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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 79294 ***
+
+
+
+
+                          Clay-Shuttered Doors
+
+
+                                A Story
+
+                             Helen R. Hull
+
+          Harper’s Magazine, vol. 152, May 1926, pp. 684-695.
+
+
+
+
+For months I have tried not to think about Thalia Corson. Anything may
+invoke her, with her langorous fragility, thin wrists and throat, her
+elusive face with its long eyelids. I can’t quite remember her mouth.
+When I try to visualize her sharply I get soft pale hair, the lovely
+curve from her temple to chin, and eyes blue and intense. Her boy,
+Fletcher, has eyes like hers.
+
+To-day I came back to New York, and my taxi to an uptown hotel was held
+for a few minutes in Broadway traffic where the afternoon sunlight fused
+into a dazzle a great expanse of plateglass and elaborate show motor
+cars. The “Regal Eight”—Winchester Corson’s establishment. I huddled as
+the taxi jerked ahead, in spite of knowledge that Winchester would
+scarcely peer out of that elegant setting into taxi cabs. I didn’t wish
+to see him, nor would he care to see me. But the glimpse had started the
+whole affair churning again, and I went through it deliberately, hoping
+that it might have smoothed out into some rational explanation.
+Sometimes things do, if you leave them alone, like logs submerged in
+water that float up later, encrusted thickly. This affair won’t add to
+itself. It stays unique and smooth, sliding through the rest of life
+without annexing a scrap of seaweed.
+
+I suppose, for an outsider, it all begins with the moment on Brooklyn
+Bridge; behind that are the years of my friendship with Thalia. Our
+families had summer cottages on the Cape. She was just enough older,
+however, so that not until I had finished college did I catch up to any
+intimacy with her. She had married Winchester Corson, who at that time
+fitted snugly into the phrase “a rising young man.” During those first
+years, while his yeast sent up preliminary bubbles, Thalia continued to
+spend her summers near Boston, with Winchester coming for occasional
+weekends. Fletcher was, unintentionally, born there; he began his
+difficult existence by arriving as a seven-months baby. Two years later
+Thalia had a second baby to bring down with her. Those were the summers
+which gave my friendship for Thalia its sturdy roots. They made me
+wonder, too, why she had chosen Winchester Corson. He was personable
+enough; tall, with prominent dark eyes and full mouth under a neat
+mustache, restless hands, and an uncertain disposition. He could be a
+charming companion, sailing the catboat with dash, managing lobster
+parties on the shore; or he would, unaccountably, settle into a foggy
+grouch, when everyone—children and females particularly—was supposed to
+approach only on tiptoe, bearing burnt offerings. The last time he spent
+a fortnight there, before he moved the family to the new Long Island
+estate, I had my own difficulties with him. There had always been an
+undertone of sex in his attitude toward me, but I had thought “that’s
+just his male conceit.” That summer he was a nuisance, coming upon me
+with his insistent, messy kisses, usually with Thalia in the next room.
+They were the insulting kind of kisses that aren’t at all personal, and
+I could have ended them fast enough if there hadn’t been the
+complication of Thalia and my love for her. If I made Winchester angry
+he’d put an end to Thalia’s relation to me. I didn’t, anyway, want her
+to know what a fool he was. Of course she did know, but I thought then
+that I could protect her.
+
+There are, I have decided, two ways with love. You can hold one love,
+knowing that, if it is a living thing, it must develop and change. That
+takes maturity, and care, and a consciousness of the other person. That
+was Thalia’s way. Or you enjoy the beginning of love and, once you’re
+past that, you have to hunt for a new love, because the excitement seems
+to be gone. Men like Winchester, who use all their brains on their jobs,
+never grow up; they go on thinking that preliminary stir and snap is
+love itself. Cut flowers, that was Winchester’s idea, while to Thalia
+love was a tree.
+
+But I said Brooklyn Bridge was the point at which the affair had its
+start. It seems impossible to begin there, or anywhere, as I try to
+account for what happened. Ten years after the summer when Winchester
+made himself such a nuisance—that last summer the Corsons spent at the
+Cape—I went down at the end of the season for a week with Thalia and the
+children at the Long Island place. Winchester drove out for the weekend.
+The children were mournful because they didn’t wish to leave the shore
+for school; a sharp September wind brought rain and fog down the Sound,
+and Winchester nourished all that Sunday a disagreeable grouch. I had
+seen nothing of them for most of the ten intervening years, as I had
+been first in France and then in China, after feature-article stuff. The
+week had been pleasant: good servants, comfortable house, a half-moon of
+white beach below the drop of lawn; Thalia a stimulating listener, with
+Fletcher, a thin, eager boy of twelve, like her in his intensity of
+interest. Dorothy, a plump, pink child of ten, had no use for stories of
+French villages or Chinese temples. Nug, the wire-haired terrier, and
+her dolls were more immediate and convincing. Thalia was thin and
+noncommittal, except for her interest in what I had seen and done. I
+couldn’t, for all my affection, establish any real contact. She spoke
+casually of the town house, of dinners she gave for Winchester, of his
+absorption in business affairs. But she was sheathed in polished
+aloofness and told me nothing of herself. She did say, one evening, that
+she was glad I was to be in New York that winter. Winchester, like his
+daughter Dorothy, had no interest in foreign parts once he had
+ascertained that I hadn’t even seen the Chinese quarters of the motor
+company in which he was concerned. He had an amusing attitude toward me:
+careful indifference, no doubt calculated to put me in my place as no
+longer alluring. Thalia tried to coax him into listening to some of my
+best stories. “Tell him about the bandits, Mary”—but his sulkiness
+brought, after dinner, a casual explanation from her, untinged with
+apology. “He’s working on an enormous project, a merging of several
+companies, and he’s so soaked in it he can’t come up for a breath.”
+
+In the late afternoon the maid set out high tea for us, before our
+departure for New York. Thalia suggested that perhaps one highball was
+enough if Winchester intended to drive over the wet roads. Win
+immediately mixed a second, asking if she had ever seen him in the least
+affected. “Be better for you than tea before a long damp drive, too.” He
+clinked the ice in his glass. “Jazz you up a bit.” Nug was begging for
+food and Thalia, bending to give him a corner of her sandwich,
+apparently did not hear Winchester. He looked about the room, a smug,
+owning look. The fire and candlelight shone in the heavy waxed rafters,
+made silver beads of the rain on the French windows. I watched
+him—heavier, more dominant, his prominent dark eyes and his lips sullen,
+as if the whiskey banked up his temper rather than appeased it.
+
+Then Jim, the gardener, brought the car to the door; the children
+scrambled in. Dorothy wanted to take Nug, but her father said not if she
+wanted to sit with him and drive.
+
+“How about chains, sir?” Jim held the umbrella for Thalia.
+
+“Too damned noisy. Don’t need them.” Winchester slammed the door and
+slid under the wheel. Thalia and I, with Fletcher between us, sat
+comfortably in the rear.
+
+“I like it better when Walter drives, don’t you, Mother?” said Fletcher
+as we slid down the drive out to the road.
+
+“Sh—Father likes to drive. And Walter likes Sunday off, too.” Thalia’s
+voice was cautious.
+
+“It’s too dark to see anything.”
+
+“I can see lots,” announced Dorothy, whereupon Fletcher promptly turned
+the handle that pushed up the glass between the chauffeur’s seat and the
+rear.
+
+The heavy car ran smoothly over the wet narrow road, with an occasional
+rumble and flare of headlights as some car swung past. Not till we
+reached the turnpike was there much traffic. There Winchester had to
+slacken his speed for other shiny beetles slipping along through the
+rain. Sometimes he cut past a car, weaving back into line in the glaring
+teeth of a car rushing down on him, and Fletcher would turn inquiringly
+toward his mother. The gleaming, wet darkness and the smooth motion made
+me drowsy, and I paid little heed until we slowed in a congestion of
+cars at the approach to the bridge. Far below on the black river, spaced
+red and white stars suggested slow-moving tugs, and beyond, faint lights
+splintered in the rain hinted at the city.
+
+“Let’s look for the cliff dwellers, Mother.”
+
+Thalia leaned forward, her fine, sharp profile dimly outlined against
+the shifting background of arches, and Fletcher slipped to his feet, his
+arm about her neck. “There!”
+
+We were reaching the New York end of the bridge, and I had a swift
+glimpse of their cliff dwellers—lights in massed buildings, like ancient
+camp fires along a receding mountain side. Just then Winchester nosed
+out of the slow line, Dorothy screamed, the light from another car
+tunnelled through our windows, the car trembled under the sudden grip of
+brakes, and like a crazy top spun sickeningly about, with a final thud
+against the stone abutment. A shatter of glass, a confusion of motor
+horns about us, a moment while the tautness of shock held me rigid.
+
+Around me that periphery of turmoil—the usual recriminations, “what the
+hell you think you’re doing?”—the shriek of a siren on an approaching
+motor cycle. Within the circle I tried to move across the narrow space
+of the car. Fletcher was crying; vaguely I knew that the door had swung
+open, that Thalia was crouching on her knees, the rain and the lights
+pouring on her head and shoulders; her hat was gone, her wide fur collar
+looked like a drenched and lifeless animal. “Hush, Fletcher.” I managed
+to force movement into my stiff body. “Are you hurt? Thalia—” Then
+outside Winchester, with the bristling fury of panic, was trying to lift
+her drooping head. “Thalia! My God, you aren’t hurt!” Someone focussed a
+searchlight on the car as Winchester got his arms about her and lifted
+her out through the shattered door.
+
+Over the springing line of the stone arch I saw the cliff dwellers’
+fires and I thought as I scrambled out to follow Winchester, “She was
+leaning forward, looking at those, and that terrific spin of the car
+must have knocked her head on the door as it lurched open.”
+
+“Lay her down, man!” An important little fellow had rushed up, a doctor
+evidently. “Lay her down, you fool!” Someone threw down a robe, and
+Winchester, as if Thalia were a drowned feather, knelt with her, laid
+her there on the pavement. I was down beside her and the fussy little
+man also. She did look drowned, drowned in that beating sea of tumult,
+that terrific honking of motors, unwilling to stop an instant even
+for—was it death? Under the white glare of headlights her lovely face
+had the empty shallowness, the husklikeness of death. The little doctor
+had his pointed beard close to her breast; he lifted one of her long
+eyelids. “She’s just fainted, eh, doctor?” Winchester’s angry voice tore
+at him.
