Tramping on Life Part 111

"I want a book from the library."

"Hildreth and Penton are there. Hildreth is having a soul-state."

"A what?" I laughed.

"Oh, she thinks something is the matter with her soul, and, for the three hundredth time since I've known them, Penton and she are discussing their lives together."

"I don't see anything to jest about in that."

"I'm tiring of it ... if Hildreth has a tooth-ache, or anything that the rest of us women accept as a matter of course, she runs to Mubby, as she calls him ... and, as if it were some abstruse, philosophical problem, they talk on, hour after hour ... like German metaphysics, there's no end to it. They've been at it since ten and they'll go on till four, if they follow precedents ... Penton takes Hildreth too seriously."

"You talk as if you, you were jealous of Hildreth and in love with Penton."

"It's neither the one nor the other. I love them both, and I want to see them happy together."

"You see, Darrie, neither you nor I are married, and neither of us knows anything about s.e.x, except in the theory of the books we've read--how can _we judge_ the troubles of a man and woman who are married?"

"There's a lot in what you say."

"I believe it would be better if we both cleared out and left them to fight this out alone."

"Perhaps it would."

"Darrie, Oh, Darrie!--want to come for a walk with Hildreth and me?"

So the three set off together, leaving me and Ruth alone.

Ruth and I had just settled down to a discussion of the writing of narrative poetry, how it was done, and the reason why it was no longer customary with the poets to write longer stories out of real life, like Chaucer's _Canterbury Tales_,--when we heard a rustling as of some wild thing in the bushes beside the house, and here came Hildreth breaking through, her eyes blazing, her hair down, her light walking skirt that she had slipped on over her bloomers torn by catching on thorns.

She staggered into the open, swept us with a blazing glance as if we had done something to her, and hurried on down the path toward the little house where Penton had written in quiet till she had strangely routed him out and taken its occupancy for herself.

"Hildreth!" I leaped to my feet, starting after her, "Hildreth what's the matter?"

I had put all thought of narrative poetry out of my head.

"Don't follow her," advised Ruth, in a low, controlled voice, "it's best to let her alone when she acts like that ... she'll have it out, and come back, smiling, in an hour or so."

I plunged on. Ruth ran after me, catching me by the shoulder from behind.

"Listen to me. Take my advice and keep out of this--Johnnie!" she called my name with a tender drop in her voice.

If it had not been for her tell-tale p.r.o.nouncement of my name I might have listened to her ... but that made me angry, and it ran through my mind how she and Penton had fatuously arranged my marrying her....

I ran after Hildreth. She slammed the door when I was so close upon her that the wind of its shutting went against my face like a blow.

I found myself on my knees by the door.

"Let me in," I said through the key-hole, for the door was locked; she had thrown the bolt on the inside.

"Go away, Johnnie, I want to be alone."

"Hildreth, dearest woman, do let me in. It hurts my heart to see you so suffer so."

"I don't want to see anybody. I want to die."

"I'll come in the window."

I was at the window madly. I caught it. It was locked. But I pulled it up like a maniac. The lock, rusty, flew off with a zing! The window crashed up. I tumbled in at one leap.

My whole life was saying, "this is your woman, your first and only woman--go where she is and take her to yourself!"

That avalanche of me bursting in without denial, struck little Hildreth Baxter dumb with interest. She had been kneeling by her bed, sobbing.

Now she rose and was sitting on it.

"Well?" and she smiled wanly, looking at me with fear and a twinkle of amus.e.m.e.nt, and intrigued interest, all at one and the same time, on her face--

"I couldn't stand seeing you suffer, Hildreth. I had to come in. And you wouldn't unlock the door ... what has gone wrong?"

"It's Darrie!--"

"But you all three started on your hike like such a happy family, and--"

"For G.o.d's sake don't think I'm jealous of Darrie ... I'm only wild about the way she encourages Mubby to talk over his troubles with her--and tell her about him and me, asking _her_ advice ... as if _she_ could give any advice worth while--

"They began to talk and talk about me just as if I were a laboratory specimen....

"d.a.m.n this laboratory marriage! d.a.m.n this laboratory love!

"Penton experiments, and Penton experiments ... on his cat, his dog, himself, me--you, if you'd let him ... everybody! let him marry Humanity if he loves it so much."

"But what did you do?"

"I caught myself running away from them, and sobbing."

"And what did they do?"

"'Hildreth, for G.o.d's sake!' Mubby called, 'what's the matter now?' in that bland, exasperating tone of his,--that injured, self-righteous, I'm-sacrificing-myself-for-mankind tone--"

I had to laugh at her exact mimicry....

I stroked her hair....

"I'm glad you came to Eden, John Gregory. You might be a poet, but you have some human sense in you, too....