoured her. "Goodbye, Rosemary. You must remember . . . this was what I wanted for you."

"To see me well? she asked, "and able? Is that what you mean?"

He didn't answer. He was looking at her face very carefully, since it would be the last time he would see it. He was so very fond of her. She was his, in a way.

"Is that all?" she said suddenly.

Mr. Gibson tried to remember what he had just said. "By no means," he answered steadily. "I want you to be happy, too." He smiled.

"Yes, well . . . I . . ." Her eyes fled and came back. "What can I do to make you happier?" she cried. "I'm so—I love you, Kenneth. You know that, don't you?"

It was odd that in this last moment they seemed closer, as he recognized her old familiar passion of gratitude. "I know," he told her gently, "dear girl. I am as happy as I can be," he said with reassuring accents.

Rosemary shook herself and jerked away. He watched her, so straight, so lithe, so healthy—so youthful—down the drive.

Paul Townsend was on the porch sniffing the mom-

ing. He waved, but Rosemary didn't see him there. Mr. Gibson was just as glad.

Her loyal nature would doom her to endure.

Ethel went next. "Ken, when you walk to market, pick up a head of lettuce, too? There's a good man."