The Restless Sex

Perhaps it was easier that way. He had his memories to himself, sharing none. But he did not share his sorrow, either. And that is a thing that undermines.

At first he was afraid that it would be even harder for him when Stephanie returned at Easter. The girl arrived in her heavy mourning, and he met her at the station, as his father used to meet him.

She lifted her rather pale face and passively received her kiss, but held tightly to his arm as they turned away together through the hurrying crowds of strangers.

Each one tried very hard to find something cheerful to talk about; but little by little their narratives concerning the intervening days of absence became spiritless and perfunctory.

The car swung into the familiar street and drew up before the house; Stephanie laid one hand on Jim's arm, stepped out to the sidewalk, and ran up the steps, animated for a moment with the natural eagerness for home. But when old Meacham silently opened the door and her gaze met his:

"Oh – Meacham," she faltered, and her grey eyes filled.

However, she felt her obligations toward Jim; and they both made the effort, at dinner, and afterward in the library, fighting to keep up appearances.

But silence, lurking near, crept in upon them, a living intruder whose steady pressure gradually prevailed, leaving them pondering there under the subdued lamplight, motionless in the depths of their respective armchairs, until endurance seemed no longer possible – and speech no longer a refuge from the ghosts of what-had-been. And the girl, in her black gown, rose, came silently over to his chair, seated herself on the arm, and laid her pale face against his. He put one arm around her, meaning to let her weep there; but withdrew it suddenly, and released himself almost roughly with a confused sense of her delicate fragrance clinging to him too closely.

The movement was nervous and involuntary; he shot a perplexed glance at her, still uneasily conscious of the warmth and subtle sweetness which had so suddenly made of this slender girl in black something unfamiliar to his sight and touch.

"Let's try to be cheerful," he muttered, scarcely understanding what he said.

It was the first time he had ever repulsed her or failed to respond to her in their mutual loneliness. And why he did it he himself did not understand.

He left the arm-chair and went and stood by the mantel, resting one elbow on it and looking down into the coals; she slipped into the depths of the chair and lay there looking at him.

For something in the manner of this man toward her had set her thinking; and she lay there in silence, watching his averted face, deeply intent on her own thoughts, coming to no conclusions.

Yet somehow the girl was aware that, in that brief moment of their grief when she had sought comfort in his brotherly caress and he had offered it, then suddenly repulsed her, a profound line of cleavage had opened between him and her; and that the cleft could never be closed.

Neither seemed to be aware that anything had happened. The girl remained silent and thoughtful; and he became talkative after a while, telling her of his plans for travel, and that he had arranged for keeping open the house in case she and Miss Quest wished to spend any time in town.

"I'll write you from time to time and keep you informed of my movements," he said. "Two years pass quickly. By the time I'm back I'll have a profession and so will you."

She nodded.

"Then," he went on, "I suppose Miss Quest had better come here and live with us."

"I'm not coming back here."

"What?"

"I'm going about by myself – as you are going – to to observe and learn."

"You wish to be foot-free?"

"I do. I shall be my own mistress."

"Of course," he said drily, "nobody can stop you."

"Why should anybody wish to? I shall be twenty-one – nearly; I shall have a profession if I choose to practise it; I shall have my income – and all the world before me to investigate."

"And then what?"

"How do I know, Jim? A girl ought to have her chance. She ought to have her fling, too, if she wants it – just as much as any man. It's the only way she can learn anything. And I've concluded," she added, looking curiously at him, "that it's the only way she can ever become really interesting to a man."

"How?" he demanded. "By having what you call her fling?"

"Yes. Men aren't much interested in girls who know nothing except what men permit them to know. A girl at college said that the one certain source of interest to any man in any woman is his unsatisfied curiosity concerning her. Satisfy it, and he loses interest."

Cleland laughed:

"That's college philosophy," he said.

Stephanie smiled:

"It is what a man doesn't know about a woman that keeps his interest in her stimulated. It isn't her mind which is merely stored with the conventional – the conventional being determined and prescribed by men. It isn't even her character or her traits or her looks which can keep his interest unflagging. What deeply interests a man is an educated, cultivated girl who has had as much experience as he has, and who is likely to have further experience in the world without advice from him or asking his permission. No other woman can hold the interest of a man for very long."

"That's what you've learned at Vassar, is it?"

"It's one of the things," said Stephanie, smiling faintly.

CHAPTER XIV

The boy – for as yet he was only a boy – sailed in May. The girl – who was swiftly stripping from her the last rainbow chiffons of girlhood – was at the steamer to see him off – down from Poughkeepsie for that purpose.

And the instant she arrived he noticed what this last brief absence had done for her; how subtly her maturing self-confidence had altered the situation, placing her on a new footing with himself.

There was a little of the lean, long-legged, sweet-faced girl left: a slender yet rounded symmetry had replaced obvious joints and bones.

"What is it – basket ball?" he inquired admiringly.

"You like my figure?" she inquired guilelessly. "Oh, I've grown up within a month. It's just what was coming to me."

"Nice line of slang they give you up there," he said, laughing. "You're nearly as tall as I am, too. I don't know you, little sister."

"You never did, little brother. You'll be sorry some day that you wasted all the school-girl adoration I lavished on you."

"Don't you intend to lavish any more?" he inquired, laughing, yet very keenly alert to her smiling assurance, which was at the same time humourous, provocative and engaging.

"I don't know. I'm over my girlhood illusions. Men are horrid pigs, mostly. It's a very horrid thing you're doing to me right now," she said, " – going off to have a wonderful time by yourself for the next two years and leaving me to work in a children's hospital! But I mean to make you pay for it. Wait and see."

"If you'll come to Europe with me I'll take you," he said.

"You wouldn't. You'd hate it. You want to be free to prowl. So do I, and I mean to some day."

"Why not come now and prowl with me? I'll take care of you."

The girl looked at him with smiling intentness:

"If dad hadn't expressed his wishes, and even if my aunt would let me go, I wouldn't – now."