immediately connected the knock with a telegram, or letter, or
perhaps one of the servants bringing back clean clothes from the
laundry. He was thinking about Joe and wondering where he was, as
he said, “Come in.”
He was still thinking about Joe, and did not turn toward the door.
He heard it close softly. There was a long silence. He forgot
that there had been a knock at the door, and was still staring
blankly before him when he heard a woman’s sob. It was
involuntary, spasmodic, checked, and stifled – he noted that as he
turned about. The next instant he was on his feet.
“Ruth!” he said, amazed and bewildered.
Her face was white and strained. She stood just inside the door,
one hand against it for support, the other pressed to her side.
She extended both hands toward him piteously, and started forward
to meet him. As he caught her hands and led her to the Morris
chair he noticed how cold they were. He drew up another chair and
sat down on the broad arm of it. He was too confused to speak. In
his own mind his affair with Ruth was closed and sealed. He felt
much in the same way that he would have felt had the Shelly Hot
Springs Laundry suddenly invaded the Hotel Metropole with a whole
week’s washing ready for him to pitch into. Several times he was
about to speak, and each time he hesitated.
“No one knows I am here,” Ruth said in a faint voice, with an
appealing smile.
“What did you say?”
He was surprised at the sound of his own voice.
She repeated her words.
“Oh,” he said, then wondered what more he could possibly say.
“I saw you come in, and I waited a few minutes.”
“Oh,” he said again.
He had never been so tongue-tied in his life. Positively he did
not have an idea in his head. He felt stupid and awkward, but for
the life of him he could think of nothing to say. It would have
been easier had the intrusion been the Shelly Hot Springs laundry.
He could have rolled up his sleeves and gone to work.
“And then you came in,” he said finally.
She nodded, with a slightly arch expression, and loosened the scarf
at her throat.
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“I saw you first from across the street when you were with that
girl.”
“Oh, yes,” he said simply. “I took her down to night school.”
“Well, aren’t you glad to see me?” she said at the end of another
silence.
“Yes, yes.” He spoke hastily. “But wasn’t it rash of you to come
here?”
“I slipped in. Nobody knows I am here. I wanted to see you. I
came to tell you I have been very foolish. I came because I could
no longer stay away, because my heart compelled me to come, because
– because I wanted to come.”
She came forward, out of her chair and over to him. She rested her
hand on his shoulder a moment, breathing quickly, and then slipped
into his arms. And in his large, easy way, desirous of not
inflicting hurt, knowing that to repulse this proffer of herself
was to inflict the most grievous hurt a woman could receive, he
folded his arms around her and held her close. But there was no
warmth in the embrace, no caress in the contact. She had come into
his arms, and he held her, that was all. She nestled against him,
and then, with a change of position, her hands crept up and rested
upon his neck. But his flesh was not fire beneath those hands, and
he felt awkward and uncomfortable.
“What makes you tremble so?” he asked. “Is it a chill? Shall I
light the grate?”
He made a movement to disengage himself, but she clung more closely
to him, shivering violently.
“It is merely nervousness,” she said with chattering teeth. “I’ll
control myself in a minute. There, I am better already.”
Slowly her shivering died away. He continued to hold her, but he
was no longer puzzled. He knew now for what she had come.
“My mother wanted me to marry Charley Hapgood,” she announced.
“Charley Hapgood, that fellow who speaks always in platitudes?”
Martin groaned. Then he added, “And now, I suppose, your mother
wants you to marry me.”
He did not put it in the form of a question. He stated it as a
certitude, and before his eyes began to dance the rows of figures
of his royalties.
“She will not object, I know that much,” Ruth said.
“She considers me quite eligible?”
Ruth nodded.
“And yet I am not a bit more eligible now than I was when she broke
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our engagement,” he meditated. “I haven’t changed any. I’m the
same Martin Eden, though for that matter I’m a bit worse – I smoke
now. Don’t you smell my breath?”
In reply she pressed her open fingers against his lips, placed them
graciously and playfully, and in expectancy of the kiss that of old
had always been a consequence. But there was no caressing answer
of Martin’s lips. He waited until the fingers were removed and
then went on.
“I am not changed. I haven’t got a job. I’m not looking for a
job. Furthermore, I am not going to look for a job. And I still
believe that Herbert Spencer is a great and noble man and that
Judge Blount is an unmitigated ass. I had dinner with him the
other night, so I ought to know.”
“But you didn’t accept father’s invitation,” she chided.
“So you know about that? Who sent him? Your mother?”
She remained silent.
“Then she did send him. I thought so. And now I suppose she has
sent you.”
“No one knows that I am here,” she protested. “Do you think my
mother would permit this?”
“She’d permit you to marry me, that’s certain.”
She gave a sharp cry. “Oh, Martin, don’t be cruel. You have not
kissed me once. You are as unresponsive as a stone. And think
what I have dared to do.” She looked about her with a shiver,
though half the look was curiosity. “Just think of where I am.”
“I COULD DIE FOR YOU! I COULD DIE FOR YOU!” – Lizzie’s words were
ringing in his ears.
“Why didn’t you dare it before?” he asked harshly. “When I hadn’t
a job? When I was starving? When I was just as I am now, as a
man, as an artist, the same Martin Eden? That’s the question I’ve
been propounding to myself for many a day – not concerning you
merely, but concerning everybody. You see I have not changed,
though my sudden apparent appreciation in value compels me
constantly to reassure myself on that point. I’ve got the same
flesh on my bones, the same ten fingers and toes. I am the same.
I have not developed any new strength nor virtue. My brain is the
same old brain. I haven’t made even one new generalization on
literature or philosophy. I am personally of the same value that I
was when nobody wanted me. And what is puzzling me is why they
want me now. Surely they don’t want me for myself, for myself is
the same old self they did not want. Then they must want me for
something else, for something that is outside of me, for something
that is not I! Shall I tell you what that something is? It is for
the recognition I have received. That recognition is not I. It
resides in the minds of others. Then again for the money I have
earned and am earning. But that money is not I. It resides in
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banks and in the pockets of Tom, Dick, and Harry. And is it for
that, for the recognition and the money, that you now want me?”
“You are breaking my heart,” she sobbed. “You know I love you,
that I am here because I love you.”
“I am afraid you don’t see my point,” he said gently. “What I mean
is: if you love me, how does it happen that you love me now so
much more than you did when your love was weak enough to deny me?”
“Forget and forgive,” she cried passionately. “I loved you all the
time, remember that, and I am here, now, in your arms.”
“I’m afraid I am a shrewd merchant, peering into the scales, trying
to weigh your love and find out what manner of thing it is.”
She withdrew herself from his arms, sat upright, and looked at him
long and searchingly. She was about to speak, then faltered and
changed her mind.
“You see, it appears this way to me,” he went on. “When I was all
that I am now, nobody out of my own class seemed to care for me.
When my books were all written, no one who had read the manuscripts