Chapter LIII: The White Light Again 315 (9)

As he moved about and talked, he was vaguely conscious of watching the other two together. It was as if Pidge would want to hear of every gesture and detail. Miss Claes was less Indian here than in Harrow Street. There he had thought of her as belonging to the East; here she seemed of the West. Something of the composure he had noted on the tennis court had come to stay in Nagar’s eyes. As moments passed, Dicky knew that they contained deep vitalities of meaning that would appear in coming days.

It was as if his limitations were being stretched, but by consummate hands. There was repeatedly brought to him, from them, something that he refused to hear or dwell with: that he had done well, that he was deeply approved of in their sight; that there was much more to take place between them as a group, even though they were to stay in Asia, and he was leaving for The States.... Then all faces turned, and in the doorway stood the Little Man.

No one spoke, but to Richard Cobden it was one moment of his life that he thought of as religious. Mahatma-ji came in between them, and Dicky felt the old urge somehow to help with his hands; the sense, too, of all India thronging, whispering around them. For a moment the four had been standing in silence, when they heard the _sweep_ of bare slow feet in the hall, and now an old dark face was in the doorway, a smile serene as nothing else on earth but the Hills themselves--a dark wrinkled old face, and she came forward and stood very low and little in the midst of them--Gandhi’s comrade.

* * * * *

In San Francisco, waiting for the departure of his train east, a card was sent up to Cobden’s hotel room. It was from Chris Heidt, the managing editor of his former newspaper connection.

“Hello, Cobden. Just noticed you were off ship. What did you bring back?”

Dicky reflected. “The story of Amritsar,” he said finally.

“Amritsar, what’s that?”

“The first big story I ever ran across. I feel like one of Job’s servants, who said he alone remained to make a report.”

Mr. Heidt had been much on trains during the past few days, and had missed the fact, so far, that _The Public Square_ had begun to publish the story.

“Not going to bury it in a weekly, are you?”

“I have much more than _The Public Square_ could use in months. It really should get out into the broad market. The end of one world and the birth of another took place that Sunday in Amritsar--all in miniature, you understand----”

He spoke of Gandhi, whose name had scarcely been heard at this time in America, and touched upon the story of _maidan_.

“Sure,” said Mr. Heidt. “Sure, it’s a big yarn, but months ago. No way to substantiate it. You’re a little out of perspective, Cobden, seeing it all first hand that way.”

“I can substantiate it,” Dicky said queerly.

“I know, but the whole story’s a trouble-maker. Far as I can make out, this Gandhi is a sort of sanctimonious Lenine, and we’re not promoting any kind of Lenines just now. Red roughhouses all over the world, but we’re not advertising the fact. The best newspaper interests here and in England are letting that sort of thing die down. Everybody’s healthily intent on getting back to business right now. Make a corking fiction setting--your Amritsar--series of short stories that would do no harm.”

Thus Richard had his American perspective restored.

LIII

THE WHITE LIGHT AGAIN

DICKY was considerably subdued. India had permitted his ideas to romp at large. He had forgotten that, home again, these ideas must be brought down to an orderly trudge. America, as a whole, seemed one-pointedly trying to get back to work after the War, calling all protestors untimely and in bad taste. Dicky thought out the situation minutely and severely during the three full travel days to Chicago. At the end of each day he was somewhat exhausted from the big bonfires that had taken place within him--piles of rubbish, glamour and the like.

In Chicago he procured two numbers of _The Public Square_ preceding the current issue, and before his eyes was the manner in which Pidge had “sprung” the Amritsar story. He felt the magic of her working with him in an altogether new way. The latest number confessed, not without grace, that the story of Gandhi and Amritsar had aroused the more open-minded element of the American public, as nothing else since the War; but thanks to Chris Heidt, the returning correspondent watched the rising tide of public interest in his work, as a spectator unexpectant, instead of a performer who fancies he has the world by the tail. It dawned on him, however, that Chris Heidt hadn’t known quite all that was going on in America under the homely thunders of trade.

He reached New York in the early evening and went to Fiftieth Street at once. There he had dinner, and an hour of talk, before he rang up Mrs. Melton at the _Sennacherib_.

“Is this Mr. Cobden?” a voice asked presently.

“Yes.”

“Mrs. Melton left word for you to go to 54 Harrow Street--to the parlor on the second floor, the card says.”

Mr. Cobden didn’t take out his own car that night. Perhaps he didn’t feel as if he could keep his mind on getting himself downtown. He sat back in the cushions of his mother’s limousine; and Conrad, whose career as Cobden coachman had changed to Cobden chauffeur nearly twenty years ago, handled the big box like a hearse.