+
+The little man rose slowly. “She your wife? I’m sorry. Death must have
+been instantaneous. A blow on the temple.”
+
+With a kind of roar Winchester was down there beside Thalia, lifting
+her, her head lolling against his shoulder, his face bent over her.
+“Thalia! Thalia! Do you hear? Wake up!” I think he even shook her in his
+baffled fright and rage. “Thalia, do you hear me? I want you to open
+your eyes. You weren’t hurt. That was nothing.” And then, “Dearest, you
+must!” and more words, frantic, wild words, mouthed close to her empty
+face. I touched his shoulder, sick with pity, but he staggered up to his
+feet, lifting her with him. Fletcher pressed shivering against me, and I
+turned for an instant to the child. Then I heard Thalia’s voice, blurred
+and queer, “You called me, Win?” and Winchester’s sudden, triumphant
+laugh. She was standing against his shoulder, still with that husklike
+face, but she spoke again, “You did call me?”
+
+“Here, let’s get out of this.” Winchester was again the efficient,
+competent man of affairs. The traffic cops were shouting, the lines of
+cars began to move. Winchester couldn’t start his motor. Something had
+smashed. His card and a few words left responsibility with an officer,
+and even as an ambulance shrilled up, he was helping Thalia into a taxi.
+“You take the children, will you?” to me, and “Get her another taxi,
+will you?” to the officer. He had closed the taxi door after himself,
+and was gone, leaving us to the waning curiosity of passing cars. As we
+rode off in a second taxi, I had a glimpse of the little doctor, his
+face incredulous, his beard wagging, as he spoke to the officer.
+
+Dorothy was, characteristically, tearfully indignant that her father had
+left her to me. Fletcher was silent as we bumped along under the
+elevated tracks, but presently he tugged at my sleeve, and I heard his
+faint whisper. “What is it?” I asked.
+
+“Is my mother really dead?” he repeated.
+
+“Of course not, Fletcher. You saw her get into the cab with your
+father.”
+
+“Why didn’t Daddy take us too?” wailed Dorothy, and I had to turn to
+her, although my nerves echoed her question.
+
+The house door swung open even as the taxi bumped the curb, and the
+butler hurried out with an umbrella which we were too draggled to need.
+
+“Mr. Corson instructed me to pay the man, madam.” He led us into the
+hall, where a waiting maid popped the children at once into the tiny
+elevator.
+
+“Will you wait for the elevator, madam? The library is one flight.” The
+butler led me up the stairs, and I dropped into a low chair near the
+fire, vaguely aware of the long, narrow room, with discreet gold of the
+walls giving back light from soft lamps. “I’ll tell Mr. Corson you have
+come.”
+
+“Is Mrs. Corson—does she seem all right?” I asked.
+
+“Quite, madam. It was a fortunate accident, with no one hurt.”
+
+Well, perhaps it had addled my brain! I waited in a kind of numbness for
+Winchester to come.
+
+Presently he strode in, his feet silent on the thick rugs.
+
+“Sorry,” he began, abruptly. “I wanted to look the children over. Not a
+scratch on them. You’re all right, of course?”
+
+“Oh, yes. But Thalia—”
+
+“She won’t even have a doctor. I put her straight to bed—she’s so damned
+nervous, you know. Hot-water bottles ... she was cold. I think she’s
+asleep now. Said she’d see you in the morning. You’ll stay here, of
+course.” He swallowed in a gulp the whiskey he had poured. “Have some,
+Mary? Or would you like something hot?”
+
+“No, thanks. If you’re sure she’s all right I’ll go to bed.”
+
+“Sure?” His laugh was defiant. “Did that damn fool on the bridge throw a
+scare into you? He gave me a bad minute, I’ll say. If that car hadn’t
+cut in on me—I told Walter last week the brakes needed looking at. They
+shouldn’t grab like that. Might have been serious.”
+
+“Since it wasn’t—” I rose, wearily, watching him pour amber liquid
+slowly into his glass—“if you’ll have someone show me my room—”
+
+“After Chinese bandits, a little skid ought not to matter to you.” His
+prominent eyes gleamed hostilely at me; he wanted some assurance offered
+that the skidding wasn’t his fault, that only his skill had saved all
+our lives.
+
+“I can’t see Thalia?” I said.
+
+“She’s asleep. Nobody can see her.” His eyes moved coldly from my face,
+down to my muddy shoes. “Better give your clothes to the maid for a
+pressing. You’re smeared quite a bit.”
+
+I woke early, with clear September sun at the windows of the room, with
+blue sky behind the sharp city contours beyond the windows. There was
+none too much time to make the morning train for Albany, where I had an
+engagement that day, an interview for an article. The maid who answered
+my ring insisted on serving breakfast to me in borrowed elegance of
+satin negligee. Mrs. Corson was resting, and would see me before I left.
+Something—the formality and luxury, the complicated household so unlike
+the old days at the Cape—accented the queer dread which had filtered all
+night through my dreams.
+
+I saw Thalia for only a moment. The heavy silk curtains were drawn
+against the light and in the dimness her face seemed to gather shadows.
+
+“Are you quite all right, Thalia?” I hesitated beside her bed, as if my
+voice might tear apart the veils of drowsiness in which she rested.
+
+“Why, yes—” as if she wondered. Then she added, so low that I wasn’t
+sure what I heard, “It is hard to get back in.”
+
+“What, Thalia?” I bent toward her.
+
+“I’ll be myself once I’ve slept enough.” Her voice was clearer. “Come
+back soon, won’t you, Mary?” Then her eyelids closed and her face merged
+into the shadows of the room. I tiptoed away, thinking she slept.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was late November before I returned to New York. Free-lancing has a
+way of drawing herrings across your trail and, when I might have drifted
+back in early November, a younger sister wanted me to come home to
+Arlington for her marriage. I had written to Thalia, first a note of
+courtesy for my week with her, and then a letter begging for news. Like
+many people of charm, she wrote indifferent letters, stiff and
+childlike, lacking in her personal quality. Her brief reply was more
+unsatisfactory than usual. The children were away in school, lots of
+cold rainy weather, everything was going well. At the end, in writing
+unlike hers, as if she scribbled the line in haste, “I am lonely. When
+are you coming?” I answered that I’d show up as soon as the wedding was
+over.
+
+The night I reached Arlington was rainy, too, and I insisted upon a taxi
+equipped with chains. My brother thought that amusing, and at dinner
+gave the family an exaggerated account of my caution. I tried to offer
+him some futile sisterly advice and, to point up my remarks, told about
+that drive in from Long Island with the Corsons. I had never spoken of
+it before; I found that an inexplicable inhibition kept me from making
+much of a story.
+
+“Well, nothing happened, did it?” Richard was triumphant.
+
+“A great deal might have,” I insisted. “Thalia was stunned, and I was
+disagreeably startled.”
+
+“Thalia was stunned, was she?” An elderly cousin of ours from New Jersey
+picked out that item. I saw her fitting it into some pigeon hole, but
+she said nothing until late that evening when she stopped at the door of
+my room.
+
+“Have you seen Thalia Corson lately?” she asked.
+
+“I haven’t been in New York since September.”
+
+She closed the door and lowered her voice, a kind of avid curiosity
+riding astride the decorous pity she expressed.
+
+“I called there, one day last week. I didn’t know what was the matter
+with her. I hadn’t heard of that accident.”
+
+I waited, an old antagonism for my proper cousin blurring the fear that
+shot up through my thoughts.
+
+“Thalia was always _individual_, of course.” She used the word like a
+reproach. “But she had _savoir faire_. But now she’s—well—_queer_. Do
+you suppose her head was affected?”
+
+“How is she queer?”
+
+“She looks miserable, too. Thin and white.”
+
+“But how—”
+
+“I am telling you, Mary. She was quite rude. First she didn’t come down
+for ever so long, although I sent up word that I’d come up to her room
+if she was resting. Then her whole manner—well, I was really offended.
+She scarcely heard a word I said to her, just sat with her back to a
+window so I couldn’t get a good look at her. When I said, ‘You don’t
+look like yourself,’ she actually sneered. ‘Myself?’ she said. ‘How do
+you know?’ Imagine! I tried to chatter along as if I noticed nothing. I
+flatter myself I can manage awkward moments rather well. But Thalia sat
+there and I am sure she muttered under her breath. Finally I rose to go
+and I said, meaning well, ‘You’d better take a good rest. You look half
+dead.’ Mary, I wish you’d seen the look she gave me! Really I was
+frightened. Just then their dog came in, you know, Dorothy’s little
+terrier. Thalia used to be silly about him. Well, she actually tried to
+hide in the folds of the curtain, and I don’t wonder! The dog was
+terrified at her. He crawled on his belly out of the room. Now she must
+have been cruel to him if he acts like that. I think Winchester should
+have a specialist. I didn’t know how to account for any of it; but of
+course a blow on the head can affect a person.”
+
+Fortunately my mother interrupted us just then, and I didn’t, by my
+probable rudeness, give my cousin reason to suppose that the accident
+had affected me, too. I sifted through her remarks and decided they
+might mean only that Thalia found her more of a bore than usual. As for
+Nug, perhaps he retreated from the cousin! During the next few days the
+house had so much wedding turmoil that she found a chance only for a few
+more dribbles: one that Thalia had given up all her clubs—she had
+belonged to several—the other that she had sent the children to boarding
+schools instead of keeping them at home. “Just when her husband is doing
+so well, too!”
+
+I was glad when the wedding party had departed, and I could plan to go
+back to New York. Personally I think a low-caste Chinese wedding is
+saner and more interesting than a modern American affair. My cousin
+“should think I could stay home with the family,” and “couldn’t we go to
+New York together, if I insisted upon gadding off?” We couldn’t. I saw
+to that. She hoped that I’d look up Thalia. Maybe I could advise
+Winchester about a specialist.
+
+I did telephone as soon as I got in. That sentence “I am lonely,” in her
+brief note kept recurring. Her voice sounded thin and remote, a poor
+connection, I thought. She was sorry. She was giving a dinner for
+Winchester that evening. The next day?
+
+I had piles of proof to wade through that next day, and it was late
+afternoon when I finally went to the Corson house. The butler looked
+doubtful but I insisted, and he left me in the hall while he went off
+with my card. He returned, a little smug in his message: Mrs. Corson was
+resting and had left word she must not be disturbed. Well, you can’t
+protest to a perfect butler, and I started down the steps, indignant,
+when a car stopped in front of the house, a liveried chauffeur opened
+the door, and Winchester emerged. He glanced at me in the twilight and
+extended an abrupt hand.
