Part XV

When Edna entered the dining-room one evening a little late,

as was her habit, an unusually animated conversation seemed to be

going on. Several persons were talking at once, and Victor's voice

was predominating, even over that of his mother. Edna had returned

late from her bath, had dressed in some haste, and her face was

flushed. Her head, set off by her dainty white gown, suggested a

rich, rare blossom. She took her seat at table between old

Monsieur Farival and Madame Ratignolle.

As she seated herself and was about to begin to eat her soup,

which had been served when she entered the room, several persons

informed her simultaneously that Robert was going to Mexico.

She laid her spoon down and looked about her bewildered.

He had been with her, reading to her all the morning,

and had never even mentioned such a place as Mexico.

She had not seen him during the afternoon; she had heard

some one say he was at the house, upstairs with his mother.

This she had thought nothing of, though she was surprised

when he did not join her later in the afternoon,

when she went down to the beach.

She looked across at him, where he sat beside Madame Lebrun,

who presided. Edna's face was a blank picture of bewilderment,

which she never thought of disguising. He lifted his eyebrows with

the pretext of a smile as he returned her glance. He looked

embarrassed and uneasy. "When is he going?" she asked of everybody

in general, as if Robert were not there to answer for himself.

"To-night!" "This very evening!" "Did you ever!"

"What possesses him!" were some of the replies she gathered,

uttered simultaneously in French and English.

"Impossible!" she exclaimed. "How can a person start off from

Grand Isle to Mexico at a moment's notice, as if he were going over

to Klein's or to the wharf or down to the beach?"

"I said all along I was going to Mexico; I've been saying so

for years!" cried Robert, in an excited and irritable tone, with

the air of a man defending himself against a swarm of stinging

insects.

Madame Lebrun knocked on the table with her knife handle.

"Please let Robert explain why he is going, and why he is

going to-night," she called out. "Really, this table is getting to

be more and more like Bedlam every day, with everybody talking at

once. Sometimes—I hope God will forgive me—but positively,

sometimes I wish Victor would lose the power of speech."

Victor laughed sardonically as he thanked his mother for her

holy wish, of which he failed to see the benefit to anybody, except

that it might afford her a more ample opportunity and license to

talk herself.

Monsieur Farival thought that Victor should have been taken

out in mid-ocean in his earliest youth and drowned. Victor thought

there would be more logic in thus disposing of old people with an

established claim for making themselves universally obnoxious.

Madame Lebrun grew a trifle hysterical; Robert called his brother

some sharp, hard names.

"There's nothing much to explain, mother," he said; though he

explained, nevertheless—looking chiefly at Edna—that he could

only meet the gentleman whom he intended to join at Vera Cruz by

taking such and such a steamer, which left New Orleans on such a

day; that Beaudelet was going out with his lugger-load of

vegetables that night, which gave him an opportunity of reaching

the city and making his vessel in time.

"But when did you make up your mind to all this?" demanded

Monsieur Farival.

"This afternoon," returned Robert, with a shade of annoyance.

"At what time this afternoon?" persisted the old gentleman,

with nagging determination, as if he were cross-questioning a

criminal in a court of justice.

"At four o'clock this afternoon, Monsieur Farival," Robert

replied, in a high voice and with a lofty air, which reminded Edna

of some gentleman on the stage.

She had forced herself to eat most of her soup, and now she

was picking the flaky bits of a court bouillon with her fork.

The lovers were profiting by the general conversation on

Mexico to speak in whispers of matters which they rightly

considered were interesting to no one but themselves. The lady in

black had once received a pair of prayer-beads of curious

workmanship from Mexico, with very special indulgence attached to

them, but she had never been able to ascertain whether the

indulgence extended outside the Mexican border. Father Fochel of

the Cathedral had attempted to explain it; but he had not done so

to her satisfaction. And she begged that Robert would interest

himself, and discover, if possible, whether she was entitled to

the indulgence accompanying the remarkably curious Mexican prayer-beads.

Madame Ratignolle hoped that Robert would exercise extreme

caution in dealing with the Mexicans, who, she considered, were a

treacherous people, unscrupulous and revengeful. She trusted she

did them no injustice in thus condemning them as a race. She had

known personally but one Mexican, who made and sold excellent

tamales, and whom she would have trusted implicitly, so softspoken

was he. One day he was arrested for stabbing his wife. She never

knew whether he had been hanged or not.

Victor had grown hilarious, and was attempting to tell an

anecdote about a Mexican girl who served chocolate one winter in a

restaurant in Dauphine Street. No one would listen to him but old

Monsieur Farival, who went into convulsions over the droll story.

Edna wondered if they had all gone mad, to be talking and

clamoring at that rate. She herself could think of nothing to say

about Mexico or the Mexicans.

"At what time do you leave?" she asked Robert.

"At ten," he told her. "Beaudelet wants to wait for the moon."

"Are you all ready to go?"

"Quite ready. I shall only take a hand-bag, and shall pack my

trunk in the city."

He turned to answer some question put to him by his mother,

and Edna, having finished her black coffee, left the table.

