READ STUDY GUIDE: Chapters XXV–XXIX |
|
Part XXIX
| Without even waiting for an answer from her husband regarding |
| his opinion or wishes in the matter, Edna hastened her preparations |
| for quitting her home on Esplanade Street and moving into the |
| little house around the block. A feverish anxiety attended her |
| every action in that direction. There was no moment of deliberation, |
| no interval of repose between the thought and its fulfillment. |
| Early upon the morning following those hours passed in Arobin's society, |
| Edna set about securing her new abode and hurrying her arrangements |
| for occupying it. Within the precincts of her home she felt like |
| one who has entered and lingered within the portals of some |
| forbidden temple in which a thousand muffled voices bade her begone. |
| Whatever was her own in the house, everything which she had |
| acquired aside from her husband's bounty, she caused to be |
| transported to the other house, supplying simple and meager |
| deficiencies from her own resources. |
| Arobin found her with rolled sleeves, working in company with |
| the house-maid when he looked in during the afternoon. She was |
| splendid and robust, and had never appeared handsomer than in the |
| old blue gown, with a red silk handkerchief knotted at random |
| around her head to protect her hair from the dust. She was mounted |
| upon a high stepladder, unhooking a picture from the wall when he |
| entered. He had found the front door open, and had followed his |
| ring by walking in unceremoniously. |
| "Come down!" he said. "Do you want to kill yourself?" She greeted him |
| with affected carelessness, and appeared absorbed in her occupation. |
| If he had expected to find her languishing, reproachful, or indulging |
| in sentimental tears, he must have been greatly surprised. |
| He was no doubt prepared for any emergency, ready for any one |
| of the foregoing attitudes, just as he bent himself easily and |
| naturally to the situation which confronted him. |
| "Please come down," he insisted, holding the ladder and |
| looking up at her. |
| "No," she answered; "Ellen is afraid to mount the ladder. Joe |
| is working over at the `pigeon house'—that's the name Ellen gives |
| it, because it's so small and looks like a pigeon house—and some |
| one has to do this." |
| Arobin pulled off his coat, and expressed himself ready and |
| willing to tempt fate in her place. Ellen brought him one of her |
| dust-caps, and went into contortions of mirth, which she found |
| it impossible to control, when she saw him put it on before |
| the mirror as grotesquely as he could. Edna herself could not |
| refrain from smiling when she fastened it at his request. So it |
| was he who in turn mounted the ladder, unhooking pictures and |
| curtains, and dislodging ornaments as Edna directed. When he had |
| finished he took off his dust-cap and went out to wash his hands. |
| Edna was sitting on the tabouret, idly brushing the tips of a |
| feather duster along the carpet when he came in again. |
| "Is there anything more you will let me do?" he asked. |
| "That is all," she answered. "Ellen can manage the rest." She |
| kept the young woman occupied in the drawing-room, unwilling to be |
| left alone with Arobin. |
| "What about the dinner?" he asked; "the grand event, the coup d'etat?" |
| "It will be day after to-morrow. Why do you call it the `coup d'etat?' |
| Oh! it will be very fine; all my best of everything—crystal, silver and gold, |
| Sevres, flowers, music, and champagne to swim in. I'll let Leonce pay |
| the bills. I wonder what he'll say when he sees the bills. |
| "And you ask me why I call it a coup d'etat?" Arobin had |
| put on his coat, and he stood before her and asked if his cravat |
| was plumb. She told him it was, looking no higher than the tip of |
| his collar. |
| "When do you go to the `pigeon house?'—with all due |
| acknowledgment to Ellen." |
| "Day after to-morrow, after the dinner. I shall sleep there." |
| "Ellen, will you very kindly get me a glass of water?" asked |
| Arobin. "The dust in the curtains, if you will pardon me for |
| hinting such a thing, has parched my throat to a crisp." |
| "While Ellen gets the water," said Edna, rising, "I will say |
| good-by and let you go. I must get rid of this grime, and I have |
| a million things to do and think of." |
| "When shall I see you?" asked Arobin, seeking to detain her, |
| the maid having left the room. |
| "At the dinner, of course. You are invited." |
| "Not before?—not to-night or to-morrow morning or tomorrow |
| noon or night? or the day after morning or noon? Can't you see |
| yourself, without my telling you, what an eternity it is?" |
| He had followed her into the hall and to the foot of the |
| stairway, looking up at her as she mounted with her face half |
| turned to him. |
| "Not an instant sooner," she said. But she laughed and looked |
| at him with eyes that at once gave him courage to wait and made it |
| torture to wait. |
|
|
||||
|
