Anthony The Absolute. Merwin Samuel

had caught in the matting. I went to the other end and pushed, but only succeeded in tipping it up, and spilling several articles to the floor. I let the bureau drop, and went down on my knees to pick them up. There was a hair brush and a nail buffer, both with heavy silver backs bearing the initials “H. C.” Then there was a small bottle with a glass stopper that came out and let the contents of the bottle run over the matting. And there was a wide tortoise-shell comb, of the sort that you pick up at Nagasaki.

      I put all these things back on the bureau, and pushed again. She stood beside me in apparent hesitation, then, as if on an impulse, caught hold and pulled with me. But it was no use. The matting was by this time hopelessly wrinkled up about the feet. And after a moment of this we both stepped back and looked at it. I simply had to stop anyway and mop off my forehead and wipe my spectacles. I was all out of breath.

      Then, after a moment, I took off my coat and dropped it on a chair.

      “If you don’t mind helping once more,” I began —

      She inclined her head.

      “ – I’ll have to lift it over those wrinkles.”

      So I caught hold and lifted with all my strength. She went around to the other side and threw her weight against it. Together we finally got it back squarely across the doorway.

      “I’ve made you a great deal of trouble,” I said, “and I’m sorry.” I could n’t resist adding the question, “Did you move it here before, by yourself?”

      She looked at me; then, slowly and guardedly, nodded.

      I shook my head, ruefully I think. “You are a strong woman.”

      “No,” she said, without any change of expression, with not the slightest animation of manner, “but it did n’t catch in the matting that time.”

      I walked toward the door, with my coat thrown over my arm. It was hard to go away like that. I wonder why it is that I seem always to be walking away from women.

      At the door I turned and glanced back at her. She was still there by the bureau, watching me go. I felt that she was looking rather intently at the coat on my arm, and it suddenly occurred to me that I must not leave her room like that, in my shirt sleeves. I felt the color come rushing to my face as I struggled into the coat.

      I have read in works on the psychology of women that they often tell with a look what they are unable or unwilling to frame in spoken words. Certainly I knew that she had told me to put my coat on, and she knew that I had understood. And so, even as she drove me out of her room there was an understanding between us that was not wanting in subtlety. She had even asked me to make an effort to protect her; and she was no longer angry.

      I had my coat on now, and was reaching for the door knob when a sound outside arrested my hand. Men were coming up the stairs to our hall.

      She heard them too. She was rigid again, her hand resting on the bureau.

      I could hear the Chinese porter talking pidgin-English as he came along the hall. Behind him sounded a ponderous step. Then came another voice, as the heavy step paused right near us – at my door, I thought.

      “Here, boy, this is number nineteen.”

      It was a loose throaty voice, unlike any other in the wide world. I should have recognized it anywhere, in a drawing-room or blindfolded at the bottom of a mine. It brought rushing to my mind pictures of a ship’s smoking-room where sat an old man with a wrinkled skin and one drooping eyelid who held forth on every subject known to man – pictures of the absurdly Anglo-Saxon hotel at Yokohama, and of a strange evening at the notorious “Number Nine” where an old man had smiled cynically at me.

      Sir Robert had arrived at Peking. He had come to this hotel. He was to occupy room number nineteen, directly opposite the closed door behind which I stood, motionless, breathless.

      I felt momentarily ill. Which was foolish.

      For what is he to me or I to him! But he had stirred a confusion of thoughts in my mind. I saw the face of another man – a strong face, even when flushed with drink – I saw that face with tears on it, working convulsively. And directly behind me stood the woman. There she was, and there, with her, was I myself. I felt the strange, rushing drama of life whirling about me. I suddenly knew that every man is entangled in it – and every woman… Oh, God, why does she have to be so beautiful! And so terribly alone!

      The porter was opening the door of number nineteen, just across the hall. Sir Robert was still at my door, swearing to himself.

      “Number nineteen this side,” the porter was saying. “That number sixteen.”

      So Sir Robert came heavily along the hall and entered the opposite room. We, the woman and I, heard the porter set down his hand baggage. We heard him order hot water. We heard the door close and the porter rustle away in his robe and his soft Chinese shoes and go off down the stairs.

      Then, hardly knowing what I was about, I reached for the knob. But she came swiftly across the floor and caught it ahead of me, holding the door shut. Our hands touched. She looked very lovely, and very tired. My eyes wandered aimlessly over the kimono she wore, of gray crepe silk. It was embroidered from neck to hem in a wistaria pattern of the same soft gray color. I never saw such exquisite embroidery.

      “Don’t go out there,” she said, low but very positive.

      “But,” I whispered lamely, “but – but – ”

      “The other door,” she said.

      So we went back and moved that cursed bureau again. It was even more of a task this time, as we had to be careful about making any noise.

      Again I lingered in our common doorway.

      “Do you know that man?” I asked, in the guarded tones we were both employing now.

      “No,” she replied simply, “but it is quite evident that you do.”

      Still I lingered. And she did not drive me out. She quietly busied herself rearranging the innumerable little articles on the bureau. She was very natural and unconscious about it. There was no hint in her manner that she was aware of the curious interest I felt in all those intimate little accessories of her life. Though I find myself wondering if my crudely concealed masculine emotions are not an open book to her, even so soon. The perceptions of women are finer than ours. I have read that in the psychology books, and I believe it. They feel more deeply and see farther. And it is when they feel most deeply and see farthest that they do and say the inconsequential little things that puzzle us so.