+
+“Would Thalia see you?” he asked.
+
+“No.” For a moment I hoped he might convoy me past the butler. “Isn’t
+she well? She asked me to come to-day.”
+
+“I hoped she’d see you.” Winchester’s hand smoothed at his little
+mustache. “She’s just tired from her dinner last night. She overexerted
+herself, was quite the old Thalia.” He looked at me slowly in the dusk,
+and I had a brief feeling that he was really looking at me, no, _for_
+me, for the first time in all our meetings, as if he considered me
+without relation to himself for once. “Come in again, will you?” He
+thrust away whatever else he thought of saying. “Thalia really would
+like to see you. Can I give you a lift?”
+
+“No, thanks. I need a walk.” As I started off I knew the moment had just
+missed some real significance. If I had ventured a question ... but,
+after all, what could I ask him? He had said that Thalia was “just
+tired.” That night I sent a note to her, saying I had called and asking
+when I might see her.
+
+She telephoned me the next day. Would I come in for Thanksgiving? The
+children would be home, and she wanted an old-fashioned day, everything
+but the sleigh ride New York couldn’t furnish. Dinner would be at six,
+for the children; perhaps I could come in early. I felt a small
+grievance at being put off for almost a week, but I promised to come.
+
+That was the week I heard gossip about Winchester, in the curious
+devious way of gossip. Atlantic City, and a gaudy lady. Someone having
+an inconspicuous fortnight of convalescence there had seen them. I
+wasn’t surprised, except perhaps that Winchester chose Atlantic City.
+Thalia was too fine; he couldn’t grow up to her. I wondered how much she
+knew. She must, years ago, with her sensitiveness, have discovered that
+Winchester was stationary so far as love went and, being stationary
+himself, was inclined to move the object toward which he directed his
+passion.
+
+On Thursday, as I walked across Central Park, gaunt and deserted in the
+chilly afternoon light, I decided that Thalia probably knew more about
+Winchester’s affairs than gossip had given me. Perhaps that was why she
+had sent the children away. He had always been conventionally discreet,
+but discretion would be a tawdry coin among Thalia’s shining values.
+
+I was shown up to the nursery, with a message from Thalia that she would
+join me there soon. Fletcher seemed glad to see me, in a shy, excited
+way, and stood close to my chair while Dorothy wound up her phonograph
+for a dance record and pirouetted about us with her doll.
+
+“Mother keeps her door tight locked all the time,” whispered Fletcher
+doubtfully. “We can’t go in. This morning I knocked and knocked but no
+one answered.”
+
+“Do you like your school?” I asked cheerfully.
+
+“I like my home better.” His eyes, so like Thalia’s with their long,
+arched lids, had young bewilderment under their lashes.
+
+“See me!” called Dorothy. “Watch me do this!”
+
+While she twirled I felt Fletcher’s thin body stiffen against my arm, as
+if a kind of panic froze him. Thalia stood in the doorway. Was the boy
+afraid of her? Dorothy wasn’t. She cried, “See me, Mother! Look at me!”
+and in her lusty confusion, I had a moment to look at Thalia before she
+greeted me. She was thin, but she had always been that. She did not heed
+Dorothy’s shrieks, but watched Fletcher, a kind of slanting dread on her
+white, proud face. I had thought, that week on Long Island, that she
+shut herself away from me, refusing to restore the intimacy of ten years
+earlier. But now a stiff loneliness hedged her as if she were rimmed in
+ice and snow. She smiled. “Dear Mary,” she said. At the sound of her
+voice I lost my slightly cherished injury that she had refused earlier
+to see me. “Let’s go down to the library,” she went on. “It’s almost
+time for the turkey.” I felt Fletcher break his intent watchfulness with
+a long sigh, and as the children went ahead of us, I caught at Thalia’s
+arm. “Thalia—” She drew away, and her arm, under the soft flowing sleeve
+of dull blue stuff, was so slight it seemed brittle. I thought suddenly
+that she must have chosen that gown because it concealed so much beneath
+its lovely embroidered folds. “You aren’t well, Thalia. What _is_ it?”
+
+“Well enough! Don’t fuss about me.” And even as I stared reproachfully
+she seemed to gather vitality, so that the dry pallor of her face became
+smooth ivory and her eyes were no longer hollow and distressed. “Come.”
+
+The dinner was amazingly like one of our old holidays. Winchester wore
+his best mood, the children were delighted and happy. Thalia, under the
+gold flames of the tall black candles, was a gracious and lovely
+hostess. I almost forgot my troublesome anxiety, wondering whether my
+imagination hadn’t been playing me tricks.
+
+We had coffee by the library fire and some of Winchester’s old
+Chartreuse. Then he insisted upon exhibiting his new radio. Thalia
+demurred, but the children begged for a concert. “This is their party,
+Tally!” Winchester opened the doors of the old teakwood cabinet which
+housed the apparatus. Thalia sank back into the shadows of a wing chair,
+and I watched her over my cigarette. Off guard, she had relaxed into
+strange apathy. Was it the firelight or my unaccustomed Chartreuse? Her
+features seemed blurred as if a clumsy hand trying to trace a drawing
+made uncertain outlines. Strange groans and whirrs from the radio.
+
+“Win, I can’t stand it!” Her voice dragged from some great distance.
+“Not to-night.” She swayed to her feet, her hands restless under the
+loose sleeves.
+
+“Static,” growled Winchester. “Wait a minute.”
+
+“No!” Again it was as if vitality flowed into her. “Come, children. You
+have had your party. Time to go upstairs. I’ll go with you.”
+
+They were well trained, I thought. Kisses for their father, a curtsy
+from Dorothy for me, and a grave little hand extended by Fletcher. Then
+Winchester came toward the fire as the three of them disappeared.
+
+“You’re good for Thalia,” he said, in an undertone. “She’s—well, what do
+you make of her?”
+
+“Why?” I fenced, unwilling to indulge him in my vague anxieties.
+
+“You saw how she acted about the radio. She has whims like that. Funny,
+she was herself at dinner. Last week she gave a dinner for me, important
+affair, pulled it off brilliantly. Then she shuts herself up and won’t
+open her door for days. I can’t make it out. She’s thin—”
+
+“Have you had a doctor?” I asked, banally.
+
+“That’s another thing. She absolutely refuses. Made a fool of me when I
+brought one here. Wouldn’t unlock her door. Says she just wants to rest.
+But—” he glanced toward the door—“do you know that fool on the bridge
+... that little runt? The other night, I swear I saw him rushing down
+the steps as I came home. Thalia just laughed when I asked about it.”
+
+Something clicked in my thoughts, a quick suspicion, drawing a parallel
+between her conduct and that of people I had seen in the East. Was it
+some drug? That lethargy, and the quick spring into vitality? Days
+behind a closed door—
+
+“I wish you’d persuade her to go off for a few weeks. I’m frightfully
+pressed just now, in an important business matter, but if she’d go
+off—maybe you’d go with her?”
+
+“Where, Winchester?” We both started, with the guilt of conspirators.
+Thalia came slowly into the room. “Where shall I go? Would you
+suggest—Atlantic City?”
+
+“Perhaps. Although some place farther south this time of year—”
+Winchester’s imperturbability seemed to me far worse than some slight
+sign of embarrassment; it marked him as so rooted in successful deceit
+whether Thalia’s inquiry were innocent or not. “If Mary would go with
+you. I can’t get away just now.”
+
+“I shall not go anywhere until your deal goes through. Then—” Thalia
+seated herself again in the wing chair. The hand she lifted to her
+cheek, fingers just touching her temple beneath the soft drift of hair,
+seemed transparent against the firelight. “Have you told Mary about your
+deal? Winchester plans to be the most important man on Automobile Row.”
+Was there mockery in her tone? “I can’t tell you the details, but he’s
+buying out all the rest.”
+
+“Don’t be absurd. Not all of them. It’s a big merging of companies,
+that’s all.”
+
+“We entertain the lords at dinner, and in some mysterious way that
+smooths the merging. It makes a wife almost necessary.”
+
+“Invite Mary to the next shebang, and let her see how well you do it.”
+Winchester was irritated. “For all your scoffing, there’s as much
+politics to being president of such a concern as of the United States.”
+
+“Yes, I’ll invite Mary. Then she’ll see that you don’t really want to
+dispense with me—yet.”
+
+“Good God, I meant for a week or two.”
+
+As Winchester, lighting a cigarette, snapped the head from several
+matches in succession, I moved my chair a little backward, distressed.
+There was a thin wire of significance drawn so taut between the two that
+I felt at any moment it might splinter in my face.
+
+“It’s so lucky—” malice flickered on her thin face—“that you weren’t
+hurt in that skid on the bridge, Mary. Winchester would just have tossed
+you in the river to conceal your body.”
+
+“If you’re going over that again!” Winchester strode out of the room. As
+Thalia turned her head slightly to watch him, her face and throat had
+the taut rigidity of pain so great that it congeals the nerves.
+
+I was silent. With Thalia I had never dared intrude except when she
+admitted me. In another moment she too had risen. “You’d better go home,
+Mary,” she said, slowly. “I might tell you things you wouldn’t care to
+live with.”
+
+I tried to touch her hand, but she retreated. If I had been wiser or
+more courageous, I might have helped her. I shall always have that
+regret, and that can’t be much better to live with than whatever she
+might have told me. All I could say was stupidly, “Thalia, if there’s
+anything I can do! You know I love you.”
+
+“Love? That’s a strange word,” she said, and her laugh in the quiet room
+was like the shrilling of a grasshopper on a hot afternoon. “One thing I
+will tell you.” (She stood now on the stairway above me.) “Love has no
+power. It never shouts out across great space. Only fear and self-desire
+are strong.”
+
+Then she had gone, and the butler appeared silently, to lead me to the
+little dressing room.
+
+“The car is waiting for you, madam,” he assured me, opening the door. I
+didn’t want it, but Winchester was waiting, too, hunched angrily in a
+corner.
+
+“That’s the way she acts,” he began. “Now you’ve seen her I’ll talk
+about it. Thalia never bore grudges, you know that.”
+
+“It seems deeper than a grudge,” I said cautiously.
