Chapter XXXVII

They stood apart, Melissa’s face incarnadined, the other darkly flushed but quiet.

“’Evening, Kathleen,” he said, in a deep indolent drawl.... “I’ll stay here to-night, if it’s not too much trouble. Going back to Pineville, to-morrow.”

Kathleen gurgled like a brook. Her embarrassment spent itself in voluble assurance and reassurance.

“It’s no trouble at all, Mister Carroll! The room is always ready ... when Mister Roderick is here or when he ain’t ... wasn’t I sayin’ to Bill only this mornin’ that ye hadn’t been up in so long I’d ’most forgotten when it was! Mister Roderick’s off in Canada somewhere....”

“I know. I saw him in Detroit the other day.”

“Was he well?” inquired Kathleen politely.

“Very,” said Mr. Carroll gravely.

Kathleen’s curiosity leaped its fences.

“An’ you and Miss Wayne knowin’ each other...! It’s a small world!”

“We’ve known each other a long time,” Mr. Carroll returned, looked at Melissa and in mercy looked away again. “But we haven’t seen each other--recently.”

“It’s nice--you meetin’ again,” said Kathleen warmly.

“Yes--” said Mr. Carroll, “it _is_--nice.”

All this time, Melissa had stood like a creature bewitched, not uttering a sound, hardly lifting her eyes, swept with alternate waves of self-horror and dizzying happiness. She couldn’t however be silent any longer. She pulled herself together, she kept her head up and her glance before her.... “It’s been--as you say--very nice--but I can’t stop--I’m late.”

“By a number of years,” said Mr. Carroll ... “not too late, however.”

As if a foil had touched her over the heart, Melissa got the impact of that.

“Did ye find what it was ye came to look for?” asked Kathleen anxiously.

“Thank you, Kathleen--she did.”

Melissa had no choice but to echo--“Thank you, Kathleen.” She turned toward the door.

“I’ll see you down,” said Mr. Carroll.

“Please don’t--it isn’t necessary.”

He repeated coolly--“I’ll see you down.”

Melissa preceded him without further protest.

After all, one had to explain things, somehow.

He offered at the door of the house: “Sorry I haven’t a car!”

“It doesn’t matter,” said Melissa. Light grew in her brain--a white light and pervasive--in the effulgence of which she perceived an extraordinary fact. It didn’t matter really--whether he had a car or not. All that mattered was--his being there beside her.

“Where shall we go to talk?” he suggested.

“Are we going--to talk?” (Merely for the pleasure of hearing him say so!)

“Did you think we weren’t?”

“I didn’t know.”

“You do know. This isn’t a game.”

“Perhaps--the Park,” said Melissa. After all, the Park was there before them. Nearest substitute for Eden--no bright angel at the gate--as yet.

She said.... “Why not the Park?... We might find a bench.”

“Come on!” said Mr. Carroll.

He had never in Melissa’s imaginings been so--unsmiling. If he had smiled--she couldn’t have gone with him. It was his grim and lordly earnest....

They came to a bench, shortly, and sat down upon it. Beneath a tree whose leaves were yellowing, drying, crisping at the edges, seared with the prescience of death. A light farther on cast spidery shadows.

“Now....” he said--“for God’s sake--who _are_ you?”

“Does it--matter?” asked Melissa low-voiced.

“If it didn’t matter--we wouldn’t be here.”

“Mere curiosity....”

“I haven’t any. Ordinarily. This has nothing to do with ordinary circumstances. I have a right at least to know who you are--and who you took me for ... you did take me for some one--of course....”

“For yourself--only--not real,” said Melissa simply.

She knotted her hands together in her lap. She stared at the backs of them fixedly.

He leaned forward looking as fixedly into her face.

“For myself?--Have we ever met before? I know we haven’t.”

“Not a real meeting--a--picture.”

“Good Lord!” he exclaimed and laughed abruptly. “I’m not a moving-picture actor--did you think-- It _was_ some one else, then....”

Melissa set her teeth and went in deeper.

“Not a movie ... a little picture ... a snap-shot ... in the drawer of Roderick’s desk.”

“Of _me_? You mean of _me_?”

“Yes--of you--down on one knee--looking up. That’s why when I came into the room ... it was exactly the same....”

He said still bemused but determined: “I had dropped a pen-point--the last one in the place--I was looking for it.”

Melissa returned without lifting her eyes. “I didn’t know. It was the same--attitude--exactly.”

“What did you think I was--a ghost? I remember that picture, now. Rod took it one summer--down home. Fooling around. You mean to say he still has it?”

“Not any more,” said Melissa--“I lost it.”

“You?”

“Yes.”

Monosyllabic impasse! He folded his arms tightly. A ripple in Melissa’s veins told her dimly why.

