One Way of Love (Lee)/Chapter 20

by Jennette Lee

 

XX.

The night was warm, but a breeze came from the Lake, fitfully. It greeted Derring as he opened the door of his room after dinner.

Groping his way to the droplight on his desk, he had a sense, as he went, of displacing, in the darkness, other forms and personalities. He often felt it in coming into a vacant room—always if the room was dark or half lighted—that sense of other forms giving way to his, retreating, gliding past, with noiseless being. Always for a minute they jostled him, as if unable to escape. Then, in a breath, his presence filled the room—to the furthest living corner. There was no one there.

He found the droplight and reached for a match. The breeze stirred again and blew against the hand that held the match to the droplight. He shaded it with his other hand, and the light flared up into his tired face. His eyes smiled absently. He was thinking of the poet and his troubles.

Derring had more than half guessed them. He had been revolving in his mind all day what he should say to him. The woman was a strange creature. Derring had studied her face the night before at the play. It was heavy, with deep lines, but there was something fine in the eyes. He recalled them now—wistful and magnetic.

He pushed back the papers on his desk with a little sigh. Why should they come to him with their troubles? He was strangely tired. But with it all, underneath, beat a sense of coming release. Groping for it, as he seated himself at the desk, he took up his pen and threw off the depression with an effort. He was only tired. He would go away next week for a rest. Meantime—— Reaching for a sheet of paper he began to write.

He wrote rapidly, referring now and then to the letters he had pushed aside, sealing each note as it was finished and laying it on the pile at hand. When the last one was done, he ran over the scattered letters before him, filing some for reference, tearing others across and throwing them into the waste-basket.

He looked at his watch—nine o'clock—half an hour yet. Rising he stretched himself and looked about the room. He moved to the window. It was a moonlight night and shadows hung luminous everywhere, irradiating bricks and tiles and trees. From a tower near by the clock sounded, spreading sonorously in the still air. The curtain swayed a little in the breeze and he looped it back. Returning to his desk and moving the droplight to the table he drew a big chair beside it. He searched among the books on the table and took up a volume of poems.

The poems were Conway's. He had seen most of them before—in manuscript. But he wanted to read them again. He had not decided what to say to his visitor. The room was very still. Something burred at the screen, tapping it with light touches—a June bug, perhaps. Derring paid no heed. He was absorbed in the page before him. The light fluttered a little and he looked up impatiently. He turned it down, glancing towards the open window. He took up the book again. But the poems had lost their hold. His eye was on the page, but about him, around him, something stirred. He raised his eyes slowly, looking towards the window. Against the screen, faint against the moonlight, he saw it—her face—smiling to him, the eyes shining mistily. He half rose, stretching out his hands to her. He sank back. The face was gone. But her voice, softly, was speaking to him through the distance: “You are coming—coming—coming——”

With a quick exclamation he turned. The light at his side had gone out. The room lay in darkness. He stared before him. She was not there. No one was there. It was the common prosaic darkness of a June night.