+
+“That reference to the ... the accident. That’s a careless remark I
+made. I don’t even remember just what I said. Something entirely
+inconsequential. Just that it was damned lucky no one was hurt when I
+was putting this merger across. You know if it’d got in the papers it
+would have queered me. Wrecking my own car ... there’s always a
+suspicion you’ve been drinking. She picked it up and won’t drop it. It’s
+like a fixed idea. If you can suggest something. I want her to see a
+nerve specialist. What does she do behind that locked door?”
+
+“What about Atlantic City?” I asked, abruptly. I saw his dark eyes
+bulge, trying to ferret out my meaning, there in the dusky interior of
+the car.
+
+“A week there with you might do her good.” That was all he would say,
+and I hadn’t courage enough to accuse him, even in Thalia’s name.
+
+“At least you’ll try to see her again,” he said, as the car stopped in
+front of my apartment house.
+
+                   *       *       *       *       *
+
+I couldn’t sleep that night. I felt that just over the edge of my
+squirming thoughts there lay clear and whole the meaning of it all, but
+I couldn’t reach past thought. And then, stupidly enough, I couldn’t get
+up the next day. Just a feverish cold, but the doctor insisted on a week
+in bed and subdued me with warnings about influenza.
+
+I had begun to feel steady enough on my feet to consider venturing
+outside my apartment when the invitation came, for a formal dinner at
+the Corsons’. Scrawled under the engraving was a line, “Please come. T.”
+I sent a note, explaining that I had been ill, and that I should
+come—the dinner was a fortnight away—unless I stayed too wobbly.
+
+I meant that night to arrive properly with the other guests, but my
+watch, which had never before done anything except lose a few minutes
+a day, had gained an unsuspected hour. Perhaps the hands
+stuck—perhaps—Well, I was told I was early, Thalia was dressing, and
+only the children, home for the Christmas holidays, were available. So I
+went again to the nursery. Dorothy was as plump and unconcerned as ever,
+but Fletcher had a strained, listening effect and he looked too thin and
+white for a little boy. They were having their supper on a small table,
+and Fletcher kept going to the door, looking out into the hall. “Mother
+promised to come up,” he said.
+
+The maid cleared away their dishes, and Dorothy, who was in a beguiling
+mood, chose to sit on my lap and entertain me with stories. One was
+about Nug the terrier; he had been sent out to the country because
+Mother didn’t like him any more.
+
+“I think,” interrupted Fletcher, “she likes him, but he has a queer
+notion about her.”
+
+“She doesn’t like him,” repeated Dorothy. Then she dismissed that
+subject, and Fletcher too, for curiosity about the old silver chain I
+wore. I didn’t notice that the boy had slipped away, but he must have
+gone down stairs; for presently his fingers closed over my wrist, like a
+frightened bird’s claw, and I turned to see him, trembling, his eyes
+dark with terror. He couldn’t speak but he clawed at me, and I shook
+Dorothy from my knees and let him pull me out to the hall.
+
+“What is it, Fletcher?” He only pointed down the stairway, toward his
+mother’s door, and I fled down those stairs. _What_ had the child seen?
+
+“The door wasn’t locked—” he gasped behind me—“I opened it very still
+and went in—”
+
+I pushed it ajar. Thalia sat before her dressing table, with the
+threefold mirrors reiterating like a macabre symphony her rigid,
+contorted face. Her gown, burnished blue and green like peacock’s
+feathers, sheathed her gaudily, and silver, blue, and green chiffon
+clouded her shoulders. Her hands clutched at the edge of the dressing
+table. For an instant I could not move, thrust through with a terror
+like the boy’s. Then I stumbled across the room. Before I reached her,
+the mirrors echoed her long shudder, her eyelids dragged open, and I saw
+her stare at my reflection wavering toward her. Then her hands relaxed,
+moved quickly toward the crystal jars along the heavy glass of the table
+and, without a word, she leaned softly forward, to draw a scarlet line
+along her white lips.
+
+“How cold it is in here,” I said, stupidly, glancing toward the windows,
+where the heavy silk damask, drawn across, lay in motionless folds.
+“Fletcher said—” I was awkward, an intruder.
+
+“He startled me.” Her voice came huskily. She rouged her hollow cheeks.
+It was as if she drew another face for herself. “I didn’t have time to
+lock the door.” Then turning, she sought him out, huddled at the
+doorway, like a moth on a pin of fear. “It wasn’t nice of you, Son. It’s
+all right now. You see?” She rose, drawing her lovely scarf over her
+shoulders. “You should never open closed doors.” She blew him a kiss
+from her finger tips. “Now run along and forget you were so careless.”
+
+The icy stir of air against my skin had ceased. I stared at her, my mind
+racing back over what I knew of various drugs and the stigmata of their
+victims. But her eyes were clear and undilated, a little piteous.
+“This,” she said, “is the last time. I can’t endure it.” And then, with
+that amazing flood of vitality, as if a sudden connection had been made
+and current flowed again, “Come, Mary. It is time we were down stairs.”
+
+I thought Fletcher peered over the railing as we went down. But a swift
+upward glance failed to detect him.
+
+The dinner itself I don’t remember definitely except that it glittered
+and sparkled, moving with slightly alcoholic wit through elaborate
+courses, while I sat like an abashed poor relation at a feast, unable to
+stop watching Thalia, wondering whether my week of fever had given me a
+tendency to hallucinations. At the end a toast was proposed, to
+Winchester Corson and his extraordinary success. “It’s done, then?”
+Thalia’s gaiety had sudden malice—as she looked across at Winchester,
+seating himself after a slightly pompous speech. “Sealed and cemented
+forever?”
+
+“Thanks to his charming wife, too,” cried a plump, bald man, waving his
+glass. “A toast to Mrs. Corson!”
+
+Thalia rose, her rouge like flecked scarlet on white paper. One hand
+drew her floating scarf about her throat, and her painted lips moved
+without a sound. There was an instant of agitated discomfort, as the
+guests felt their mood broken so abruptly, into which her voice pierced,
+thin, high. “I ... deserve ... such a toast—”
+
+I pushed back my chair and reached her side.
+
+“I’ll take her—” I saw Winchester’s face, wine-flushed, angry rather
+than concerned. “Come, Thalia.”
+
+“Don’t bother. I’ll be all right—now.” But she moved ahead of me so
+swiftly that I couldn’t touch her. I thought she tried to close her door
+against me, but I was too quick for that. The silver candelabra still
+burned above the mirrors. “Mary!” Her voice was low again as she spoke a
+telephone number. “Tell him _at once_.” She stood away from me, her face
+a white mask with spots of scarlet, her peacock dress ashimmer. I did as
+I was bid and when I had said, “Mrs. Corson wishes you at once,” there
+was an emptiness where a man’s voice had come which suggested a sudden
+leap out of a room somewhere.
+
+“I can never get in again!” Her fingers curled under the chiffon scarf.
+“Never! The black agony of fighting back—If he—” She bent her head,
+listening. “Go down to the door and let him in,” she said.
+
+I crept down the stairs. Voices from the drawing-room. Winchester was
+seeing the party through. Almost as I reached the door and opened it I
+found him there: the little doctor with the pointed beard. He brushed
+past me up the stairs. He knew the way, then! I was scarcely surprised
+to find Thalia’s door fast shut when I reached it. Behind it came not a
+sound. Fletcher, like an unhappy sleepwalker, his eyes heavy, slipped
+down beside me, clinging to my hand. I heard farewells, churring of
+taxis and cars. Then Winchester came up the stairs.
+
+“She’s shut you out?” He raised his fist and pounded on the door. “I’m
+going to stop this nonsense!”
+
+“I sent for a doctor,” I said. “He’s in there.”
+
+“Is it—” his face was puffy and gray—“that same fool?”
+
+Then the door opened, and the man confronted us.
+
+“It is over,” he said.
+
+“What have you done to her?” Winchester lunged toward the door, but the
+little man’s lifted hand had dignity enough somehow to stop him.
+
+“She won’t come back again.” He spoke slowly. “You may look if you care
+to.”
+
+“She’s dead?”
+
+“She died—months ago. There on the bridge. But you called to her, and
+she thought you wanted—_her_.”
+
+Winchester thrust him aside and strode into the room. I dared one glance
+and saw only pale hair shining on the pillow. Then Fletcher flung
+himself against me, sobbing, and I knelt to hold him close against the
+fear we both felt.
+
+What Winchester saw I never knew. He hurled himself past us, down the
+stairs. And Thalia was buried with the coffin lid fast closed under the
+flowers.
+
+
+
+
+                          Transcriber’s Notes
+
+
+Transcribed from Harper’s Magazine, vol. 152, May 1926, pp. 684-695.
+
+New original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the public
+domain.
+
+The original spelling and punctuation were mostly preserved. Minor
+typesetting mistakes were silently corrected. All other changes
+(before/after) are listed here:
+
+   [p. 686]:
+   ... stiff body. “Are your hurt? Thalia—” ...
+   ... stiff body. “Are you hurt? Thalia—” ...
+
+   [p. 687]:
+   ... hurried out with umbrella which we ...
+   ... hurried out with an umbrella which we ...
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 79294 ***
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+   <!-- AUTHOR="Helen R. Hull" -->
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+<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 79294 ***</div>
+
+
+<div class="frontmatter chapter">
+<a id="page-684" class="pagenum" title="684"></a>
+<h1 class="title">
+Clay-Shuttered Doors
+</h1>
+
+<p class="subt">
+A Story
+</p>
+
+<p class="aut">
+Helen R. Hull
+</p>
+
+<p class="src">
+Harper’s Magazine, vol. 152, May 1926, pp. 684-695.
+</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p class="first">
+For months I have tried not to
+think about Thalia Corson. Anything
+may invoke her, with her
+langorous fragility, thin wrists and
+throat, her elusive face with its long eyelids.
+I can’t quite remember her mouth.
+When I try to visualize her sharply I
+get soft pale hair, the lovely curve from
+her temple to chin, and eyes blue and
+intense. Her boy, Fletcher, has eyes
+like hers.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+To-day I came back to New York,
+and my taxi to an uptown hotel was
+held for a few minutes in Broadway
+traffic where the afternoon sunlight
+fused into a dazzle a great expanse of
+plateglass and elaborate show motor
+cars. The “Regal Eight”—Winchester
+Corson’s establishment. I huddled as
+the taxi jerked ahead, in spite of knowledge
+that Winchester would scarcely
+peer out of that elegant setting into taxi
+cabs. I didn’t wish to see him, nor
+would he care to see me. But the
+glimpse had started the whole affair
+churning again, and I went through it
+deliberately, hoping that it might have
+smoothed out into some rational explanation.