“Let’s get this straight. Good, I’m a lawyer! You take a lot of cross-examining--don’t you?”

“Perhaps I won’t take much more of it.”

“Oh, yes, you will--you’re not a short sport, whoever you are! That’s in your eyes--that and some other things. About the picture--you mean to say you--liked it--so much?” When she did not at once answer, she felt his hand come over hers. “Y’ see--it’s no good behaving as if this were an average occurrence. Back in the room there--that was the--highest--moment I’ve ever lived! You can’t make me believe it wasn’t the same with you. Why--you looked at me--remember that thing?--‘She looked at him as one who awakes-- The past was a sleep and her life began.’... I sound a conceited fool. But it’s true. You _did_. You looked at me as if I were some one come back to you--from the other side of the world....”

“You were,” said Melissa--nothing more.

“You’ve got to tell me why.”

“It’s too long a story.”

“I’ll take the rest of my time to hear it--if necessary.”

Driven to the edge she implored him: “You’ll never understand. Nobody would.”

He said briefly: “Try me! And don’t forget--I’ve had you in my arms. We’re strangers only on the surface.”

It was true. It was fundamentally and beyond all questioning, true. Melissa moved her hand under his and instantly their fingers interlaced. She lifted her eyes. His were shining.

She said: “Well--to begin with--” and stopped.

“Go on,” he told her gently.

So Melissa went on. She wouldn’t have believed she could sit there and tell him all her sordid bargain with the Marchesa. But she did. Not sparing herself. Not sparing the Marchesa either, for that matter. She told him about her man-hunting, in completest detail ... about Luke, picked up in the Park, for a start, and about Murdock and the rest, acquired through Luke.

“I don’t believe you!” he objected when she came to her pursuit of Beall whom she hadn’t even liked.

“Hasn’t it ever been done before?”

“Lord--yes! But _you_ ... you’re not like that. A man’s got only to look at you....”

Melissa said swiftly, for fear he sensed her heart’s too-heavy beating in the silence.... “It was something in me that wasn’t--quite rotten--that kept the little picture--of _you_.”

Under his breath, he muttered. “You dear!”

“You see,” said Melissa, “I was choking off something--that--hated--what I was doing. And at the same time ... I was--bound not to stop--till I got what I--thought--I wanted. Of course there was always the Marchesa--egging me on--but I don’t give that as an excuse. I--myself--was trying--to sell myself--”

Carroll damned the Marchesa up and down in a brief and bitter masterpiece of profanity. “Her affection for Roderick is the only decent thing about her.”

“Do you know Roderick--well?”

“We went through Harvard together. I know him better than I do my own brother. We’ve been friends for years. I have the run of his apartment when I’m up here--which isn’t often. That’s how you happened across me, this evening.”

“Where is Pineville?” asked Melissa suddenly with a slight quiver in her voice.

“In Alabama. It’s where I live. In a torn-down old house which is all my worldly wealth--except what I make at law. And that’s darn little as yet. Too fond of politics to be much good at private practice.” He inquired abruptly--“What’s your name?”

“Melissa.”

“Honestly?”

“Yes. Why?”

“I was afraid it would be ... something I didn’t like ... Melissa ... that’s romance!”

“What’s yours?” asked Melissa softly. She waited breathless to hear it. People passing, motors in the distance, lights among the trees ... all shadow-stuff ... nothing real but the hand on hers, the voice in her ears.

“My name’s Ben,” he said. “Ben Carroll. Benjamin Fitzhugh, if you’d like it in full.”

“I do like it ... in full,” said Melissa.

Carroll said in a deeper drawl than before, a drawl incredibly caressing:

“You’re the sweetest thing I ever saw!... How did you lose the picture?”

Melissa wavered then gave him the truth.... “I ... I was ill and Kathleen cleaned out the desk where I kept it when I wasn’t--”

“When you weren’t what?---Go on!”

“When I wasn’t--wearing it around--if you really want to know.”

“You _didn’t_!”

“I did.”

He lifted her hand to his lips very gently.

“You see--” said Melissa--“I used to--well--talk to you ... in my mind ... about things. You were--a kind of refuge--to me. From myself--and what I was doing. And when I was ill--”

“Were you very ill?” Distress in his voice melted the last vestige of her pride.

“I had influenza--rather badly. I was out of my head and then, you see, I thought you were real.... I thought you were there--all the time.”

He said very low and his voice shook: “I _am_ real, Melissa ... and I’m going to be there--all the time.”

“Are you?” asked Melissa just above a whisper.

“If I’m not ... what do you think all this is about? Melissa--when I kissed you--”

“Don’t!” said Melissa faintly.

“Let’s get out of this--” said Ben Carroll, rising suddenly.... “--and catch us a taxi! We can’t talk here.”