The Turn of the Balance

Meanwhile, everything went on as before. The peculiar spiritual experience through which Elizabeth was passing she kept largely to herself: she could not discuss it with any one; somehow, she would have found it impossible, because she realized that all those about her, except perhaps Marriott, would consider it all ridiculous and look at her in a queer, disconcerting way. She saw few persons outside of her own family; people spoke of her as having settled down, and began to forget her. But she saw much of Marriott; their old friendly relations, resumed at the time the trouble of Gusta and Archie and Dick had brought them together, had grown more intimate. Of Eades she saw nothing at all, and perhaps because both she and Marriott were conscious of a certain restraint with respect to him, his name was never mentioned between them. But at last an event occurred that broke even this restraint: it was announced that Eades was to be married. He was to marry an eastern girl who had visited in the city the winter before and now had come back again. She had been the object of much social attention, partly because she was considered beautiful, but more, perhaps, because she was in her own right very wealthy. She had, in truth, a pretty, though vain and selfish little face; she dressed exquisitely, and she had magnificent auburn, that is, red hair. People were divided as to what color it really was, though all spoke of it as "artistic." And now it was announced that she had been won by John Eades; the wedding was to occur in the autumn. The news had interested Marriott, of course, and he could not keep from imparting it to Elizabeth; indeed, he could not avoid a certain tone of triumph when he told her. He had seen Eades that very morning in the court-house; he seemed to Marriott to have grown heavier, which may have been the effect of a new coat he wore, or of the prosperousness and success that were surely coming to him. He was one of those men whom the whole community would admire; he would always do the thing appropriate to the occasion; it would, somehow, be considered in bad form to criticize him.

The newspapers had the habit of praising him; he was popular–precisely that, for while he had few friends and no intimates, everybody in the city approved him. He was just then being mentioned for Congress, and even for the governorship.

Yes, thought Marriott, Eades is a man plainly marked for success; everything will come his way. Eades had stopped long enough–and just long enough–to take Marriott's hand, to smile, to ask him the proper questions, to tell him he was looking well, that he must drop in and see him, and then he had hastened away. Marriott had felt a new quality in Eades's manner, but he could not isolate or specify it. Was Eades changing? He was changing physically, to be sure, he was growing stouter, but he was at the age for that; the youthful lines were being erased from his figure, just as the lines of maturity were being drawn in his face. Marriott thought it over, a question in his mind. Was success spoiling Eades?

But when Marriott told Elizabeth the news, she did not appear to be surprised; she did not even appear to be interested. The summer had come early that year; within a week it had burst upon them suddenly. The night was so warm that they had gone out on the veranda. Marriott watched Elizabeth narrowly, there in the soft darkness, to note the effect. But apparently there was no effect. She sat quite still and said nothing. The noise of the city had died away into a harmony, and the air throbbed with the shrill, tiny sounds of hidden infinitesimal life. There came to them the fragrance of the lilacs, just blooming in the big yard of the Wards, and the fragrance of the lilacs brought to them memories. To Marriott, the fragrance brought memories of that night at Hazel Ford's wedding; he thought of it a long time, wondering. After a while they left the veranda and strolled into the yard under the trees.

"Do you know," said Marriott, "I thought you would be surprised to hear of John Eades's engagement."

"Why?" she asked.

"Well, I don't know; no one had noticed that he was paying her any attention–" Suddenly he became embarrassed. He was still thinking of the evening at Hazel Ford's wedding, and he was wondering if Elizabeth were thinking of it, too, and this confused him.

"Oh," Elizabeth said, as if she had not noticed his hesitation, "I'm very glad–it's an appropriate match."

Then she was silent; she seemed to be thinking; and Marriott wondered what significance there was in the remark she had just made; did it have a tribute for Eades, or for the girl, or exactly the reverse?

"I was thinking," she began, as if in answer to his thought, and then suddenly she stopped and gave a little laugh. "Gordon," she went on, "can't you see them? Can't you see just what a life they will live–how correct, and proper, and successful–and empty, and hollow, and deadly it will be–going on year after year, year after year? Can't you see them with their conception of life, or rather, their lack of conception of it?" She had begun her sentence with a laugh, but she ended it in deep seriousness. And for some reason they stopped where they were; and suddenly, they knew that, at last, the moment had come. Just why they knew this they could not have told, either of them, but they knew that the moment had come, the moment toward which they had been moving for a long time. They felt it, that was all. And neither was surprised. Words, indeed, were unnecessary. They had been talking, for the first time in months, of Eades, yet neither was thinking at all of the life Eades and his fashionable wife would lead, nor caring in the least about it. Marriott knew that in another instant he would tell Elizabeth what long had been in his heart, what he should have told her months ago, what he had come there that very night to tell her; he knew that everything he had said that night had been intended, in some way, to lead up to it; he was certain of it, and he thought quite calmly, and yet when he spoke and heard his own voice, its tone, though low, showed his excitement; and he heard himself saying:

"I am thinking–do you know of what? Well, of that night–"

And then, suddenly, he took her hands and poured out the unnecessary words.

"Elizabeth, do you know–I've always felt–well, that little incident that night at Hazel Ford's wedding; do you remember? I was so stupid, so bungling, so inept. I thought that Eades–that there was–something; I thought so for a long time. I wish I could explain–it was only because–I loved you!"

He could see her eyes glow in the darkness; he heard her catch her breath, and then he took her in his arms.

"Oh, Elizabeth, dearest, how I loved you! I had loved you for a long, long time, but that night for the first time I fully realized, and I thought then, in that moment, that I was too late, that there never had been–"

He drew her close to him, and bent his head and kissed her lips, her eyes, her hair.

"Oh, Gordon!" she whispered, lifting her face from his shoulder. "How very blind you were that night!"

Long after Marriott had gone, Elizabeth sat by her window and looked out into the night; above the trees the stars glowed in a purple sky. She was too happy for sleep, too happy for words. She sat there and dreamed of this love that had come to her, and tears filled her eyes. Because of this love, this love of Gordon Marriott, this love of all things, she need ask no more questions for a while. Love, that was the great law of life, would one day, in the end, explain and make all things clear. Not to her, necessarily, but to some one, to humanity, when, perhaps, through long ages of joy and sorrow, of conflict and sin, and in hope and faith, it had purified and perfected itself. And now by this love and by the new light within her, at last she was to live, to enter into life–life like that which had awakened in the world this brooding tropical night, with its soft glowing stars, its moist air, laden with the odor of lilacs and of the first blossoms of the fruit trees, and with the smell of the warm, rich, fecund earth.