+Sometimes things do, if you
+leave them alone, like logs submerged
+in water that float up later, encrusted
+thickly. This affair won’t add to itself.
+It stays unique and smooth, sliding
+through the rest of life without annexing
+a scrap of seaweed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I suppose, for an outsider, it all begins
+with the moment on Brooklyn Bridge;
+behind that are the years of my friendship
+with Thalia. Our families had
+summer cottages on the Cape. She was
+just enough older, however, so that not
+until I had finished college did I catch
+up to any intimacy with her. She had
+married Winchester Corson, who at that
+time fitted snugly into the phrase “a
+rising young man.” During those first
+years, while his yeast sent up preliminary
+bubbles, Thalia continued to spend
+her summers near Boston, with Winchester
+coming for occasional weekends.
+Fletcher was, unintentionally, born
+there; he began his difficult existence
+by arriving as a seven-months baby.
+Two years later Thalia had a second
+baby to bring down with her. Those
+were the summers which gave my friendship
+for Thalia its sturdy roots. They
+made me wonder, too, why she had
+chosen Winchester Corson. He was
+personable enough; tall, with prominent
+dark eyes and full mouth under a neat
+mustache, restless hands, and an uncertain
+disposition. He could be a charming
+companion, sailing the catboat with
+dash, managing lobster parties on the
+shore; or he would, unaccountably,
+settle into a foggy grouch, when everyone—children
+and females particularly—was
+supposed to approach only on
+tiptoe, bearing burnt offerings. The
+last time he spent a fortnight there,
+before he moved the family to the new
+Long Island estate, I had my own difficulties
+with him. There had always
+been an undertone of sex in his attitude
+toward me, but I had thought “that’s
+just his male conceit.” That summer
+he was a nuisance, coming upon me
+<a id="page-685" class="pagenum" title="685"></a>
+with his insistent, messy kisses, usually
+with Thalia in the next room. They
+were the insulting kind of kisses that
+aren’t at all personal, and I could have
+ended them fast enough if there hadn’t
+been the complication of Thalia and
+my love for her. If I made Winchester
+angry he’d put an end to Thalia’s relation
+to me. I didn’t, anyway, want her
+to know what a fool he was. Of course
+she did know, but I thought then that I
+could protect her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There are, I have decided, two ways
+with love. You can hold one love,
+knowing that, if it is a living thing, it
+must develop and change. That takes
+maturity, and care, and a consciousness
+of the other person. That was Thalia’s
+way. Or you enjoy the beginning of
+love and, once you’re past that, you
+have to hunt for a new love, because
+the excitement seems to be gone. Men
+like Winchester, who use all their brains
+on their jobs, never grow up; they go
+on thinking that preliminary stir and
+snap is love itself. Cut flowers, that
+was Winchester’s idea, while to Thalia
+love was a tree.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But I said Brooklyn Bridge was the
+point at which the affair had its start.
+It seems impossible to begin there, or
+anywhere, as I try to account for what
+happened. Ten years after the summer
+when Winchester made himself
+such a nuisance—that last summer the
+Corsons spent at the Cape—I went
+down at the end of the season for a week
+with Thalia and the children at the
+Long Island place. Winchester drove
+out for the weekend. The children were
+mournful because they didn’t wish to
+leave the shore for school; a sharp September
+wind brought rain and fog down
+the Sound, and Winchester nourished
+all that Sunday a disagreeable grouch.
+I had seen nothing of them for most
+of the ten intervening years, as I had
+been first in France and then in China,
+after feature-article stuff. The week had
+been pleasant: good servants, comfortable
+house, a half-moon of white beach
+below the drop of lawn; Thalia a stimulating
+listener, with Fletcher, a thin,
+eager boy of twelve, like her in his intensity
+of interest. Dorothy, a plump,
+pink child of ten, had no use for stories
+of French villages or Chinese temples.
+Nug, the wire-haired terrier, and her
+dolls were more immediate and convincing.
+Thalia was thin and noncommittal,
+except for her interest in what I had
+seen and done. I couldn’t, for all my
+affection, establish any real contact.
+She spoke casually of the town house,
+of dinners she gave for Winchester, of
+his absorption in business affairs. But
+she was sheathed in polished aloofness
+and told me nothing of herself. She
+did say, one evening, that she was glad
+I was to be in New York that winter.
+Winchester, like his daughter Dorothy,
+had no interest in foreign parts once he
+had ascertained that I hadn’t even seen
+the Chinese quarters of the motor company
+in which he was concerned. He
+had an amusing attitude toward me:
+careful indifference, no doubt calculated
+to put me in my place as no longer alluring.
+Thalia tried to coax him into listening
+to some of my best stories. “Tell
+him about the bandits, Mary”—but his
+sulkiness brought, after dinner, a casual
+explanation from her, untinged with
+apology. “He’s working on an enormous
+project, a merging of several companies,
+and he’s so soaked in it he can’t
+come up for a breath.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the late afternoon the maid set out
+high tea for us, before our departure for
+New York. Thalia suggested that perhaps
+one highball was enough if Winchester
+intended to drive over the wet
+roads. Win immediately mixed a second,
+asking if she had ever seen him in
+the least affected. “Be better for you
+than tea before a long damp drive, too.”
+He clinked the ice in his glass. “Jazz
+you up a bit.” Nug was begging for
+food and Thalia, bending to give him a
+corner of her sandwich, apparently did
+not hear Winchester. He looked about
+the room, a smug, owning look. The
+fire and candlelight shone in the heavy
+waxed rafters, made silver beads of the
+<a id="page-686" class="pagenum" title="686"></a>
+rain on the French windows. I watched
+him—heavier, more dominant, his prominent
+dark eyes and his lips sullen, as
+if the whiskey banked up his temper
+rather than appeased it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then Jim, the gardener, brought the
+car to the door; the children scrambled
+in. Dorothy wanted to take Nug, but
+her father said not if she wanted to sit
+with him and drive.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“How about chains, sir?” Jim held
+the umbrella for Thalia.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Too damned noisy. Don’t need
+them.” Winchester slammed the door
+and slid under the wheel. Thalia and
+I, with Fletcher between us, sat comfortably
+in the rear.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I like it better when Walter drives,
+don’t you, Mother?” said Fletcher as
+we slid down the drive out to the road.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Sh—Father likes to drive. And
+Walter likes Sunday off, too.” Thalia’s
+voice was cautious.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It’s too dark to see anything.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I can see lots,” announced Dorothy,
+whereupon Fletcher promptly turned
+the handle that pushed up the glass between
+the chauffeur’s seat and the rear.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The heavy car ran smoothly over the
+wet narrow road, with an occasional
+rumble and flare of headlights as some
+car swung past. Not till we reached
+the turnpike was there much traffic.
+There Winchester had to slacken his
+speed for other shiny beetles slipping
+along through the rain. Sometimes he
+cut past a car, weaving back into line
+in the glaring teeth of a car rushing
+down on him, and Fletcher would turn
+inquiringly toward his mother. The
+gleaming, wet darkness and the smooth
+motion made me drowsy, and I paid
+little heed until we slowed in a congestion
+of cars at the approach to the
+bridge. Far below on the black river,
+spaced red and white stars suggested
+slow-moving tugs, and beyond, faint
+lights splintered in the rain hinted at
+the city.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Let’s look for the cliff dwellers,
+Mother.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Thalia leaned forward, her fine, sharp
+profile dimly outlined against the shifting
+background of arches, and Fletcher
+slipped to his feet, his arm about her
+neck. “There!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We were reaching the New York end
+of the bridge, and I had a swift glimpse
+of their cliff dwellers—lights in massed
+buildings, like ancient camp fires along
+a receding mountain side. Just then
+Winchester nosed out of the slow line,
+Dorothy screamed, the light from another
+car tunnelled through our windows,
+the car trembled under the sudden
+grip of brakes, and like a crazy top spun
+sickeningly about, with a final thud
+against the stone abutment. A shatter
+of glass, a confusion of motor horns
+about us, a moment while the tautness
+of shock held me rigid.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Around me that periphery of turmoil—the
+usual recriminations, “what the
+hell you think you’re doing?”—the
+shriek of a siren on an approaching
+motor cycle. Within the circle I tried
+to move across the narrow space of the
+car. Fletcher was crying; vaguely I
+knew that the door had swung open,
+that Thalia was crouching on her knees,
+the rain and the lights pouring on her
+head and shoulders; her hat was gone,
+her wide fur collar looked like a drenched
+and lifeless animal. “Hush, Fletcher.”
+I managed to force movement into my
+stiff body. “Are <a id="corr-0"></a>you hurt? Thalia—”
+Then outside Winchester, with the
+bristling fury of panic, was trying to lift
+her drooping head. “Thalia! My God,
+you aren’t hurt!” Someone focussed a
+searchlight on the car as Winchester
+got his arms about her and lifted her
+out through the shattered door.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Over the springing line of the stone
+arch I saw the cliff dwellers’ fires and I
+thought as I scrambled out to follow
+Winchester, “She was leaning forward,
+looking at those, and that terrific spin
+of the car must have knocked her head
+on the door as it lurched open.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Lay her down, man!” An important
+little fellow had rushed up, a doctor
+evidently. “Lay her down, you fool!”
+Someone threw down a robe, and Winchester,
+<a id="page-687" class="pagenum" title="687"></a>
+as if Thalia were a drowned
+feather, knelt with her, laid her there
+on the pavement. I was down beside
+her and the fussy little man also. She
+did look drowned, drowned in that beating
+sea of tumult, that terrific honking
+of motors, unwilling to stop an instant
+even for—was it death? Under the
+white glare of headlights her lovely face
+had the empty shallowness, the husklikeness
+of death. The little doctor had
+his pointed beard close to her breast;
+he lifted one of her long eyelids. “She’s
+just fainted, eh, doctor?” Winchester’s
+angry voice tore at him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The little man rose slowly. “She
+your wife? I’m sorry. Death must
+have been instantaneous. A blow on
+the temple.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+With a kind of roar Winchester was
+down there beside Thalia, lifting her,
+her head lolling against his shoulder,
+his face bent over her. “Thalia! Thalia!
