|
Main
- books.jibble.org
My Books
- IRC Hacks
Misc. Articles
- Meaning of Jibble
- M4 Su Doku
- Computer Scrapbooking
- Setting up Java
- Bootable Java
- Cookies in Java
- Dynamic Graphs
- Social Shakespeare
External Links
- Paul Mutton
- Jibble Photo Gallery
- Jibble Forums
- Google Landmarks
- Jibble Shop
- Free Books
- Intershot Ltd
|
books.jibble.org
Previous Page
| Next Page
Page 63
"Let me get it over--quickly," she burst out, with hot blood surging to her
face. "I--I hated the West. It was so raw--so violent--so big. I think I
hate it more--now. . . . But it changed me--made me over physically--and
did something to my soul--God knows what. . . . And it has saved Glenn. Oh!
he is wonderful! You would never know him. . . . For long I had not the
courage to tell him I came to bring him back East. I kept putting it off.
And I rode, I climbed, I camped, I lived outdoors. At first it nearly
killed me. Then it grew bearable, and easier, until I forgot. I wouldn't be
honest if I didn't admit now that somehow I had a wonderful time, in spite
of all. . . . Glenn's business is raising hogs. He has a hog ranch. Doesn't
it sound sordid? But things are not always what they sound--or seem. Glenn
is absorbed in his work. I hated it--I expected to ridicule it. But I ended
by infinitely respecting him. I learned through his hog-raising the real
nobility of work. . . . Well, at last I found courage to ask him when he
was coming back to New York. He said 'never!' . . . I realized then my
blindness, my selfishness. I could not be his wife and live there. I could
not. I was too small, too miserable, too comfort-loving--too spoiled. And
all the time he knew this--knew I'd never be big enough to marry him. . . .
That broke my heart. I left him free--and here I am. . . . I beg you--don't
ask me any more--and never to mention it to me--so I can forget."
The tender unspoken sympathy of women who loved her proved comforting in
that trying hour. With the confession ruthlessly made the hard compression
in Carley's breast subsided, and her eyes cleared of a hateful dimness.
When they reached the taxi stand outside the station Carley felt a rush of
hot devitalized air from the street. She seemed not to be able to get air
into her lungs.
"Isn't it dreadfully hot?" she asked.
"This is a cool spell to what we had last week," replied Eleanor.
"Cool!" exclaimed Carley, as she wiped her moist face. "I wonder if you
Easterners know the real significance of words."
Then they entered a taxi, to be whisked away apparently through a
labyrinthine maze of cars and streets, where pedestrians had to run and
jump for their lives. A congestion of traffic at Fifth Avenue and
Forty-second Street halted their taxi for a few moments, and here in the
thick of it Carley had full assurance that she was back in the metropolis.
Her sore heart eased somewhat at sight of the streams of people passing to
and fro. How they rushed! Where were they going? What was their story? And
all the while her aunt held her hand, and Beatrice and Eleanor talked as
fast as their tongues could wag. Then the taxi clattered on up the Avenue,
to turn down a side street and presently stop at Carley's home. It was a
modest three-story brown-stone house. Carley had been so benumbed by
sensations that she did not imagine she could experience a new one. But
peering out of the taxi, she gazed dubiously at the brownish-red stone
steps and front of her home.
"I'm going to have it painted," she muttered, as if to herself.
Her aunt and her friends laughed, glad and relieved to hear such a
practical remark from Carley. How were they to divine that this
brownish-red stone was the color of desert rocks and canyon walls?
In a few more moments Carley was inside the house, feeling a sense of
protection in the familiar rooms that had been her home for seventeen
years. Once in the sanctity of her room, which was exactly as she had left
it, her first action was to look in the mirror at her weary, dusty, heated
face. Neither the brownness of it nor the shadow appeared to harmonize with
the image of her that haunted the mirror.
"Now!" she whispered low. "It's done. I'm home. The old life--or a new life?
How to meet either. Now!"
Thus she challenged her spirit. And her intelligence rang at her the
imperative necessity for action, for excitement, for effort that left no
time for rest or memory or wakefulness. She accepted the issue. She was
glad of the stern fight ahead of her. She set her will and steeled her
heart with all the pride and vanity and fury of a woman who had been
defeated but who scorned defeat. She was what birth and breeding and
circumstance had made her. She would seek what the old life held.
What with unpacking and chatting and telephoning and lunching, the day soon
passed. Carley went to dinner with friends and later to a roof garden. The
color and light, the gayety and music, the news of acquaintances, the humor
of the actors--all, in fact, except the unaccustomed heat and noise, were
most welcome and diverting. That night she slept the sleep of weariness.
Previous Page
| Next Page
|
|