The Green Bay Tree (Bromfield, Frederick A. Stokes Company, printing 11)/Chapter 88
IT was done now. He had betrayed himself. The wall was down, and before them both there must have arisen once more the painful scene in the library under the malignant portrait of John Shane. (Lily, a young girl, smiling and saying, "I love you, I suppose, but not better than myself. I might have married you once. I cannot now, because I know." Julia Shane, so long dead now, leaning on her ebony stick, hard, unflinching, in the face of everything. "You see, I can do nothing. There is too much of her father in her.")
It stood before them now, the crisis of two lives, naked, stripped of all forgetfulness. The Governor, his face scarlet and apoplectic, remained silent, unable to speak. Lily said softly, "I'm sorry . . . I'm sorry. I should never have mentioned it. I did not guess it would pain you so."
The new gentleness, the new sympathy revealed itself for the first time in all their talk together. It showed in her dark, lustrous eyes. There could be no doubt of it. She was no longer mocking. She was sorry for the lover; grown old, confused now by the memory of a youthful, overwhelming passion. She even touched his hand gently.
"It does not matter now," she said. "After all, it was simply a part of life. I'm not sorry, myself . . . and the world would say that it was I who suffered most. I didn't suffer . . . Believe me, I didn't suffer." She smiled. "Besides what could regrets possibly accomplish? It is the future in which one must live . . . not the past. The longer I live the more certain I am of that."
Still he remained silent. He had become humble, subdued, wilted before the memory of something which had happened more than twenty years before. She must have guessed then, for the first time, what in the unwitting cruelty of her youth she had never known . . . that he had really suffered, far more deeply than she had ever imagined. It may have been hurt pride, for he was a proud man. It may have been that he had loved her passionately. He was, after all, a crude, unsubtle man who must have regarded the whole affair as dishonorable and wretched. It was clear that the wound had never healed, that it still had the power to cause him pain.
"I'm sorry," she repeated. "I'm sorry. . . . There was never any question of forgiveness. I was not injured. . . . Besides it was morz my fault than yours."
And then the Governor did a fantastic thing. He bent over his own fat stomach and raised her hand gently to his lips. There was in the gesture a curious absence of sentimentality. It was not even theatrically self-conscious, as well might have been expected. It was the simple gesture of a man who made speeches before thousands and became helpless and mute before one woman. It was eloquent. It spoke more than whole volumes of words. And somehow it released his tongue.
"The boy?" he said, "What about the boy?"
For a moment Lily did not answer him. She turned away, looking out of the window. She trembled a little and when at last she spoke, it was with averted face, for she lied to him, coldly and with deliberation.
"He is dead," she said gently. "He was killed in the war . . . the very first year, at the beginning." And then she turned with a sudden air of domination over herself and her ravaged, saddened lover. "I must go now," she said. "Good-by, Henry. I wish you luck. I know now that what I respected in you is not dead. It has survived everything. It is not completely destroyed. Until just now, I was afraid."
"Good-by, Lily."
In a moment she was gone, down the long corridor to the spot where M. de Cyon awaited her. Halfway to her destination she turned and saw that the Governor was still watching her. She saw that he watched her despite the fact that he was talking now to a woman, a large woman who was unmistakably his wife. She was deep-bosomed, of the type which becomes masculine with the approach of middle age. She wore flat-heeled shoes and a picture hat with a series of flowing veils. Her gown was of dark blue foulard, figured with an enormous white pattern. Far out upon her massive bosom hung a gold pince-nez suspended from a little hook fashioned in the shape of an elaborate fleur-de-lis. Her manner was commanding, a manner appropriate to the chairman of the State Woman's Republican Committee. She could, no doubt, make wonderful speeches. Doubtless she had a powerful voice. Certainly her manner with the Governor was executive. It is easy to see that in the world of politics she had contributed much to the success of the husband she worshiped. What energy she had! What an appalling power!
As Lily turned away, she saw that he was still watching her, slyly, wistfully, with his head bent a little.