She went directly to her room. The little cottage was close

and stuffy after leaving the outer air. But she did not mind;

there appeared to be a hundred different things demanding her

attention indoors. She began to set the toilet-stand to rights,

grumbling at the negligence of the quadroon, who was in the

adjoining room putting the children to bed. She gathered together

stray garments that were hanging on the backs of chairs, and put

each where it belonged in closet or bureau drawer. She changed her

gown for a more comfortable and commodious wrapper. She rearranged

her hair, combing and brushing it with unusual energy. Then she went in

and assisted the quadroon in getting the boys to bed.

They were very playful and inclined to talk—to do anything

but lie quiet and go to sleep. Edna sent the quadroon away to her

supper and told her she need not return. Then she sat and told the

children a story. Instead of soothing it excited them, and added

to their wakefulness. She left them in heated argument,

speculating about the conclusion of the tale which their mother

promised to finish the following night.

The little black girl came in to say that Madame Lebrun would

like to have Mrs. Pontellier go and sit with them over at the house

till Mr. Robert went away. Edna returned answer that she had

already undressed, that she did not feel quite well, but perhaps

she would go over to the house later. She started to dress again,

and got as far advanced as to remove her peignoir. But

changing her mind once more she resumed the peignoir, and went

outside and sat down before her door. She was overheated and

irritable, and fanned herself energetically for a while. Madame

Ratignolle came down to discover what was the matter.

"All that noise and confusion at the table must have upset

me," replied Edna, "and moreover, I hate shocks and surprises.

The idea of Robert starting off in such a ridiculously sudden

and dramatic way! As if it were a matter of life and death!

Never saying a word about it all morning when he was with me."

"Yes," agreed Madame Ratignolle. "I think it was showing us

all—you especially—very little consideration. It wouldn't have

surprised me in any of the others; those Lebruns are all given to

heroics. But I must say I should never have expected such a thing

from Robert. Are you not coming down? Come on, dear; it doesn't

look friendly."

"No," said Edna, a little sullenly. "I can't go to the

trouble of dressing again; I don't feel like it."

"You needn't dress; you look all right; fasten a belt around

your waist. Just look at me!"

"No," persisted Edna; "but you go on. Madame Lebrun might be

offended if we both stayed away."

Madame Ratignolle kissed Edna good-night, and went away, being

in truth rather desirous of joining in the general and animated

conversation which was still in progress concerning Mexico and the

Mexicans.

Somewhat later Robert came up, carrying his hand-bag.

"Aren't you feeling well?" he asked.

"Oh, well enough. Are you going right away?"

He lit a match and looked at his watch. "In twenty minutes,"

he said. The sudden and brief flare of the match emphasized the

darkness for a while. He sat down upon a stool which the children

had left out on the porch.

"Get a chair," said Edna.

"This will do," he replied. He put on his soft hat and

nervously took it off again, and wiping his face with his

handkerchief, complained of the heat.

"Take the fan," said Edna, offering it to him.

"Oh, no! Thank you. It does no good; you have to stop fanning

some time, and feel all the more uncomfortable afterward."

"That's one of the ridiculous things which men always say. I

have never known one to speak otherwise of fanning. How long will

you be gone?"

"Forever, perhaps. I don't know. It depends upon a good many things."

"Well, in case it shouldn't be forever, how long will it be?"

"I don't know."

"This seems to me perfectly preposterous and uncalled for. I

don't like it. I don't understand your motive for silence and

mystery, never saying a word to me about it this morning." He

remained silent, not offering to defend himself. He only said,

after a moment:

"Don't part from me in any ill humor. I never knew you to be

out of patience with me before."

"I don't want to part in any ill humor," she said. "But can't

you understand? I've grown used to seeing you, to having you with

me all the time, and your action seems unfriendly, even unkind.

You don't even offer an excuse for it. Why, I was planning to be together,

thinking of how pleasant it would be to see you in the city next winter."

"So was I," he blurted. "Perhaps that's the—" He stood up

suddenly and held out his hand. "Good-by, my dear Mrs. Pontellier;

good-by. You won't—I hope you won't completely forget me."

She clung to his hand, striving to detain him.

"Write to me when you get there, won't you, Robert?" she entreated.

"I will, thank you. Good-by."

How unlike Robert! The merest acquaintance would have said

something more emphatic than "I will, thank you; good-by," to such

a request.

He had evidently already taken leave of the people over at the

house, for he descended the steps and went to join Beaudelet, who

was out there with an oar across his shoulder waiting for Robert.

They walked away in the darkness. She could only hear Beaudelet's

voice; Robert had apparently not even spoken a word of greeting to

his companion.

Edna bit her handkerchief convulsively, striving to hold back

and to hide, even from herself as she would have hidden from

another, the emotion which was troubling—tearing—her. Her eyes

were brimming with tears.

For the first time she recognized the symptoms of infatuation

which she had felt incipiently as a child, as a girl in her

earliest teens, and later as a young woman. The recognition did

not lessen the reality, the poignancy of the revelation by any

suggestion or promise of instability. The past was nothing to her;

offered no lesson which she was willing to heed. The future was a

mystery which she never attempted to penetrate. The present alone

was significant; was hers, to torture her as it was doing then with

the biting conviction that she had lost that which she had held,

that she had been denied that which her impassioned, newly awakened

being demanded.