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CHAPTER V
At the porter’s desk a brief “Pas de lettres” fell destructively on the fabric of these hopes. Mrs. Leath had not written – she had not taken the trouble to explain her telegram. Darrow turned away with a sharp pang of humiliation.
Her frugal silence mocked his prodigality of hopes and fears.
He had put his question to the porter once before, on returning to the hotel after luncheon; and now, coming back again in
the late afternoon, he was met by the same denial. The second
post was in, and had brought him nothing.
A glance at his watch showed that he had barely time to
dress before taking Miss Viner out to dine; but as he turned to
the lift a new thought struck him, and hurrying back into
the hall he dashed off another telegram to his servant: “Have
you forwarded any letter with French postmark today? Telegraph answer Terminus.”
Some kind of reply would be certain to reach him on his
return from the theatre, and he would then know defi nitely
whether Mrs. Leath meant to write or not. He hastened up to
his room and dressed with a lighter heart.
Miss Viner’s vagrant trunk had fi nally found its way to its
owner; and, clad in such modest splendour as it furnished,
she shone at Darrow across their restaurant table. In the reac-
51
EDITH WHARTON
tion of his wounded vanity he found her prettier and more interesting than before. Her dress, sloping away from the throat,
showed the graceful set of her head on its slender neck, and
the wide brim of her hat arched above her hair like a dusky
halo. Pleasure danced in her eyes and on her lips, and as she
shone on him between the candle-shades Darrow felt that
he should not be at all sorry to be seen with her in public.
He even sent a careless glance about him in the vague hope
that it might fall on an acquaintance.
At the theatre her vivacity sank into a breathless hush, and
she sat intent in her corner of their baignoire, with the gaze of
a neophyte about to be initiated into the sacred mysteries. Darrow placed himself behind her, that he might catch her profi le
between himself and the stage. He was touched by the youthful seriousness of her expression. In spite of the experiences
she must have had, and of the twenty-four years to which she
owned, she struck him as intrinsically young; and he wondered
how so evanescent a quality could have been preserved in
the desiccating Murrett air. As the play progressed he noticed
that her immobility was traversed by swift fl ashes of perception. She was not missing anything, and her intensity of attention when Cerdine was on the stage drew an anxious line
between her brows.
After the fi rst act she remained for a few minutes rapt and
motionless; then she turned to her companion with a quick
patter of questions. He gathered from them that she had been
less interested in following the general drift of the play than in
observing the details of its interpretation. Every gesture and
infl ection of the great actress’s had been marked and analyzed;
52
THE REEF
and Darrow felt a secret gratifi cation in being appealed to as
an authority on the histrionic art. His interest in it had hitherto been merely that of the cultivated young man curious of
all forms of artistic expression; but in reply to her questions
he found things to say about it which evidently struck his
listener as impressive and original, and with which he himself was not, on the whole, dissatisfi ed. Miss Viner was much
more concerned to hear his views than to express her own, and
the deference with which she received his comments called
from him more ideas about the theatre than he had ever supposed himself to possess.
With the second act she began to give more attention to
the development of the play, though her interest was excited
rather by what she called “the story” than by the confl ict of
character producing it. Oddly combined with her sharp apprehension of things theatrical, her knowledge of technical “dodges” and green-room precedents, her glibness about
“lines” and “curtains”, was the primitive simplicity of her attitude toward the tale itself, as toward something that was
“really happening” and at which one assisted as at a streetaccident or a quarrel overheard in the next room. She wanted to know if Darrow thought the lovers “really would” be
involved in the catastrophe that threatened them, and when
he reminded her that his predictions were disqualifi ed by his
having already seen the play, she exclaimed: “Oh, then, please
don’t tell me what’s going to happen!” and the next moment
was questioning him about Cerdine’s theatrical situation and
her private history. On the latter point some of her enquiries
were of a kind that it is not in the habit of young girls to make,
53
EDITH WHARTON
or even to know how to make; but her apparent unconsciousness of the fact seemed rather to refl ect on her past associates
than on herself.
When the second act was over, Darrow suggested their
taking a turn in the foyer; and seated on one of its cramped
red velvet sofas they watched the crowd surge up and down in
a glare of lights and gilding. Then, as she complained of
the heat, he led her through the press to the congested cafe at
the foot of the stairs, where orangeades were thrust at them
between the shoulders of packed consommateurs and Darrow, lighting a cigarette while she sucked her straw, knew
the primitive complacency of the man at whose companion
other men stare.
On a corner of their table lay a smeared copy of a theatrical
journal. It caught Sophy’s eye and after poring over the page
she looked up with an excited exclamation.
