Chapter XV: Introduction: I (14)

Was it possible that he had ever expected the Pennimans to understand his plans, his ambitions, for Milly and himself? He laughed again to remember the mixture of frigid courtesy and contempt with which he had invariably met their suggestions and advice. He might as well have worn a black mask in addition to the outrageous sombrero for all he had ever let them see of his thoughts or intensities of feeling. Not that it mattered; he was such piercing vinegar to their emollient oil. It was nobody’s fault: they were all of them good and kind; Milly was an angel, a sugar angel; and the young, thin, eager Gideon no more than an impulsive and infatuated fool. What a fool he had been to burden himself with such confectionery! What a fool she had been to entrust herself to his hot and sticky grasp! It was a miracle that they had survived so long in each other’s strange company.

Gideon again bent his falcon gaze upon the photograph, and his laughter was quenched in pity. The people in the picture were all so ridiculous and serious and profoundly innocent, and now he might laugh at them as much as he liked. He could never laugh with them, and it was nobody’s fault.

And the book? Gone, like a gorgeous thundercloud, tiger-streaked, into profound oblivion. Dead, like the Pennimans, who, in its death, were prodigally revenged.

Gideon stooped, and set a match to the fire. It flew upward like a sanguine flower, and the room was roseate instead of amber-yellow in the lamplight. Its colors glowed from new planes and facets; its shapes were subtly altered and enhanced. Caroline came in quietly with the whisky and soda.

Presently Gideon rose, and lit his pipe. A tall and solitary figure, he stood gazing into the lambent mystery of the fire; he sighed gently.

“I suppose I shall have to learn to dislike my neighbors,” he told himself in a low voice. “One might write a grim realistic novel about those squat dark people at Skatt’s Farm.”

But at the back of his mind was a sick conviction that they were probably quite pleasant, harmless people, and after a little while he took his candlestick from the hall table and went upstairs to bed.

He jumped very quickly between the cool sheets, and fell asleep trying hard to hate the squat dark people at Skatt’s Farm. But the dreadful part of it was that Gideon could not hate them.

FOOTNOTES:

[20] Copyright, 1925, by The Century Company.
Copyright, 1926, by Elinor Wylie.

THE YEARBOOK OF THE AMERICAN
SHORT STORY

OCTOBER, 1924, TO SEPTEMBER, 1925

ABBREVIATIONS