A knock sounded at the door. He said “Come in,” without looking up. Their comings and goings did not matter to him.
“Dearest — ” A well-known voice spoke slowly and hesitantly.
“Alice!” He was on his feet at once, and facing her. “Who let you in here?”
“Please, dear, please-I had to see you.”
“It isn’t fair. It isn’t fair.” He spoke more to himself than to her. Then: “Why did you come?”
She stood up to him with a dignity he had hardly expected. The beauty of her childlike face had been marred by line and shadow, but it shone with an unexpected courage. “I love you,” she answered quietly. “You can tell me to go away, but you can’t make me stop loving you and trying to help you.”
He turned away from her in an agony of indecision. Could it be possible that he had misjudged her? Was there, behind that barrier of flesh and sound symbols, a spirit that truly yearned toward his? Lovers whispering in the dark –“You do understand, don’t you?”
“Yes, dear heart, I understand.”
“Then nothing that happens to us can matter, as long as we are together and understand — ” Words, words, rebounding hollowly from an unbroken wall — No, he couldn’t be wrong! Test her again –“Why did you keep me on that job in Omaha?”
“But I didn’t make you keep that job. I simply pointed out that we should think twice before — ”
“Never mind. Never mind.” Soft hands and a sweet face preventing him with mild stubbornness from ever doing the thing that his heart told him to do. Always with the best of intentions, the best of intentions, but always so that he had never quite managed to do the silly, unreasonable things that he knew were worth while. Hurry, hurry, hurry, and strive, with an angel-faced jockey to see that you don’t stop long enough to think for yourself —
“Why did you try to stop me from going back upstairs that day?”
She managed to smile, although her eyes were already spilling over with tears. “I didn’t know it really mattered to you. I didn’t want us to miss the train.”
It had been a small thing, an unimportant thing. For some reason not clear to him he had insisted on going back upstairs to his study when they were about to leave the house for a short vacation. It was raining, and she had pointed out that there was barely enough time to get to the station. He had surprised himself and her, too, by insisting on his own way in circumstances in which he had never been known to be stubborn.
He had actually pushed her to one side and forced his way up the stairs. Even then nothing might have come of it had he not-quite unnecessarily-raised the shade of the window that faced toward the rear of the house.
It was a very small matter. It had been raining, hard, out in front. From this window the weather was clear and sunny, with no sign of rain.
He had stood there quite a long while, gazing out at the impossible sunshine and rearranging his cosmos in his mind. He re-examined long-suppressed doubts in the light, of this one small but totally unexplainable discrepancy. Then he had turned and had found that she was standing behind him.
He had been trying ever since to forget the expression that he had surprised on her face.
“What about the rain?”
“The rain?” she repeated in a small, puzzled voice. “Why, it was raining, of course. What about it?”
“But it was not raining out my study window.”
“What? But of course it was. I did notice the sun break through the clouds for a moment, but that was all.”
“Nonsense!”
“But darling, what has the weather to do with you and me? What difference does it make whether it rains or not-to us?” She approached him timidly and slid a small hand between his arm and side. “Am I responsible for the weather?”
“I think you are. Now please go.”
She withdrew from him, brushed blindly at her eyes, gulped once, then said in a voice held steady: “All right. I’ll go. But remember-you can come home if you want to. And I’ll be there, if you want me.” She waited a moment, then added hesitantly: “Would you…would you kiss me good-bye?”