“They’re giving Oedipe tomorrow afternoon at the Francais! I suppose you’ve seen it heaps and heaps of times?”
He smiled back at her. “You must see it too. We’ll go tomorrow.”
She sighed at his suggestion, but without discarding it.
“How can I? The last train for Joigny leaves at four.”
“But you don’t know yet that your friends will want you.”
“I shall know tomorrow early. I asked Mrs. Farlow to telegraph as soon as she got my letter.” A twinge of compunction
shot through Darrow. Her words recalled to him that on their
return to the hotel after luncheon she had given him her letter to post, and that he had never thought of it again. No doubt
it was still in the pocket of the coat he had taken off when
54
THE REEF
he dressed for dinner. In his perturbation he pushed back his
chair, and the movement made her look up at him.
“What’s the matter?”
“Nothing. Only – you know I don’t fancy that letter can
have caught this afternoon’s post.”
“Not caught it? Why not?”
“Why, I’m afraid it will have been too late.” He bent his
head to light another cigarette.
She struck her hands together with a gesture which, to his
amusement, he noticed she had caught from Cerdine.
“Oh, dear, I hadn’t thought of that! But surely it will reach
them in the morning?”
“Some time in the morning, I suppose. You know the French
provincial post is never in a hurry. I don’t believe your letter
would have been delivered this evening in any case.” As this
idea occurred to him he felt himself almost absolved.
“Perhaps, then, I ought to have telegraphed?”
“I’ll telegraph for you in the morning if you say so.”
The bell announcing the close of the entr’-acte shrilled
through the cafe, and she sprang to her feet.
“Oh, come, come! We mustn’t miss it!”
Instantly forgetful of the Farlows, she slipped her arm
through his and turned to push her way back to the theatre.
As soon as the curtain went up she as promptly forgot
her companion. Watching her from the corner to which he
had returned, Darrow saw that great waves of sensation were
beating deliciously against her brain. It was as though every
starved sensibility were throwing out feelers to the mounting
55
EDITH WHARTON
tide; as though everything she was seeing, hearing, imagining,
rushed in to fi ll the void of all she had always been denied.
Darrow, as he observed her, again felt a detached enjoyment in her pleasure. She was an extraordinary conductor of
sensation: she seemed to transmit it physically, in emanations
that set the blood dancing in his veins. He had not often had
the opportunity of studying the effects of a perfectly fresh impression on so responsive a temperament, and he felt a fl eeting desire to make its chords vibrate for his own amusement.
At the end of the next act she discovered with dismay
that in their transit to the cafe she had lost the beautiful pictured programme he had bought for her. She wanted to go back
and hunt for it, but Darrow assured her that he would have no
trouble in getting her another. When he went out in quest of
it she followed him protestingly to the door of the box, and
he saw that she was distressed at the thought of his having to
spend an additional franc for her. This frugality smote Darrow
by its contrast to her natural bright profusion; and again he
felt the desire to right so clumsy an injustice.
When he returned to the box she was still standing in
the doorway, and he noticed that his were not the only eyes
attracted to her. Then another impression sharply diverted his
attention. Above the fagged faces of the Parisian crowd he had
caught the fresh fair countenance of Owen Leath signalling
a joyful recognition. The young man, slim and eager, had detached himself from two companions of his own type, and was
seeking to push through the press to his step-mother’s friend.
The encounter, to Darrow, could hardly have been more inopportune; it woke in him a confusion of feelings of which only
56
THE REEF
the uppermost was allayed by seeing Sophy Viner, as if instinctively warned, melt back into the shadow of their box.
A minute later Owen Leath was at his side. “I was sure
it was you! Such luck to run across you! Won’t you come off
with us to supper after it’s over? Montmartre, or wherever else
you please. Those two chaps over there are friends of mine, at
the Beaux Arts; both of them rather good fellows – and we’d
be so glad — ”
For half a second Darrow read in his hospitable eye the termination “if you’d bring the lady too”; then it defl ected into:
“We’d all be so glad if you’d come.”
Darrow, excusing himself with thanks, lingered on for
a few minutes’ chat, in which every word, and every tone of his
companion’s voice, was like a sharp light fl ashed into aching
eyes. He was glad when the bell called the audience to their
seats, and young Leath left him with the friendly question:
“We’ll see you at Givre later on?”
