National Avenue by Booth Tarkington (book recommendations website .txt) 📕

to stroke her forehead, but at every such impulse of his she tossed away from his extended hand. Then, in desperation, he fell back upon renewed entreaties that she would eat, tempting her with appetizing descriptions of the food he had brought and, when these were so unsuccessful that she made him carry the untouched tray out into the hall and leave it there, he returned to make further prophecies of the restorative powers of Ornaby Addition.

Once she saw Ornaby, he said, she would be fairly in love with it; and he was so unfortunate as to add that he knew she would soon get used to his grandmother and like her.

Lena was growing somewhat more composed until he spoke of his grandmother; but instantly, as if the relation between this cause and its effect had already established itself as permanently automatic, she uttered a loud cry of pain, the sobbing again became convulsive; and Dan perceived that for a considerable time to come it would be better to omit even the mention of Mrs. Savage in his wife’s presence.

Darkness came upon the room where Lena tossed and lamented, and the young husband walked up and down until she begged him to stop. He sat by an open window, helplessly distressed to find that whatever he did seemed to hurt her; for, when he had been silent awhile she wailed piteously, “Oh, heavens! Why can’t you say something?” And when he began to speak reassuringly of the climate, telling her that the oppressive weather was only “a little hot spell,” she tossed and moaned the more.

So the long evening passed in slow, hot hours laden with emotions that also burned. From the window Dan saw the family carriage return from Mrs. Savage’s; the horses shaking themselves in their lathered harness when they halted on the driveway to let Harlan out. He went indoors, to the library as usual, Dan guessed vaguely; and after a while Mr. and Mrs. Oliphant came from the house and walked slowly up and down the path that led through the lawn to the gate. They were “taking the air”⁠—or as much of it as there was to be taken⁠—and, walking, thus together, the two figures seemed to express a congeniality Dan had never before noticed with attention, although he had been aware of it all his life. Both of them had retained their slenderness, and in the night were so youthful looking that they might have been taken for a pair of young lovers, except for the peacefulness seeming to be theirs. This emanation of a serenity between them suddenly became perceptible to their son as a surprising thing; and he looked down upon them wonderingly.

There came a querulous inquiry from the bed. “What on earth are you staring at?”

“Only father and mother. They’re outdoors coolin’ off.”

“Good heavens!” Lena said. “Cooling off!”

“You’re feelin’ better now, aren’t you, Lena?” he asked hopefully.

“ ‘Better!’ ” she wailed. “Oh, heavens!”

Dan rested his elbows on the windowsill, and his chin on his hands. “They’re comin’ in, now,” he said after a while. “They’ve had their little evening walk in the yard together. They nearly always do that when the weather isn’t too cold.”

“ ‘Cold?’ I suppose this place gets just as cold in winter as it does hot in summer!”

“It does get pretty cold here in winter sometimes,” the thoughtless Dan said, with a touch of pride. “Why, last February⁠—”

“Oh, heavens!” Lena wailed; and she began to weep again.

About midnight she was quiet, and Dan, going near her, discovered that she drowsed. His foot touched something upon the carpet, and he picked up the string of artificial pearls, put it upon the table beside the bed, then tiptoed out of the room, closing the door with great care to make no noise. The house was silent and solidly dark as he went down the broad stairway and opened the front door to let himself out into the faint illumination of the summer night. It was a night profoundly hushed and motionless; and within it, enclosed in heat, the town lay prostrate.

Sighing heavily, the young husband walked to and fro upon the short grass of the lawn, wondering what had “happened” to Lena⁠—as he thought of it⁠—to upset her so; wondering, too, what had happened to himself, that since he had married her she had most of the time seemed to him to be, not the Lena he thought he knew, but an inexplicable stranger. This was a mystery beyond his experience, and he could only sigh and shake his inadequate head; meanwhile pacing beneath the midnight stars. But they were neither puzzled nor surprised, those experienced stars, so delicately bright in the warm sky, for they had looked down upon uncounted other young husbands in his plight and pacing as he did.

By and by he stood still, aware of another presence in the dimness of the neighbouring yard. The only sound in all the world seemed to be a minute tinkling and plashing of water where the stoic swan maintained himself at his duty while other birds slept; but upon the stone rim of the fountain Dan thought he discerned a white figure sitting. He went to the fence between the two lawns to make sure, and found that he was right; a large and graceful woman sat there, leaning over and drawing one hand meditatively to and fro through the water.

“Martha?” he said in a low voice.

She looked up, said “Dan!” under her breath, and came to the fence. “Why, you poor thing! You’re still in that heavy long coat!”

“Am I?” he asked vaguely. “I hadn’t noticed.”

“ ‘Hadn’t noticed?’ In this weather!”

“It is fairly hot,” he said, as though this circumstance had just been called to his attention.

“Then why don’t you take it off?”

“My coat?” he returned absently. “I don’t mind it.”

“I do,” Martha said. “You don’t need to bother about talking to me with your coat off, do you? It’s only a dozen years or so since we hid our shoes and stockings in the