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She gave a scream, picked it up and held it in her cupped hands, her little face drawn in horrified incredulity. She looked up at her mother and said in a whisper, "Mother, he's dead." Marise nodded silently. Poor Elly! She wished she could think of something comforting to say. But what is there to say? For her there had never been anything but stoic silence.
Instead, she advanced with her fastidious, delicate note of irony, "I don't deny the happiness, if that sort of happiness is what one is after. But I think my appetite for it . . . that sort . . . is perhaps not quite robust enough to relish it." Marise roused herself to try to put a light note of cheerfulness into this last conversation.
Neale came back now, frankly consulting his watch with Neale's bluntness in such matters. "Train's due in a minute or two," he said. "Where's Mr. Welles?" Marise said, "Over there, with Paul. I'll go tell them."
They had gone over that astonishing misconception of hers about the Powers woodlot, and she had quite made Marise understand how hopelessly incapable she was of distinguishing one business detail from another. There could be nothing else that Eugenia could wish to say. "How in the world shall I get through the winter?" Eugenia now wondered aloud.
He whirled with a ludicrous and undignified haste, slipping, his toe-nails clicking on the bare floor, tore across the room and dashed up the stairs, drunk with joy. "If strong emotions are what one wants out of life," commented Marise lightly, to Marsh, "one ought to be born a nervous little dog, given over to the whimsical tyranny of humans."
He wondered if she hadn't exaggerated all that. But she gave such definite details. Perhaps Mr. Crittenden knew something about that problem. Perhaps he had an idea about that, too, that might be of help. He would ask him. June 10. Marise bent to kiss the soft withered cheek. "Elly is a real Vermonter, but I'm not.
"There's no house in the world where you'll be more welcome," said Marise with all her heart, holding out her hand. Mr. Welles shook it hard, and held it in both his. As the train whistled screamingly at the crossing, he looked earnestly into her face and tried to tell her something, but the words would not come.
To be loyal to what is deepest and most living in yourself . . . that's an undertaking for a life-time's effort, with all the ups and downs and growths of life. And then to try to know what is deepest and most living in another . . . and to try . . . Marise! I will try. I will try with all my might. Can anybody do more than try with all his might?"
The phrase ran from his tongue as though it were a familiar one. Marise said slowly, "I've sometimes thought that Frank Warner did go to the Powers' a good deal, but I haven't wanted to think anything more." "What possible reason in the world have you for not wanting to?" asked Marsh with the most authentic accent of vivid and astonished curiosity. "What reason . . . ?" she repeated blankly.
If it meant tramp-steamers, why it had to be tramp-steamers. Something could be managed for Marise and the children. This was what he had asked. And what answer had he got? Why, of course, he hankered for the double-jointed, lawless freedom that the tramp-steamer stood for. He guessed everybody wanted that, more or less. But he wanted Marise and the children a damn sight more.
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