+Do you hear? Wake up!” I think he
+even shook her in his baffled fright and
+rage. “Thalia, do you hear me? I
+want you to open your eyes. You
+weren’t hurt. That was nothing.” And
+then, “Dearest, you must!” and more
+words, frantic, wild words, mouthed
+close to her empty face. I touched his
+shoulder, sick with pity, but he staggered
+up to his feet, lifting her with him.
+Fletcher pressed shivering against me,
+and I turned for an instant to the child.
+Then I heard Thalia’s voice, blurred and
+queer, “You called me, Win?” and
+Winchester’s sudden, triumphant laugh.
+She was standing against his shoulder,
+still with that husklike face, but she
+spoke again, “You did call me?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Here, let’s get out of this.” Winchester
+was again the efficient, competent
+man of affairs. The traffic cops
+were shouting, the lines of cars began
+to move. Winchester couldn’t start his
+motor. Something had smashed. His
+card and a few words left responsibility
+with an officer, and even as an ambulance
+shrilled up, he was helping Thalia
+into a taxi. “You take the children,
+will you?” to me, and “Get her another
+taxi, will you?” to the officer. He had
+closed the taxi door after himself, and
+was gone, leaving us to the waning curiosity
+of passing cars. As we rode off in
+a second taxi, I had a glimpse of the
+little doctor, his face incredulous, his
+beard wagging, as he spoke to the
+officer.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Dorothy was, characteristically, tearfully
+indignant that her father had left
+her to me. Fletcher was silent as we
+bumped along under the elevated tracks,
+but presently he tugged at my sleeve,
+and I heard his faint whisper. “What
+is it?” I asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Is my mother really dead?” he repeated.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Of course not, Fletcher. You saw
+her get into the cab with your father.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why didn’t Daddy take us too?”
+wailed Dorothy, and I had to turn to
+her, although my nerves echoed her
+question.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The house door swung open even as
+the taxi bumped the curb, and the butler
+hurried out with <a id="corr-1"></a>an umbrella which we
+were too draggled to need.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Mr. Corson instructed me to pay
+the man, madam.” He led us into the
+hall, where a waiting maid popped the
+children at once into the tiny elevator.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Will you wait for the elevator,
+madam? The library is one flight.”
+The butler led me up the stairs, and I
+dropped into a low chair near the fire,
+vaguely aware of the long, narrow room,
+with discreet gold of the walls giving
+back light from soft lamps. “I’ll tell
+Mr. Corson you have come.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Is Mrs. Corson—does she seem all
+right?” I asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Quite, madam. It was a fortunate
+accident, with no one hurt.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Well, perhaps it had addled my brain!
+I waited in a kind of numbness for Winchester
+to come.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Presently he strode in, his feet silent
+on the thick rugs.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Sorry,” he began, abruptly. “I
+wanted to look the children over. Not
+a scratch on them. You’re all right, of
+course?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-688" class="pagenum" title="688"></a>
+“Oh, yes. But Thalia—”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“She won’t even have a doctor. I
+put her straight to bed—she’s so damned
+nervous, you know. Hot-water bottles
+... she was cold. I think she’s
+asleep now. Said she’d see you in the
+morning. You’ll stay here, of course.”
+He swallowed in a gulp the whiskey he
+had poured. “Have some, Mary? Or
+would you like something hot?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No, thanks. If you’re sure she’s all
+right I’ll go to bed.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Sure?” His laugh was defiant.
+“Did that damn fool on the bridge
+throw a scare into you? He gave me a
+bad minute, I’ll say. If that car hadn’t
+cut in on me—I told Walter last week
+the brakes needed looking at. They
+shouldn’t grab like that. Might have
+been serious.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Since it wasn’t—” I rose, wearily,
+watching him pour amber liquid slowly
+into his glass—“if you’ll have someone
+show me my room—”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“After Chinese bandits, a little skid
+ought not to matter to you.” His
+prominent eyes gleamed hostilely at me;
+he wanted some assurance offered that
+the skidding wasn’t his fault, that only
+his skill had saved all our lives.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I can’t see Thalia?” I said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“She’s asleep. Nobody can see her.”
+His eyes moved coldly from my face,
+down to my muddy shoes. “Better
+give your clothes to the maid for
+a pressing. You’re smeared quite a
+bit.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I woke early, with clear September
+sun at the windows of the room, with
+blue sky behind the sharp city contours
+beyond the windows. There was none
+too much time to make the morning
+train for Albany, where I had an engagement
+that day, an interview for an
+article. The maid who answered my
+ring insisted on serving breakfast to me
+in borrowed elegance of satin negligee.
+Mrs. Corson was resting, and would see
+me before I left. Something—the formality
+and luxury, the complicated
+household so unlike the old days at
+the Cape—accented the queer dread
+which had filtered all night through my
+dreams.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I saw Thalia for only a moment.
+The heavy silk curtains were drawn
+against the light and in the dimness
+her face seemed to gather shadows.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Are you quite all right, Thalia?” I
+hesitated beside her bed, as if my voice
+might tear apart the veils of drowsiness
+in which she rested.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why, yes—” as if she wondered.
+Then she added, so low that I wasn’t
+sure what I heard, “It is hard to get
+back in.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What, Thalia?” I bent toward her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’ll be myself once I’ve slept enough.”
+Her voice was clearer. “Come back
+soon, won’t you, Mary?” Then her
+eyelids closed and her face merged into
+the shadows of the room. I tiptoed
+away, thinking she slept.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+It was late November before I returned
+to New York. Free-lancing has
+a way of drawing herrings across your
+trail and, when I might have drifted
+back in early November, a younger
+sister wanted me to come home to
+Arlington for her marriage. I had
+written to Thalia, first a note of courtesy
+for my week with her, and then a
+letter begging for news. Like many
+people of charm, she wrote indifferent
+letters, stiff and childlike, lacking in
+her personal quality. Her brief reply
+was more unsatisfactory than usual.
+The children were away in school, lots
+of cold rainy weather, everything was
+going well. At the end, in writing
+unlike hers, as if she scribbled the line
+in haste, “I am lonely. When are you
+coming?” I answered that I’d show
+up as soon as the wedding was over.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The night I reached Arlington was
+rainy, too, and I insisted upon a taxi
+equipped with chains. My brother
+thought that amusing, and at dinner
+gave the family an exaggerated account
+of my caution. I tried to offer
+him some futile sisterly advice and, to
+point up my remarks, told about that
+drive in from Long Island with the Corsons.
+<a id="page-689" class="pagenum" title="689"></a>
+I had never spoken of it before;
+I found that an inexplicable inhibition
+kept me from making much of a story.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well, nothing happened, did it?”
+Richard was triumphant.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“A great deal might have,” I insisted.
+“Thalia was stunned, and I was disagreeably
+startled.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Thalia was stunned, was she?” An
+elderly cousin of ours from New Jersey
+picked out that item. I saw her fitting
+it into some pigeon hole, but she said
+nothing until late that evening when
+she stopped at the door of my room.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Have you seen Thalia Corson lately?”
+she asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I haven’t been in New York since
+September.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She closed the door and lowered her
+voice, a kind of avid curiosity riding
+astride the decorous pity she expressed.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I called there, one day last week. I
+didn’t know what was the matter with
+her. I hadn’t heard of that accident.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I waited, an old antagonism for my
+proper cousin blurring the fear that
+shot up through my thoughts.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Thalia was always <em>individual</em>, of
+course.” She used the word like a reproach.
+“But she had <em>savoir faire</em>.
+But now she’s—well—<em>queer</em>. Do you
+suppose her head was affected?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“How is she queer?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“She looks miserable, too. Thin and
+white.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“But how—”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I am telling you, Mary. She was
+quite rude. First she didn’t come down
+for ever so long, although I sent up
+word that I’d come up to her room if
+she was resting. Then her whole manner—well,
+I was really offended. She
+scarcely heard a word I said to her, just
+sat with her back to a window so I
+couldn’t get a good look at her. When
+I said, ‘You don’t look like yourself,’
+she actually sneered. ‘Myself?’ she
+said. ‘How do you know?’ Imagine!
+I tried to chatter along as if I noticed
+nothing. I flatter myself I can manage
+awkward moments rather well. But
+Thalia sat there and I am sure she muttered
+under her breath. Finally I rose
+to go and I said, meaning well, ‘You’d
+better take a good rest. You look half
+dead.’ Mary, I wish you’d seen the
+look she gave me! Really I was frightened.
+Just then their dog came in, you
+know, Dorothy’s little terrier. Thalia
+used to be silly about him. Well, she
+actually tried to hide in the folds of the
+curtain, and I don’t wonder! The dog
+was terrified at her. He crawled on his
+belly out of the room. Now she must
+have been cruel to him if he acts like
+that. I think Winchester should have
+a specialist. I didn’t know how to
+account for any of it; but of course a
+blow on the head can affect a person.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Fortunately my mother interrupted
+us just then, and I didn’t, by my probable
+rudeness, give my cousin reason to
+suppose that the accident had affected
+me, too. I sifted through her remarks
+and decided they might mean only that
+Thalia found her more of a bore than
+usual. As for Nug, perhaps he retreated
+from the cousin! During the next few
+days the house had so much wedding
+turmoil that she found a chance only for
+a few more dribbles: one that Thalia
+had given up all her clubs—she had belonged
+to several—the other that she
+had sent the children to boarding schools
+instead of keeping them at home. “Just
+when her husband is doing so well, too!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I was glad when the wedding party
+had departed, and I could plan to go
+back to New York. Personally I think
+a low-caste Chinese wedding is saner
+and more interesting than a modern
+American affair. My cousin “should
+think I could stay home with the
+family,” and “couldn’t we go to New
+York together, if I insisted upon gadding
+off?” We couldn’t. I saw to that.
+She hoped that I’d look up Thalia.
+Maybe I could advise Winchester about
+a specialist.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I did telephone as soon as I got in.
+That sentence “I am lonely,” in her
+brief note kept recurring. Her voice
+sounded thin and remote, a poor connection,
+I thought. She was sorry.
+<a id="page-690" class="pagenum" title="690"></a>
+She was giving a dinner for Winchester
+that evening. The next day?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I had piles of proof to wade through
+that next day, and it was late afternoon
+when I finally went to the Corson house.
