Hagar 52

Hagar 52

When the clock struck again, Lily and John Fay said good-night. Lily

was to come once more before her boat sailed.

 

Hagar looked at Fay. "You are going to England, too?"

 

He hesitated. "I've said so--"

 

"He's just built a great bridge," said Lily, "and he hasn't really

taken a holiday for years. Robert and I want him just as long as he

will travel with us."

 

When they were gone, Hagar went to the window and looked out far and

wide upon the city settling to its rest. Here, to-night, would be deep

repose, here fevered tossing, here perhaps no sleep at all. There would

be death chambers and birth chambers--a many of each. And spiritual

death chambers and spiritual birth chambers and the trodden middle

rooms, minds that cried, "Light, more light!" and minds that said, "We

see as it is." ... And over all, the suns so far away they were but

glittering points. Hagar's gaze moved across the heavens from host to

host. "Ah, if you were hieroglyphics, and we could find the key--"

 

She came back to the lamplit table; Thomasine away, Mary Magazine

asleep--the place was alone with her. She had been tired, but she did

not feel so now. She sat down, put her arms above her head and her eyes

upon the forest bough, and began to think.... She thought visually

with colour and light and form, luminous images parting the mist,

rising in the great "interior sphere." She sat there till the clock

struck twelve, then she rose, put out the lights, opened every window.

In the east, above the roofs, glittered Orion, with Aldebaran red and

mighty and the glimmering Pleiades. Hagar stood and gazed. She lifted

her eyes toward the zenith--Capella and Algol and the street whose dust

is stars between. Her lips moved, she raised her hand. "All hail!" she

said; then turning from the window opened the door that led into her

bedroom. It was a white and fair and simple place. As she undressed,

she was thinking of the October woods at Gilead Balm.

 

Three days later, at the hotel, Lily and John Fay had a short but

momentous conversation. "_Do_ you want to go, John? I don't want you to

go if you don't want to go, you know."

 

"That's what I came to talk to you about," said Fay. "I have my

stateroom. The boat sails day after to-morrow. I've written to men

I know in London and in Paris. I want to see them. They're men I've

worked with. I want to see Robert. I even want to keep on seeing you,

Lily! I've been about as eager as a boy for that run over Europe with

the two of you. And I don't want to disappoint you and Robert, if it is

the least disappointment. But--"

 

"I don't know that she'll ever marry," said Lily. "She'll not, unless

she finds some one alike to strengthen and be strengthened by. A lot of

the reasons for which women used to marry are out of court with her.

Even what we call love--she won't feel it now for anything less than

something that matches her."

 

Fay walked across the floor, stood at the window a moment, then came

back. "I won't fence," he said. "It's simple truth, however you divined

it. And I'm going to stay. I don't match her, but I've never proposed

to stop growing."

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER XXXII

 

RALPH

 

 

Fay stayed. Lily's farewell note to Hagar merely said that after all

he was not sailing with her and that she hoped Hagar would let him

be among her friends. He made a good friend. Fay himself wrote to

her, stating that he would be much in New York that autumn and winter

and asking if he might come to see her. She answered yes, but that

she herself was often away; he would have to take the chance of not

finding her. He came, and she was away, came again, and she was away;

then she wrote and asked him to dine with her on such an evening. He

went, and it was an evening to mark with a white stone, to keep a lamp

burning before in the mind. He asked how he could find out where she

would be, since it was evident that she was speaking here and there.

She nodded; she was working hard that autumn, oftenest in company with

Rose Darragh, but often, too, with Elizabeth Eden and Marie Caton, with

Rachel and Molly Josslyn. She showed him a list of meetings.

 

He thanked her and copied it down. "I see that your book will presently

be out."

 

"Yes. I hope that you will like it."

 

"I think that I shall. How hard you work!"

 

"Not harder than others. The secret is to learn concentration and to

fill all the interstices with the balm of leisure. And to work with

love of the World to Be."

 

That November, together with Rose Darragh and Denny and Elizabeth, she

was often speaking in the poor and crowded sections of the great city.

Sometimes they talked to the people in dim, small halls, sometimes in

larger, brighter places, sometimes there were street meetings. She grew

aware that often Fay was present. Sometimes, when the meeting was over,

he joined her; it began to be no infrequent thing his going uptown upon

the car with her. She began to wonder.... Once in a street meeting she

saw him near her as she spoke. It was a good crowd and interested.

As she brought her brief, straight talk to a conclusion, Elizabeth

whispered to her, "Lucien couldn't come. Is there any one else who

could speak?" Hagar's eyes met John Fay's. "We lack a speaker," she

said. "Couldn't you--won't you?" He nodded, stepped upon the box,

and made a good speech. His drawling, telling periods, his smiling,

sea-blue eyes, a story that he told and a blow or two out from the

shoulder caught the fancy and then the good-will of the crowd.

 

An old woman, Irish, wrinkled, her hands on her hips, called out to

him. "Be yez the new man? If yez are, I loike yez foine!"

 

He laughed at and with her. "Do you? Then you'll have to become a new

woman to match me!"

 

The November dusk was closing in when the crowd dispersed. Elizabeth

with the other woman speaker faced toward the Settlement. "Can't you

come with me, Hagar?"

 

"No, not to-night. There are letters and letters--"

 

Fay asked if he might go uptown with her.

 

She nodded. "Yes, if you like. Good-night, Elizabeth--good-night, Mary

Ware; good-night, good-night!"

 

They took a surface car. She sat for a minute with her eyes shut.

 

"Are you very tired?"

 

She smiled. "No, I am not tired. After all, why should it fatigue more

than standing in cathedrals, walking through art galleries? But I was

thinking of something.... Let us sit quietly for a while."

 

The minutes went by. At last she spoke. "I liked what you said, and the

way you said it. Thank you."

 

"You do not need to thank me. Had I been less convinced, I might have

spoken because you asked me to. As it is, I was willing to serve the

truth."

 

"Ah, good!..."

 

There was another silence; then she began to speak of the light and

thunder of the city about them, and then of a book she was reading.

When they left the car it was dark--they walked westward together.

 

"Have you heard from Lily?"

 

"Yes. She and Robert are going first to the Riviera, then to Sicily."

 

"Both are very lovely. Why do you not change your mind and go?"

 

"I like it better here."

 

The evening was dark, clear and windy, with the stars trooping out.

 

"When," asked Hagar, "are you going to build another bridge?"

 

He pondered it. "I've been building for a long time and I'm going

to build for another long time. Do you grudge me this half-year in

between?"

 

"I do not. I was only wondering--" She broke off and began to talk

about the Josslyns whom, it had turned out, he knew and liked. Two

weeks ago she had dined there with him, and Christopher had taken

occasion to tell her that John Fay was about the rightest all right he

knew.... She had not really needed the telling. She had a good deal of

insight herself.

 

They came to the great arched door of the apartment house, and there

she told Fay good-night. When he was gone, she stood for a moment in

the paved lobby with its palm or two, her eyes upon the clear darkness

without; then she turned to the elevator.

 

Upstairs, within her own doors, Thomasine met her. "Oh, Hagar! It's Mr.

Ralph--"

 

"Ralph!"

 

Ralph had been abroad, and she had not seen him for a long time.

 

"Yes!" said Thomasine. "His boat came in yesterday evening. And awhile

ago he telephoned to ask you if he might come to dinner with you, and I

didn't know what to say, and I told him you wouldn't be in till late;

and he said did I think you'd mind his coming, and I didn't know what

to say, so I said, 'No,' I couldn't think so; and he asked what time you dined--and it's nearly seven now--"