When he rejoined Miss Viner, Darrow’s fi rst care was to
fi nd out, by a rapid inspection of the house, whether Owen
Leath’s seat had given him a view of their box. But the young
man was not visible from it, and Darrow concluded that he
had been recognized in the corridor and not at his companion’s side. He scarcely knew why it seemed to him so important
that this point should be settled; certainly his sense of reassurance was less due to regard for Miss Viner than to the persistent vision of grave offended eyes . . .
During the drive back to the hotel this vision was persistently kept before him by the thought that the evening post
might have brought a letter from Mrs. Leath. Even if no letter
57
EDITH WHARTON
had yet come, his servant might have telegraphed to say that one
was on its way; and at the thought his interest in the girl at his
side again cooled to the fraternal, the almost fatherly. She was
no more to him, after all, than an appealing young creature to
whom it was mildly agreeable to have offered an evening’s diversion; and when, as they rolled into the illuminated court of
the hotel, she turned with a quick movement which brought
her happy face close to his, he leaned away, affecting to be absorbed in opening the door of the cab.
At the desk the night porter, after a vain search through
the pigeon-holes, was disposed to think that a letter or telegram had in fact been sent up for the gentleman; and Darrow, at the announcement, could hardly wait to ascend to his
room. Upstairs, he and his companion had the long dimly-lit
corridor to themselves, and Sophy paused on her threshold,
gathering up in one hand the pale folds of her cloak, while she
held the other out to Darrow.
“If the telegram comes early I shall be off by the fi rst train;
so I suppose this is good-bye,” she said, her eyes dimmed
by a little shadow of regret.
Darrow, with a renewed start of contrition, perceived that
he had again forgotten her letter; and as their hands met he
vowed to himself that the moment she had left him he would
dash down stairs to post it.
“Oh, I’ll see you in the morning, of course!”
A tremor of pleasure crossed her face as he stood before
her, smiling a little uncertainly.
“At any rate,” she said, “I want to thank you now for my
good day.”
58
THE REEF
He felt in her hand the same tremor he had seen in her
face. “But it’s YOU, on the contrary – ” he began, lifting
the hand to his lips.
As he dropped it, and their eyes met, something passed
through hers that was like a light carried rapidly behind a curtained window.
“Good night; you must be awfully tired,” he said with
a friendly abruptness, turning away without even waiting to
see her pass into her room. He unlocked his door, and stumbling over the threshold groped in the darkness for the electric button. The light showed him a telegram on the table, and
he forgot everything else as he caught it up.
“No letter from France,” the message read.
It fell from Darrow’s hand to the fl oor, and he dropped
into a chair by the table and sat gazing at the dingy drab and
olive pattern of the carpet. She had not written, then; she had
not written, and it was manifest now that she did not mean to
write. If she had had any intention of explaining her telegram
she would certainly, within twenty-four hours, have followed
it up by a letter. But she evidently did not intend to explain
it, and her silence could mean only that she had no explanation to give, or else that she was too indifferent to be aware
that one was needed.
Darrow, face to face with these alternatives, felt a recrudescence of boyish misery. It was no longer his hurt vanity that cried out. He told himself that he could have borne
an equal amount of pain, if only it had left Mrs. Leath’s image
untouched; but he could not bear to think of her as trivial or
59
EDITH WHARTON
insincere. The thought was so intolerable that he felt a blind
desire to punish some one else for the pain it caused him.
As he sat moodily staring at the carpet its silly intricacies
melted into a blur from which the eyes of Mrs. Leath again
looked out at him. He saw the fi ne sweep of her brows, and
the deep look beneath them as she had turned from him on
their last evening in London. “This will be good-bye, then,”
she had said; and it occurred to him that her parting phrase
had been the same as Sophy Viner’s.
At the thought he jumped to his feet and took down from
its hook the coat in which he had left Miss Viner’s letter.
The clock marked the third quarter after midnight, and he
knew it would make no difference if he went down to the postbox now or early the next morning; but he wanted to clear his
conscience, and having found the letter he went to the door.
A sound in the next room made him pause. He had become
conscious again that, a few feet off, on the other side of a thin
partition, a small keen fl ame of life was quivering and agitating the air. Sophy’s face came hack to him insistently. It was as
vivid now as Mrs. Leath’s had been a moment earlier. He recalled with a faint smile of retrospective pleasure the girl’s enjoyment of her evening, and the innumerable fi ne feelers of
sensation she had thrown out to its impressions.
It gave him a curiously close sense of her presence to think
that at that moment she was living over her enjoyment as intensely as he was living over his unhappiness. His own case
was irremediable, but it was easy enough to give her a few
more hours of pleasure. And did she not perhaps secretly expect it of him? After all, if she had been very anxious to join
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