+The butler looked doubtful but I insisted,
+and he left me in the hall while
+he went off with my card. He returned,
+a little smug in his message: Mrs. Corson
+was resting and had left word she
+must not be disturbed. Well, you can’t
+protest to a perfect butler, and I started
+down the steps, indignant, when a car
+stopped in front of the house, a liveried
+chauffeur opened the door, and Winchester
+emerged. He glanced at me in
+the twilight and extended an abrupt
+hand.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Would Thalia see you?” he asked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No.” For a moment I hoped he
+might convoy me past the butler.
+“Isn’t she well? She asked me to come
+to-day.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I hoped she’d see you.” Winchester’s
+hand smoothed at his little mustache.
+“She’s just tired from her
+dinner last night. She overexerted herself,
+was quite the old Thalia.” He
+looked at me slowly in the dusk, and I
+had a brief feeling that he was really
+looking at me, no, <em>for</em> me, for the first
+time in all our meetings, as if he considered
+me without relation to himself
+for once. “Come in again, will
+you?” He thrust away whatever else
+he thought of saying. “Thalia really
+would like to see you. Can I give you
+a lift?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No, thanks. I need a walk.” As
+I started off I knew the moment had
+just missed some real significance. If
+I had ventured a question ... but,
+after all, what could I ask him? He
+had said that Thalia was “just tired.”
+That night I sent a note to her, saying
+I had called and asking when I might
+see her.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+She telephoned me the next day.
+Would I come in for Thanksgiving?
+The children would be home, and she
+wanted an old-fashioned day, everything
+but the sleigh ride New York
+couldn’t furnish. Dinner would be at
+six, for the children; perhaps I could
+come in early. I felt a small grievance
+at being put off for almost a week, but
+I promised to come.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+That was the week I heard gossip
+about Winchester, in the curious devious
+way of gossip. Atlantic City, and
+a gaudy lady. Someone having an inconspicuous
+fortnight of convalescence
+there had seen them. I wasn’t surprised,
+except perhaps that Winchester
+chose Atlantic City. Thalia was too
+fine; he couldn’t grow up to her. I
+wondered how much she knew. She
+must, years ago, with her sensitiveness,
+have discovered that Winchester was
+stationary so far as love went and,
+being stationary himself, was inclined
+to move the object toward which he
+directed his passion.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On Thursday, as I walked across Central
+Park, gaunt and deserted in the
+chilly afternoon light, I decided that
+Thalia probably knew more about Winchester’s
+affairs than gossip had given
+me. Perhaps that was why she had
+sent the children away. He had always
+been conventionally discreet, but discretion
+would be a tawdry coin among
+Thalia’s shining values.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I was shown up to the nursery, with
+a message from Thalia that she would
+join me there soon. Fletcher seemed
+glad to see me, in a shy, excited way,
+and stood close to my chair while Dorothy
+wound up her phonograph for a
+dance record and pirouetted about us
+with her doll.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Mother keeps her door tight locked
+all the time,” whispered Fletcher doubtfully.
+“We can’t go in. This morning
+I knocked and knocked but no one answered.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Do you like your school?” I asked
+cheerfully.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I like my home better.” His eyes,
+so like Thalia’s with their long, arched
+lids, had young bewilderment under
+their lashes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“See me!” called Dorothy. “Watch
+me do this!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-691" class="pagenum" title="691"></a>
+While she twirled I felt Fletcher’s
+thin body stiffen against my arm, as if
+a kind of panic froze him. Thalia stood
+in the doorway. Was the boy afraid of
+her? Dorothy wasn’t. She cried,
+“See me, Mother! Look at me!” and
+in her lusty confusion, I had a moment
+to look at Thalia before she greeted me.
+She was thin, but she had always been
+that. She did not heed Dorothy’s
+shrieks, but watched Fletcher, a kind of
+slanting dread on her white, proud face.
+I had thought, that week on Long
+Island, that she shut herself away from
+me, refusing to restore the intimacy of
+ten years earlier. But now a stiff loneliness
+hedged her as if she were rimmed
+in ice and snow. She smiled. “Dear
+Mary,” she said. At the sound of her
+voice I lost my slightly cherished injury
+that she had refused earlier to see me.
+“Let’s go down to the library,” she
+went on. “It’s almost time for the
+turkey.” I felt Fletcher break his
+intent watchfulness with a long sigh,
+and as the children went ahead of us, I
+caught at Thalia’s arm. “Thalia—”
+She drew away, and her arm, under
+the soft flowing sleeve of dull blue stuff,
+was so slight it seemed brittle. I
+thought suddenly that she must have
+chosen that gown because it concealed
+so much beneath its lovely embroidered
+folds. “You aren’t well, Thalia. What
+<em>is</em> it?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Well enough! Don’t fuss about
+me.” And even as I stared reproachfully
+she seemed to gather vitality, so
+that the dry pallor of her face became
+smooth ivory and her eyes were no
+longer hollow and distressed. “Come.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The dinner was amazingly like one of
+our old holidays. Winchester wore his
+best mood, the children were delighted
+and happy. Thalia, under the gold
+flames of the tall black candles, was a
+gracious and lovely hostess. I almost
+forgot my troublesome anxiety, wondering
+whether my imagination hadn’t been
+playing me tricks.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We had coffee by the library fire
+and some of Winchester’s old Chartreuse.
+Then he insisted upon exhibiting
+his new radio. Thalia demurred,
+but the children begged for a concert.
+“This is their party, Tally!” Winchester
+opened the doors of the old teakwood
+cabinet which housed the apparatus.
+Thalia sank back into the shadows
+of a wing chair, and I watched her
+over my cigarette. Off guard, she had
+relaxed into strange apathy. Was it
+the firelight or my unaccustomed Chartreuse?
+Her features seemed blurred
+as if a clumsy hand trying to trace a
+drawing made uncertain outlines.
+Strange groans and whirrs from the
+radio.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Win, I can’t stand it!” Her voice
+dragged from some great distance. “Not
+to-night.” She swayed to her feet, her
+hands restless under the loose sleeves.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Static,” growled Winchester. “Wait
+a minute.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“No!” Again it was as if vitality
+flowed into her. “Come, children.
+You have had your party. Time to go
+upstairs. I’ll go with you.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They were well trained, I thought.
+Kisses for their father, a curtsy from
+Dorothy for me, and a grave little hand
+extended by Fletcher. Then Winchester
+came toward the fire as the three of
+them disappeared.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You’re good for Thalia,” he said, in
+an undertone. “She’s—well, what do
+you make of her?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Why?” I fenced, unwilling to indulge
+him in my vague anxieties.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“You saw how she acted about the
+radio. She has whims like that. Funny,
+she was herself at dinner. Last week
+she gave a dinner for me, important
+affair, pulled it off brilliantly. Then
+she shuts herself up and won’t open her
+door for days. I can’t make it out.
+She’s thin—”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Have you had a doctor?” I asked,
+banally.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That’s another thing. She absolutely
+refuses. Made a fool of me when
+I brought one here. Wouldn’t unlock
+her door. Says she just wants to rest.
+But—” he glanced toward the door—“do
+<a id="page-692" class="pagenum" title="692"></a>
+you know that fool on the bridge
+... that little runt? The other night,
+I swear I saw him rushing down the
+steps as I came home. Thalia just
+laughed when I asked about it.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Something clicked in my thoughts, a
+quick suspicion, drawing a parallel between
+her conduct and that of people I
+had seen in the East. Was it some
+drug? That lethargy, and the quick
+spring into vitality? Days behind a
+closed door—
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I wish you’d persuade her to go off
+for a few weeks. I’m frightfully pressed
+just now, in an important business matter,
+but if she’d go off—maybe you’d go
+with her?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Where, Winchester?” We both
+started, with the guilt of conspirators.
+Thalia came slowly into the room.
+“Where shall I go? Would you suggest—Atlantic
+City?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Perhaps. Although some place farther
+south this time of year—” Winchester’s
+imperturbability seemed to me
+far worse than some slight sign of embarrassment;
+it marked him as so rooted
+in successful deceit whether Thalia’s
+inquiry were innocent or not. “If
+Mary would go with you. I can’t get
+away just now.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I shall not go anywhere until your
+deal goes through. Then—” Thalia
+seated herself again in the wing chair.
+The hand she lifted to her cheek, fingers
+just touching her temple beneath the
+soft drift of hair, seemed transparent
+against the firelight. “Have you told
+Mary about your deal? Winchester
+plans to be the most important man on
+Automobile Row.” Was there mockery
+in her tone? “I can’t tell you the details,
+but he’s buying out all the rest.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Don’t be absurd. Not all of them.
+It’s a big merging of companies, that’s
+all.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“We entertain the lords at dinner,
+and in some mysterious way that
+smooths the merging. It makes a wife
+almost necessary.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Invite Mary to the next shebang,
+and let her see how well you do it.”
+Winchester was irritated. “For all
+your scoffing, there’s as much politics
+to being president of such a concern as
+of the United States.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Yes, I’ll invite Mary. Then she’ll
+see that you don’t really want to dispense
+with me—yet.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Good God, I meant for a week or
+two.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As Winchester, lighting a cigarette,
+snapped the head from several matches
+in succession, I moved my chair a little
+backward, distressed. There was a thin
+wire of significance drawn so taut between
+the two that I felt at any moment
+it might splinter in my face.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It’s so lucky—” malice flickered on
+her thin face—“that you weren’t hurt
+in that skid on the bridge, Mary. Winchester
+would just have tossed you in
+the river to conceal your body.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“If you’re going over that again!”
+Winchester strode out of the room. As
+Thalia turned her head slightly to watch
+him, her face and throat had the taut
+rigidity of pain so great that it congeals
+the nerves.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I was silent. With Thalia I had
+never dared intrude except when she
+admitted me. In another moment she
+too had risen. “You’d better go home,
+Mary,” she said, slowly. “I might tell
+you things you wouldn’t care to live
+with.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I tried to touch her hand, but she retreated.
+If I had been wiser or more
+courageous, I might have helped her.
+I shall always have that regret, and
+that can’t be much better to live with
+than whatever she might have told me.
+All I could say was stupidly, “Thalia,
+if there’s anything I can do! You know
+I love you.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Love? That’s a strange word,” she
+said, and her laugh in the quiet room
+was like the shrilling of a grasshopper
+on a hot afternoon. “One thing I will
+tell you.” (She stood now on the stairway
+above me.) “Love has no power.
+It never shouts out across great space.
