Free Edith Wharton - SSC 09 by Human Nature (v2.1)

           “Mrs.
Glenn understood—she always understands.”
                 “She
understands when you ask,” Mrs. Brown
insinuated, flashing her lifted gaze on mine. The sense of what was in the bag
had already given her a draught of courage, and she added quickly: “Of course I
needn’t warn you not to speak of all this to Steve. If he knew of our talk it
would wreck everything.”
                 “I
can see that,” I remarked, and she dropped her lids again, as though I had
caught her in a blunder.
                 “Well,
I must go; I’ll tell him his best friend’s coming … I’ll reason with him …” she
murmured, trying to disguise her embarrassment in emotion. I saw her to the
door, and into Mrs. Glenn’s motor, from the interior of which she called back:
“You know you’re going to make Catherine as happy as I am.”
                 Stephen
Glenn’s new habitation was in a narrow and unsavoury street, and the building
itself contrasted mournfully with the quarters in which he had last received
me. As I climbed the greasy stairs I felt as much perplexed as ever. I could not
yet see why Stephen’s quarrel with Mrs. Glenn should, even partially, have
included the Browns, nor, if it had, why he should be willing to accept from
their depleted purse the funds he was too proud to receive from his mother. It
gave me a feeling of uneasy excitement to know that behind the door at which I
stood the answer to these problems awaited me.
                 No
one answered my knock, so I opened the door and went in. The studio was empty,
but from the room beyond Stephen’s voice called out irritably: “Who is it?” and
then, in answer to my name: “Oh, Norcutt—come in.”
                 Stephen
Glenn lay in bed, in a small room with a window opening on a dimly-lit inner
courtyard. The room was bare and untidy, the bed-clothes were tumbled, and he
looked at me with the sick man’s instinctive resentfulness at any intrusion on
his lonely pain. “Above all,” the look seemed to say, “don’t try to be kind.”
                 Seeing
that moral pillow-smoothing would be resented I sat down beside him without any
comment on the dismalness of the scene, or on his own aspect, much as it
disquieted me.
                 “Well,
old man—” I began, wondering how to go on; but he cut short my hesitation.
“I’ve been wanting to see you for ever so long,” he
said.
                 In
my surprise I had nearly replied: “That’s not what I’d been told”—but, resolved
to go warily, I rejoined with a sham gaiety: “Well, here I am!”
                 Stephen
gave me the remote look which the sick turn on those arch-aliens, the healthy.
“Only,” he pursued, “I was afraid if you did come you’d begin and lecture me;
and I couldn’t stand that—I can’t stand anything. I’m raw!” he burst out.
                 “You
might have known me better than to think I’d lecture you.”
                 “Oh,
I don’t know. Naturally the one person you care about in all this is—mother
Kit.”
                 “Your
mother,” I interposed.
                 He
raised his eyebrows with the familiar ironic movement; then they drew together
again over his sunken eyes. “I wanted to wait till I was up to discussing
things. I wanted to get this fever out of me.”
                 “You
don’t look feverish now.”
                 “No;
they’ve brought it down. But I’m down with it. I’m very low,” he said, with a
sort of chill impartiality, as though speaking of some one whose disabilities
did not greatly move him. I replied that the best way for him to pull himself
up again was to get out of his present quarters, and let himself be nursed and
looked after.
                 “Oh,
don’t argue!” he interrupted.