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

           “Argue—?”
                 “You’re
going to tell me to go back to—to my mother. To let her
fatten me up. Well, it’s no use. I won’t take another dollar from
her—not one.”
                 I
met this in silence, and after a moment perceived that my silence irritated him
more than any attempt at argument. I did not want to irritate him, and I began:
“Then why don’t you go off again with the Browns? There’s nothing you can do
that your mother won’t understand—”
                 “And
suffer from!” he interjected.
                 “Oh,
as to suffering—she’s seasoned.”
                 He
bent his slow feverish stare on me. “So am I.”
                 “Well,
at any rate, you can spare her by going off at once into good air, and trying
your level best to get well. You know as well as I do that nothing else matters
to her. She’ll be glad to have you go away with the Browns—I’ll answer for
that.”
                 He
gave a short laugh, so harsh and disenchanted that I suddenly felt he was
right: to laugh like that he must be suffering as much as his mother. I laid my
hand on his thin wrist. “Old man—”
                 He
jerked away. “No, no. Go away with the Browns? I’d rather be dead. I’d rather
hang on here till I am dead.”
                 The
outburst was so unexpected that I sat in silent perplexity. Mrs. Brown had told
the truth, then, when she said he hated them too? Yet he saw them, he accepted
their money … The darkness deepened as I peered into it.
                 Stephen
lay with half-closed lids, and I saw that whatever enlightenment he had to give
would have to be forced from him. The perception made me take a sudden resolve.
                 “When
one is physically down and out one is raw, as you say: one hates everybody. I know you don’t really feel like that
about the Browns; but if they’ve got on your nerves, and you want to go off by
yourself, you might at least accept the money they’re ready to give you—”
                 He
raised himself on his elbow with an ironical stare. “Money? They borrow money; they don’t give it.”
                 “Ah—”
I thought; but aloud I continued: “They’re prepared to give it now. Mrs. Brown
tells me—”
                 He
lifted his hand with a gesture that cut me short; then he leaned back, and drew
a painful breath or two. Beads of moisture came out on his forehead. “If she
told you that, it means she’s got more out of Kit. Or out of Kit through you —is that it?” he brought out roughly.
                 His
clairvoyance frightened me almost as much as his physical distress—and the one
seemed, somehow, a function of the other, as though the wearing down of his
flesh had made other people’s diaphanous to him, and
he could see through it to their hearts. “Stephen—” I began imploringly.
                 Again
his lifted hand checked me. “No, wait.” He breathed hard again and shut his
eyes. Then he opened them and looked into mine. “There’s only one way out of
this.”
                 “For you to be reasonable.”
                 “Call
it that if you like. I’ve got to see mother Kit—and without their knowing it.”
                 My
perplexity grew, and my agitation with it. Could it be that the end of the
Browns was in sight? I tried to remember that my first business was to avoid
communicating my agitation to Stephen. In a tone that I did my best to keep
steady I said: “Nothing could make your mother happier. You’re all she lives
for.”
                 “She’ll
have to find something else soon.”
                 “No,
no. Only let her come, and she’ll make you well. Mothers work miracles—”
                 His
inscrutable gaze