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Updated: June 22, 2025
In the middle of the night she had wakened oppressed by a dread resulting in an uncontrollable chill. She thought first that her mother was bending a malignant face over her; and then realized that her feeling was caused by her promise to Dodge Pleydon.
He was quiet but plainly happy to be with her again and sat leaning forward on his knees, watching her intently as she chose a seat. Then it slowly dawned on her that he had changed, yes tragically. Pleydon, in every way, was years older. His voice, less arbitrary, had new depths of questioning, his mouth was more repressed, his face notably sparer of flesh.
She was still unable to disentangle the flesh from the spirit, love the love that so amazingly illuminated Dodge Pleydon from comfort. Dodge had disturbed all her sense of values, even to the point of unsettling her allegiance to the supremacy of a great deal of money. He had worked this without giving her anything definite, that she could explain to Vigne, in return.
Again on her feet she saw that Pleydon was angry, his face grim. He seemed changed, threatening and unfamiliar; it was exactly as if, in place of Dodge Pleydon, a secretive impersonal ugliness stood disclosed before her. He said harshly: "When will you marry me?"
The boy had left the university, and his father a striking replica of Arnaud's prejudices, impatience and fundamental kindness exchanged with Vigne's male parent the most dismal prophecies together with concrete plans for their children's future security. This, inevitably, resulted in Vigne's marriage; a ceremony unattended by Pleydon except by the presence of a very liberal check.
She saw him that way in her dreams in the court under the massive somber walls, with a troubled frown over his eyes. It seemed to her that, reaching up, she smoothed it away as they stood together in a darkness with the fountains, the hedges, dead, the world with never a sound sleeping in the prison of winter. Linda thought about Dodge Pleydon on a warm evening of the following May.
"But then, you are a child, it all intrigues you. You listen with the flattery of your blue eyes and mouth, both open." "Don't be rude, Susanna," Pleydon commanded. "You are so feminine that you are foolish. I'm not the stupid one look again at our 'child. Tell me what you see." "I see Siberia," she said finally. "I see the snow that seems so pure while it is as blank and cold as death.
There she sat gracefully composed and with still hands; she never embroidered or employed her leisure with trivial useful tasks. Pleydon was extended on a chair, his fingers caught beyond his head and his long legs thrust out and crossed at the ankles.
She told herself that probably he had forgotten her existence, but she had a strong unreasoning conviction that this was not so. It seemed the most natural thing in the world to write him and, almost before she was aware of the intention, she had put "Dear Mr. Pleydon" at the head of a sheet of note-paper. I promised to let you know in the spring when you came back from South America where I was.
The following morning it was Arnaud, rather than herself, who had a letter from Pleydon. "He wants us to come over to New York and his studio," the former explained. "He has some commission or other from a city in the Middle West, and a study to show us. I'd like it very much; we haven't seen this place, and his surroundings are not to be overlooked."
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