The Letter of the Contract | Page 5

and courteous. She, too, carried a
parasol, negligently, gracefully, over the shoulder. It served to conceal
her face till she had passed the stranger by a pace or two and glanced
casually backward. She might have done so, however, with full
deliberation, for the woman took no notice of her at all. Her misty,
troubled blue eyes, of which the lids were red as if from weeping, were
fixed on the house across the way.
Edith saw now that, notwithstanding a certain youthfulness of dress and
bearing, this was a woman, not a girl. She was thirty-five at least,
though the face was of the blond, wistful, Scandinavian type that fades
from pallor to pallor without being perceptibly stamped by time. It was
pallor like that of the white rose after it has passed the perfection of its
bloom and before it has begun to wither.
Edith paused, still without drawing the misty eyes on herself.
"Do you know the people in that house?" she asked, at last.
The woman looked at her, not inquiringly or with much show of
comprehension, but vaguely and as from a distance. Edith repeated the
question.

The thin, rather bloodless lips parted. The answer seemed to come
under compulsion from a stronger will: "I--I know--"
"You know the gentleman."
The pale thin lips parted again. After a second or two there was a barely
audible "Yes."
"I'm his wife."
There was no sign on the woman's part either of surprise or of
quickened interest.
There was only the brief hesitation that preceded all her responses.
"Are you?"
"You knew he was married, didn't you?"
"Oh yes."
"Have you known him long?"
"Eleven years."
"That's longer than I've known him."
"Oh yes."
"Do you know how long I've known him?"
"Oh yes."
"How do you know?"
"I remember."
"What makes you remember?"

"He told me."
"Why did he tell you?"
A glow of animation came into the dazed face. "That's what I don't
know. I didn't care--much. He always said he would marry some day. It
had nothing to do with me. We agreed on that from the first."
"From the first of--what?"
"From the first of everything."
Before putting the next question Edith took time to think. Because she
was so startlingly cool and clear she was aware of feeling like one who
stands with the revolver at her breast or the draught of cyanide in her
hand, knowing that within a few seconds it may be too late to
reconsider. And yet, she had never in her life felt more perfectly
collected. She looked up the street and down the street, and across at
her own house, of which the cheerful windows reflected the May
sunshine. She bowed and smiled to a man on foot. She bowed and
smiled two or three times to people passing in carriages. From the Park
she could hear the shrieks of children on a merry-go-round; she could
follow a catchy refrain from "The Belle of New York" as played by a
band at a distance. Her sang-froid was extraordinary. It was while
making the observation to herself that her question came out, before
she had decided whether or not to utter it. She had no remorse for that,
however, since she knew she couldn't have kept herself from asking it
in the end. As well expect the man staggering to the outer edge of a
precipice not to reel over.
"So it was--everything?"
In uttering the words she felt oddly shy. She looked down at the
pavement, then, with a flutter of the eyelids, up at the woman.
But the woman herself showed no such hesitation.
"Oh yes."

"And is--still?"
And then the woman who was not a girl, but who was curiously like a
child, suddenly took fright. Tears came to her eyes; there was a
convulsive movement of the face. Edith could see she was a person
who wept easily.
"I won't tell you any more."
The declaration was made in a tone of childish fretfulness.
Edith grew soothing. "I'm sorry if I've hurt your feelings. Don't mind
speaking, because it doesn't make any difference to me--now."
The woman stared, the tears wet on her cheeks. "Don't you--love him?"
Edith was ready with her answer. It came firmly: "No."
"Didn't you--ever?"
This time Edith considered, answering more slowly. "I don't know. If I
ever did--the thing is so dead--that I don't understand how it could ever
have been alive."
The woman dried her eyes. "I don't see how you can help it."
"You can't help it, can you?" Edith smiled, with a sense of her own
superiority. "I suppose that's the reason you come here. I've seen you
before."
"Have you?"
"Yes; several times. And that is the reason, isn't it?--because you can't
help loving him."
The woman's