The Debit Account Part 23

"And showed her round? It was very good of you. She enjoyed it very much. She told me all about it."

Louie said something about it being no trouble, and then appeared to be going. But I stopped her. Then, when I had stopped her, I didn't quite know what to say.

"Oh--er----" I said awkwardly, looking at her and then looking away again. "Without opening matters up--you know what I mean--going into things--I want to say just one thing. It's about--a piece of advice you once gave me."

She had half opened the inner door, and stood, as it were, on the threshold of the box-like s.p.a.ce between the inner one and the outer one of baize. The look she gave me was almost hostile, and the tourmalines were shut. I don't think, by the way, that she ever heard of that incident at Aunt Angela's party. I neither asked her whether she had, nor ever told her about it.

"If you feel that you must----" she said, not very invitingly.

"It's merely this," I said rather hurriedly, "that what you suggested is impossible now."

"Yes," she said; "I suppose it is."

"Her doctor's forbidden it--I mean, he says she mustn't have another shock."

Instantly I saw, by the way in which she said, "Oh!" that she had had something else in her mind. "Oh!... I see," she said, and I pondered.

"Ah!" I said at last. "You mean you've just seen--just this moment?"

She made no reply.

"You've just seen, just this moment. Then why did you say yes, you supposed so?"

Her answer was impatient. "Oh, _must_ you?"

"Must I what?"

"Must you do this?"

"Ask you why you a.s.sented when I said something was impossible now?"

"Ask me anything at all!" she almost snapped.

I gave her a long look. "Shut the door," I said.... "Now tell me why you agreed with me when I said that it was impossible to take your advice now."

The tourmalines flickered almost scornfully. "Don't you know?"

"I do not."

"What! You can't guess?"

"Will you tell me?"

For a moment she looked as if she was going to sit down for something that would require time; but she changed her mind, and stood, a crumple of skirt grasped in either hand.

"Ask me again and I will," she said, in a slightly raised voice.

"I do ask you."

Then, with a harsh little laugh, Louie made her second mistake of that day.

"Because she's jealous," she said. "Evidently that wasn't _your_ reason; I don't know what yours was; but that's mine."

"Oh!" I said. In the face of a statement so preposterous I really could think of nothing else to say.

"What else did she come here yesterday for?" Louie demanded.

I smiled. That was too absurd. "Well--shall we say to keep an appointment with her husband?" I suggested.

"Oh, if you like!... Then why does she want to come and see me at my house?" she demanded.

It was news to me that Evie did want to go and see Louie at her house, but I was careful not to let Louie see that.

"Oh!" I said, still smiling. "And you think these grounds enough for your statement?"

"My good----" she broke out. "I'm not asking you to accept them. I know better than to try to persuade _you_! You asked me, and I've told you; that's all."

"And if I say once for all that it is not so, and that nothing could make it so?"

"Make it so!" she broke out. "Really, Jeff, you talk like--a man! 'Make it so!'... If you can't see your little definite reason for everything, you deny the fact! If I could say that Kitty Windus and Miriam Levey had been chattering--I'm not aware that they have, but if I _could_ say that--I suppose you'd call that a reason, and listen to it; but anything else--pshaw! I don't care a b.u.t.ton for your reason! Your reason may have made this business, but it won't persuade a woman against something she knows--myself _or_ Evie. It just is so, and there's an end of it. And of course you see the beautiful new fix it puts you in." She gave a little stamp that made her garments quiver.

"Louie, I can't----"

"Oh, a perfect fix! Really, I'm curious to know what you're going to do about it! Try to persuade her that there's nothing between you and me!

Try it, try it! Why, how shouldn't she be jealous when I am? Do you think she doesn't see that? Oh, I don't know why I waste words with you!... But you see your fix. It was Kitty before, and you tried half telling then; now it's me; but it isn't either of us really; oh, if it only could be!... It's the secret, Jim. You've got to tell her--and you can't. I don't know what this is about a shock, but it's too late now.

Try it if you like--I don't care what you say about me. Try the half truth again--give her reason--the reason's yours whenever you want it."

Of course I couldn't listen to this nonsense and immodesty and worse.

Who should know better whether Evie was jealous or not, Louie or I? Evie jealous!... Of course, if it were so, the position _would_ be precisely as Louie had stated it. I _should_ have to choose between Evie's love and the risk the doctor had so gravely foreshadowed. Our very existence together _would_ hang on precisely that last desperate chance. And from the bottom of my heart I blessed my Maker that, tossed and buffeted as my life had been, at least that perfected anguish of body and spirit was to be spared me....

I had risen. Smiling rather sadly, I turned to Louie.

"Well--as I said--I don't want to re-open things," I said.

With the door already half open, she turned.

"Do you think they're closed?" she said.

And she did not wait for my reply.

FOOTNOTE:

[2] See "In Accordance with the Evidence."

II

It is as I feared: this writing, as a continuous record, will have to stop. My life is getting too full. I daresay its crowded outward happenings are a good thing for me; it is better, as the saying is, to wear out than to rust out; and I am beginning almost to enjoy change for change's sake.