The Revolt of the Oyster. Don Marquis

asked himself. And for an instant he was unpleasantly conscious again of the something ambiguous in her mood. Suddenly she turned and switched on the electric light in the room, and then went and stood by the window again. Ferdinand's psychic feathers were a trifle rumpled by the action. It was growing dusk … but he would have liked to talk to her in the twilight, looking out over the roofs.

      “If we could only see into the hearts … into the homes,” she mused yet again.

      “If you could see into my heart now … Alethea …”

      He left the sentence unfinished. She did not look at him. She turned her face so he could not see it.

      He tried to take her hand. But she avoided that, without actually moving, without giving ground … as a boxer in the ring may escape the full effect of a blow he does not parry by shrugging it off, without retreating.

      After a moment's silence she said: “Ferdinand …” and paused. …

      He felt sure of her, then. He drew a long breath. He wished they were not standing by that window, framed in it, with the lighted room behind them … but since she would stand there … anyhow, now was the time. …

      And then he heard himself pleading with her, eloquently, fervently. She was his ideal! She was … he hated the word “affinity,” because it had been cheapened and vulgarized by gross contacts … but she was his affinity. They were made for one another. It was predestined that they should meet and love. She was what he needed to complete him, to fulfill him. They would go forth together … not into the world, but away from it … they would dwell upon the heights, and … and … so forth.

      Ferdinand, as he pleaded, perhaps thought nothing consciously of the fact that she must be spending money at the rate of fifty or sixty thousand dollars a year. But, nevertheless, that subconscious mind of his, of which he had so often spoken, that subliminal self, must have been considering the figures, for suddenly there flashed before his inner eye the result of a mathematical calculation … fifty thousand dollars a year is the interest on one million dollars at five per cent. Ah, that would make his dreams possible! How his service to the human race might be increased in value if all his time could be but given to carrying his message! Farewell to the sordid struggle for bread! And in the poetic depths of him there moved, unuttered, a phrase which he had spoken aloud earlier in the day: “I shall never wash another dish, nor yet another undergarment.” This secondary line of thought, however, did not interfere with the lyric passion of his speech.

      “You are asking me to … to … elope with you!”

      She still drooped her head, but she let him feel her nearness. He wished—how he wished!—that they were away from that window. But he would not break the spell by suggesting that they move. Perhaps he could not reestablish it.

      “Elope?” Ferdinand critically considered the word.

      “I want you to come away with me, Alethea, into Paradise. I want you to help me rediscover Eden! I want you! I want you!”

      “But … your family?” she murmured.

      He had her hand again, and this time she let him keep it. “That episode, that unfortunate and foolish episode, my marriage, is ended,” said Ferdinand, as he kissed her hand.

      “Ah! Ended?” said Mrs. Watson. “You are no longer living with your wife? The marriage is dissolved?” Mrs. Watson's own marriage had been dissolved for some time; whether by death or by divorce Ferdinand had never taken the trouble to inquire.

      “In the spiritual sense—and that is all that counts—dissolved,” said Ferdinand. And he could not help adding: “To-day.”

      Mrs. Watson was breathing quickly … and suddenly she turned and put her head on his shoulder. And yet even as Ferdinand's mind cried “Victory!” he was aware of a strange doubt; for when he attempted to take her in his arms, she put up her hands and prevented a real embrace. He stood in perplexity. He felt that she was shaking with emotion; he heard muffled sounds … she was sobbing and weeping on his shoulder, or …

      No! It could not be! Yes, the woman was laughing! Joy? Hysteria? What?

      Suddenly she pushed him away from her, and faced him, controlling her laughter.

      “Excuse me,” said Mrs. Watson, with the levity he had feared dancing in her eyes, “but such a silly idea occurred to me just as I was about to tell you that I would elope with you … it occurred to me that I had better tell you that all my money is tied up in a trust fund. I can never touch anything but the interest, you know.”

      “Alethea,” said Ferdinand, chokingly, “such a thought at a time like this is unworthy of both of us!” And he advanced toward her again. But she stopped him.

      “Just a moment, Ferdinand! I haven't told you all of my silly idea! I wondered also, you know, whether, if we ever got hard up and had to do our own work, you would break my dishes with a wooden stick and twist my arm until I howled!”

      As Ferdinand slowly took in her words, he felt a sudden recession of vitality. He said nothing, but his knees felt weak, and he sat down on a chair.

      “Get up!” said Mrs. Watson, with a cold little silver tinkle of a laugh. “I didn't ask you to sit down!”

      Ferdinand got up.

      “I don't spy on my neighbours as a rule,” continued Mrs. Watson, “but a little after noon to-day I happened to be standing by this window looking out over the town, and this pair of opera glasses happened to be on the table there and … well, take them, you oaf! You fat fool! And look at that window, down there! It's your own kitchen window!”

      Ferdinand took them and looked … he was crushed and speechless, and he obeyed mechanically.

      He dropped the glasses with a gasp. He had not only seen into his own kitchen window, lighted as this one was, but he had seen Nell there … and, as perverse fate would have it, some whim had inspired Nell to take her own opera glasses and look out over the city. She was standing there with them now. Had she seen him a moment before, with Mrs. Watson's head upon his shoulder?

      He started out.

      “Wait a moment,” said Mrs. Watson. Ferdinand stopped. He still seemed oddly without volition. It reminded him of what he had heard about certain men suffering from shell shock.

      “There … I wanted to do that before you went,” said Mrs. Watson, and slapped him across the face. And Ferdinand's soul registered once more the flavour of a damp dishcloth. “It's the second time a woman has slapped you to-day,” said Mrs. Watson. “Try and finish the rest of the day without getting a third one. You can go now.”

      Ferdinand went. He reached the street, and walked several blocks in silence. Neither his voice nor his assurance seemed to be inclined to return to him speedily. His voice came back first, with a little of his complacence, after fifteen or twenty minutes. And:

      “Hell!” said Ferdinand, in his rich, harplike voice, running his fingers through his tawny hair. “Hell!”