“Sit tight, Dicky,” he breathed, and never once urged Conrad forward. In fact, Dicky didn’t speak, until it became necessary to show the way a little, for Harrow Street is tricky to find from Washington Square.

“Don’t wait--yes, you’d better wait, Conrad,” he called, crossing the walk to the door.

The outer door was unlatched. He hurried up one flight. The same curtain, the white light.

“Pidge----”

She came forth from the inner room. She halted a few feet from him, and he saw her searching, imploring look. His shoulders straightened, his hands dropped to his side. The finer elements of his understanding sensed the great need of a woman, which his brain did not actually register. To answer her need in action, however, was instantly more dominant within him than his thirst for herself.

She came a step nearer. Light was filling her eyes--the shining of an almost incredible hope.

“Oh, Dicky, you can! I believe you can!”

“Yes?”

She was nearer.

“And I can come and rest--a little?”

“Yes, Pidge----”

“I want to rest so badly, you know.”

She had come to him under the light.

“... And, oh, since I knew you were coming, everything has been different. I haven’t been _me_ at all! I’ve never played--and now everything--all work--is silly, unimportant. Dicky, everything seems to be done!”

“I’m on the job, Pidge; you can play----”

“Until I find myself--you--you will stand for two?”

“Of course, Pidge.”

“All my things, your things, Dicky--so I can rush away and breathe?”

“That’s what I’m here for.”

“Rufe Melton and my father and the desk--all yours?”

“And the baby, too, Pidge.”

“Dicky--Dicky--don’t dare to look! I’m going to cry!”

“... Since your telegram from San Francisco--it seemed I could hardly stay alive! Oh, it’s so good to rest!”

“Not a hurry in the world!”

“Everything seemed done--and no place for me!... Rufe and a rich girl uptown--oh, they’re in full blossom and he wants to be free! My father caught on in New York--no need now for me. _The Public Square_ on the high road at last; your Amritsar story capturing the whole field; nothing to do but to feed the presses more and more; Miss Claes gone, and the Legacy--oh, Dicky, I saw your hand back of that! I couldn’t miss it. It touched me--touched me----”

“It was his idea first, Pidge. All I had to do was to help him carry it out.”

“All happened at once--all the strains lifted--no one depending--no one needing me!... I’ve been dying to be a woman just once. I’ve never dared--never had time. It’s so terrible to feel like a woman and not be able----”

“Why not now, Pidge?”

“Don’t think, Dicky! I’m just resting a little. We must work together a lot. We must clear our heads with stacks of work--and then maybe we’ll know if we can play.... Fanny Gallup did that for me, and Rufe Melton is as much a baby as his infant. Other girl, or not--Rufe will always need--us!”

“Pidge, listen! I couldn’t stand any more than that now. To have you say that--_us_! To have the work with you--to have earned that--to have your faith; that you dare come this close--to have years to make the big moments we have known apart, come true together--I couldn’t stand more, right now; that’s the fact of it--quite!”

She stepped back from him looking strangely into his face again.

“Dicky!”

“Yes?”

“The boy has come back to your face--that you lost in Africa--but the new and lasting Boy!”

He laughed and looked around the room. It was furnished, but barely, the “parlor” having reverted to a sleeping room.

“But how did it happen--that we should come here, Pidge?”

“I couldn’t let you come to Gramercy Park. I remembered that you waited to see me here after Africa, not at the office. I came down this way--the afternoon of the Legacy and saw the sign, ‘Rooms, Permanent and Transient.’... I’m better now. It’s been hours, hasn’t it?”

He thought of Conrad, whom he had told to wait.

“... This room’s all paid for,” she whispered. “I mean we don’t have to stop to speak to anybody--only walk out.”

Their eyes held.

“Dicky!”

“Yes----”

“Let’s go--now.”

“I’m--I’m ready.”

“Dear Dicky, the years have done so much for you! The blur, the maze has gone out from between us. It’s so much more wonderful, isn’t it, than that other night here, when I almost, almost----?”

He waited for her to reach the hall curtains, before he turned off the light. In the dimness of the hall, he heard her low, slow tone:

“Fanny’s room was back--at the far end on this floor----”

“... I remember once, Pidge, I went up the next flight and knocked at the door of your little back room----”

“That’s gone now,” she answered.

“Gone?”

“My two books that were written there--and all the rest! I can tell you everything now--and of the book that is still to be written--our story, Dicky.”

“A continued story,” he said.

They went down into the street, into the car.

THE END

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