+Only fear and self-desire are strong.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then she had gone, and the butler
+<a id="page-693" class="pagenum" title="693"></a>
+appeared silently, to lead me to the little
+dressing room.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“The car is waiting for you, madam,”
+he assured me, opening the door. I
+didn’t want it, but Winchester was
+waiting, too, hunched angrily in a
+corner.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That’s the way she acts,” he began.
+“Now you’ve seen her I’ll talk about it.
+Thalia never bore grudges, you know
+that.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It seems deeper than a grudge,” I
+said cautiously.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“That reference to the ... the accident.
+That’s a careless remark I made.
+I don’t even remember just what I said.
+Something entirely inconsequential.
+Just that it was damned lucky no one
+was hurt when I was putting this merger
+across. You know if it’d got in the
+papers it would have queered me.
+Wrecking my own car ... there’s always
+a suspicion you’ve been drinking.
+She picked it up and won’t drop
+it. It’s like a fixed idea. If you can
+suggest something. I want her to see
+a nerve specialist. What does she do
+behind that locked door?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What about Atlantic City?” I asked,
+abruptly. I saw his dark eyes bulge,
+trying to ferret out my meaning, there
+in the dusky interior of the car.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“A week there with you might do her
+good.” That was all he would say, and
+I hadn’t courage enough to accuse him,
+even in Thalia’s name.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“At least you’ll try to see her again,”
+he said, as the car stopped in front of
+my apartment house.
+</p>
+
+<p class="tb">
+* * *
+</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">
+I couldn’t sleep that night. I felt
+that just over the edge of my squirming
+thoughts there lay clear and whole the
+meaning of it all, but I couldn’t
+reach past thought. And then, stupidly
+enough, I couldn’t get up the next day.
+Just a feverish cold, but the doctor insisted
+on a week in bed and subdued me
+with warnings about influenza.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I had begun to feel steady enough on
+my feet to consider venturing outside
+my apartment when the invitation
+came, for a formal dinner at the Corsons’.
+Scrawled under the engraving
+was a line, “Please come. T.” I sent a
+note, explaining that I had been ill, and
+that I should come—the dinner was a
+fortnight away—unless I stayed too
+wobbly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I meant that night to arrive properly
+with the other guests, but my watch,
+which had never before done anything
+except lose a few minutes a day, had
+gained an unsuspected hour. Perhaps
+the hands stuck—perhaps—Well, I was
+told I was early, Thalia was dressing,
+and only the children, home for the
+Christmas holidays, were available. So
+I went again to the nursery. Dorothy
+was as plump and unconcerned as ever,
+but Fletcher had a strained, listening
+effect and he looked too thin and white
+for a little boy. They were having
+their supper on a small table, and Fletcher
+kept going to the door, looking out
+into the hall. “Mother promised to
+come up,” he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The maid cleared away their dishes,
+and Dorothy, who was in a beguiling
+mood, chose to sit on my lap and entertain
+me with stories. One was about
+Nug the terrier; he had been sent out
+to the country because Mother didn’t
+like him any more.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I think,” interrupted Fletcher, “she
+likes him, but he has a queer notion
+about her.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“She doesn’t like him,” repeated
+Dorothy. Then she dismissed that subject,
+and Fletcher too, for curiosity
+about the old silver chain I wore. I
+didn’t notice that the boy had slipped
+away, but he must have gone down
+stairs; for presently his fingers closed
+over my wrist, like a frightened bird’s
+claw, and I turned to see him, trembling,
+his eyes dark with terror. He
+couldn’t speak but he clawed at me, and
+I shook Dorothy from my knees and let
+him pull me out to the hall.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What is it, Fletcher?” He only
+pointed down the stairway, toward his
+mother’s door, and I fled down those
+stairs. <em>What</em> had the child seen?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+<a id="page-694" class="pagenum" title="694"></a>
+“The door wasn’t locked—” he gasped
+behind me—“I opened it very still and
+went in—”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I pushed it ajar. Thalia sat before
+her dressing table, with the threefold
+mirrors reiterating like a macabre symphony
+her rigid, contorted face. Her
+gown, burnished blue and green like
+peacock’s feathers, sheathed her gaudily,
+and silver, blue, and green chiffon
+clouded her shoulders. Her hands
+clutched at the edge of the dressing
+table. For an instant I could not move,
+thrust through with a terror like the
+boy’s. Then I stumbled across the
+room. Before I reached her, the mirrors
+echoed her long shudder, her eyelids
+dragged open, and I saw her stare
+at my reflection wavering toward her.
+Then her hands relaxed, moved quickly
+toward the crystal jars along the heavy
+glass of the table and, without a word,
+she leaned softly forward, to draw a
+scarlet line along her white lips.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“How cold it is in here,” I said, stupidly,
+glancing toward the windows,
+where the heavy silk damask, drawn
+across, lay in motionless folds. “Fletcher
+said—” I was awkward, an intruder.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“He startled me.” Her voice came
+huskily. She rouged her hollow cheeks.
+It was as if she drew another face for
+herself. “I didn’t have time to lock the
+door.” Then turning, she sought him
+out, huddled at the doorway, like a moth
+on a pin of fear. “It wasn’t nice of you,
+Son. It’s all right now. You see?”
+She rose, drawing her lovely scarf over
+her shoulders. “You should never open
+closed doors.” She blew him a kiss
+from her finger tips. “Now run along
+and forget you were so careless.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The icy stir of air against my skin
+had ceased. I stared at her, my mind
+racing back over what I knew of various
+drugs and the stigmata of their victims.
+But her eyes were clear and undilated,
+a little piteous. “This,” she said, “is
+the last time. I can’t endure it.” And
+then, with that amazing flood of vitality,
+as if a sudden connection had been made
+and current flowed again, “Come, Mary.
+It is time we were down stairs.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I thought Fletcher peered over the
+railing as we went down. But a swift
+upward glance failed to detect him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The dinner itself I don’t remember
+definitely except that it glittered and
+sparkled, moving with slightly alcoholic
+wit through elaborate courses,
+while I sat like an abashed poor relation
+at a feast, unable to stop watching
+Thalia, wondering whether my week of
+fever had given me a tendency to hallucinations.
+At the end a toast was
+proposed, to Winchester Corson and
+his extraordinary success. “It’s done,
+then?” Thalia’s gaiety had sudden
+malice—as she looked across at Winchester,
+seating himself after a slightly
+pompous speech. “Sealed and cemented
+forever?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Thanks to his charming wife, too,”
+cried a plump, bald man, waving his
+glass. “A toast to Mrs. Corson!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Thalia rose, her rouge like flecked
+scarlet on white paper. One hand drew
+her floating scarf about her throat, and
+her painted lips moved without a sound.
+There was an instant of agitated discomfort,
+as the guests felt their mood
+broken so abruptly, into which her
+voice pierced, thin, high. “I ... deserve
+... such a toast—”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I pushed back my chair and reached
+her side.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I’ll take her—” I saw Winchester’s
+face, wine-flushed, angry rather than
+concerned. “Come, Thalia.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Don’t bother. I’ll be all right—now.”
+But she moved ahead of me so
+swiftly that I couldn’t touch her. I
+thought she tried to close her door
+against me, but I was too quick for that.
+The silver candelabra still burned above
+the mirrors. “Mary!” Her voice was
+low again as she spoke a telephone number.
+“Tell him <em>at once</em>.” She stood
+away from me, her face a white mask
+with spots of scarlet, her peacock dress
+ashimmer. I did as I was bid and when
+I had said, “Mrs. Corson wishes you at
+once,” there was an emptiness where a
+<a id="page-695" class="pagenum" title="695"></a>
+man’s voice had come which suggested
+a sudden leap out of a room somewhere.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I can never get in again!” Her fingers
+curled under the chiffon scarf.
+“Never! The black agony of fighting
+back—If he—” She bent her head,
+listening. “Go down to the door and
+let him in,” she said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I crept down the stairs. Voices from
+the drawing-room. Winchester was seeing
+the party through. Almost as I
+reached the door and opened it I found
+him there: the little doctor with the
+pointed beard. He brushed past me up
+the stairs. He knew the way, then! I
+was scarcely surprised to find Thalia’s
+door fast shut when I reached it. Behind
+it came not a sound. Fletcher,
+like an unhappy sleepwalker, his eyes
+heavy, slipped down beside me, clinging
+to my hand. I heard farewells, churring
+of taxis and cars. Then Winchester
+came up the stairs.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“She’s shut you out?” He raised his
+fist and pounded on the door. “I’m
+going to stop this nonsense!”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“I sent for a doctor,” I said. “He’s
+in there.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“Is it—” his face was puffy and gray—“that
+same fool?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Then the door opened, and the man
+confronted us.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“It is over,” he said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“What have you done to her?” Winchester
+lunged toward the door, but the
+little man’s lifted hand had dignity
+enough somehow to stop him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“She won’t come back again.” He
+spoke slowly. “You may look if you
+care to.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“She’s dead?”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+“She died—months ago. There on
+the bridge. But you called to her, and
+she thought you wanted—<em>her</em>.”
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Winchester thrust him aside and
+strode into the room. I dared one
+glance and saw only pale hair shining
+on the pillow. Then Fletcher flung
+himself against me, sobbing, and I knelt
+to hold him close against the fear we
+both felt.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+What Winchester saw I never knew.
+He hurled himself past us, down the
+stairs. And Thalia was buried with
+the coffin lid fast closed under the
+flowers.
+</p>
+
+<div class="trnote chapter">
+<p class="transnote">
+Transcriber’s Notes
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Transcribed from <i>Harper’s Magazine, vol. 152, May 1926, pp. 684-695</i>.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+New original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the public domain.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The original spelling and punctuation were mostly preserved. Minor typesetting
+mistakes were silently corrected. All other changes (before/after) are listed
+here:
+</p>
+
+
+
+<ul>
+
+<li>
+... stiff body. “Are <span class="underline">your</span> hurt? Thalia—” ...<br>
+... stiff body. “Are <a href="#corr-0"><span class="underline">you</span></a> hurt? Thalia—” ...<br>
+</li>
+
+<li>
+... hurried out with umbrella which we ...<br>
+... hurried out with <a href="#corr-1"><span class="underline">an</span></a> umbrella which we ...<br>
+</li>
+</ul>
+</div>
+<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 79294 ***</div>
+</body>
+</html>
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+
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+[Project Gutenberg](https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for eBook [#79294](https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/79294)