The Magpies Nest by Isabel Paterson

between them, and leave her only a memory. To this absurd tangle of "for ever" and "but a little while" Tony had brought the word marriage like a sword, and the knot was cut cleanly. He had spoken. He would overawe the face of Fate.
    Mary noticed she no longer complained of the stagnation of life, though on the surface it was all the same. At hazard, Mary guessed correctly: being in love was itself an adventure, and all-absorbing. The impatience of her moments of waiting for Tony was not her old tugging at the leash. She even withdrew as far as possible what tentative feelers she had thrown out before. With Ned she was distrait to the point of rudeness. He tried to sulk. She did not even notice, and he returned, after telling Lisbeth and Mary in strict confidence that she was a disagreeable little beast and that only his high regard for them made him tolerate her. She had always been high-handed with Allen Kirby, but Allen's philosophy permitted him to enjoy what he could get. He had never made any claims. He was always ready, if she had nothing better to do. And since she liked him very well, and he had accepted with equanimity her first tacit definition of their relations, she did not feel that they infringed upon Tony's possesion of all that was herself.
    But with Edgerton she was vaguely troubled, and seemed to be in a perpetual retreat. He felt her slipping away from him, half surmised the truth, but could put no name to the cause. Of her life he knew nothing except what she told him herself. And she had the straightforward reticence of the truthful. Clumsily he tried to hold her, accepting each rebuff with a dogged gentleness that made her feel pitiful toward him. At the same time she was at a loss to understand what he wanted. He had so much already.
    Once she voiced the question to Mary. Edgerton had been to see her. He came but the once. The last time he had been in town she had put him off prettily, because she had an engagement with Tony. Her rudeness smote her; in answer to a note Mary had tossed in her lap, she had telephoned, told him to call. He had been strangely unwilling, though plainly he wanted to see her. But he came.
    What she remembered most was the way his eyes followed her about the room, as if photographing every trivial gesture she made. When she gave him her hand he tried to take her in his arms, and she said "No, no," and avoided him. Afterwards, just as the first time, she shyly gave him her cheek to kiss, as an amende. But his uneasiness perplexed her.
    "What is it?" she asked. "Aren't you comfortable? Have a cigarette. I'm going to make some coffee."
    It seemed he did not want coffee, and she sat pondering him. "You're different," was all she could make of it.
    "No, you are," he returned bluntly. "Well, I might have known it would come. I say..."
    "Yes?"
    "If—if anything goes wrong, if I can help you, let me know." And he was for going. "Oh, why?" she said gently. "It's early."
    She held him by the lapel of his coat, looking up at him engagingly, and he would have kissed her again. But he knew too well she had nothing for him. And, after all, with a heavy heart he knew he had nothing for her.
    "No, I must. I've got some things to see to. Emily, my daughter, is coming up. I want you to meet her."
    "I should like to," said Hope bravely, concealing her horror and alarm at the idea of meeting a strange girl.
    There was a certain incredibility, too, about his having a grown daughter. Hope had been bred to the old order. A man married was married, and that was the end of him. Edgerton, appearing always alone, had somehow in her mind extricated himself from that fixed position, and now it seemed she must replace him, and he really would not quite fit. He would not fit anywhere; that was the trouble. A man of his age. She had dissociated him from all that, his age, his circumstances, his very physical appearance, at last; she no longer felt inclined to giggle secretly at the spectacle of his grey