The Letter of the Contract

It was the only hint of the kind she threw out during the afternoons-four in all-they passed together

m unceasingly, in silence, and with anguish; but, as far as possible, they kept him out of their intercourse. It was enough to know that he w

emselves had placed in his hands, that in the end

e?" he found th

stressed. "He

at which he had long been aiming: "Lo

arry him in particular, o

ean

. There-there see

s sweet, too, with the scent of flowers and of new-mown hay. In a tree at the edge of the terrace a blackbird was singing to a faint crescent moon. There was still enough daylight to show

ther. On the other days she had made it a point to be back in London before nightfal

of reasons?

nto his coffee-cup. She added, while passing the cup to him: "It isn't so

rifted about, when you kne

had dismantled the house and other people were living in

th, you wouldn't ha

r own coffee s

t mean no

flected long-"if I had gone back

nsidered it a weak

"Something

d stopped-caring a

hat was it," she continued, with more decision. "That's what I felt: resentment-a terrible resentment. Whatever compromise I tho

to suffer from it

I married-it left me. It was as if old scores were wiped out. That isn't prec

d got

on't mean that. But the past seemed to be

exist for y

el-for a while-only to find later that it wasn't-wasn't so." She went on with difficulty. "For instance-that

ive that you wanted

a differ

t of diff

ng. "Oh, what's the goo

what I asked-why you married

ery against himse

have done it then if-if I hadn't been so-

hat stabbed him. "Well, then? Do

arted at the door of the Ritz with the intention of spending the next day in Windsor Forest-or some other romantic

ch as the date of her return to America. He had not precisely made up his mind that they were parting for good, but he was too stunned to forecast the future. He was stunned and sickened. He was stunned and sickened

th a pang of self-reproach. He meant to go back to them-but not yet. It was too soon. Edith was too much with him. The fact that her physical presence was w

iet place, restful, soothing, a haunt of ancient peace. It had struck him, on former visits there, that on this spot ignored by the tourist, who changes trains subterraneously, consecrated to old sturdiness and modern wisdom, serenely heedless of the blatant and the up-to-date, a

ge of the bluff which the city crowns, it dominates from its windows and terraces the valley of the Aar. Swift and unruffled, the river glides through the meadows like a sinuous ice-green serpe

ars with carrots at the bear-pit, or reading or smoking or sipping coffee and liqueurs in the fine semicircular hall of the hotel. They were French, or Austrian, or Russian, or German, or English, or Danish, or Dutch, as the case might be. There were also some Americans. The great national types were more or less easy to discern-except the Americans. That is, Chip Walker could see no one whom he could recognize offhand as a fellow-countryman. Three gentlemanly, jovial Englishmen were easily made out, because, in Walker's phrase, they "flocked by themselves" and in the intervals of sitting in the Bundes

er displaces a button. As straight and slim and erect as a guardsman, he was nevertheless stamped all over as a civilian. From the lines in his gray, clean-shaven face of regular profile, and the silvery touches in his hair, Chip judged him to be fifty years old. He puzzled the analyst of nationalities-though, as Chip put it to himself, it was clear he must belong to one of the peoples who were chic. He was

ask his advice, but to lay before him some of the difficulties that were inchoate in his soul. He had an idea that this man wit

le to Walker, and passed on. It was a simple matter to ask his name of the one man who knew every name in the hotel, and he was on the point of doing so. He had already begun: "Voulez vous bien me

e could address in a common language. This had come about by the simple means of propinquity on the terrace or in the semicircular hall. He soon saw, however, that

g and the gossip of the town, of Bernese patriarchs in search of gentle exercise and sunshine. This little park possesses a music-pavilion, a duck-pond, a monument to the Postal Union o

misty edge of the sky transformed into a range of ineffable white peaks. The unexpectedness with which the glistering spectacle appeared made his heart leap. It was like a celestial vision-like a view of the ramparts of the Heavenly C

recording it, when he became aware that in the crowding of people to the edge of the

illeux, n'est-ce

, but they would ser

ears. I've never seen it more beautiful than to-day; b

have made the exchange of secrets-perhaps of secret griefs-a possibility. Not so with a man whom one might meet the next time one entered a club in New York. Such a man might even be.... But he dismissed that alarming thought as out of the question. Edith wasn't at Berne. If she had been he would have seen her. He would not inqui

ust go on with it. He did so by pointing with his stick to what he took to be

st. That's the Breithorn. There's the Jungfrau"-he, too, poi

p, the Finsteraarhorn, and the Ebnefluh. They were like a row of shin

o subjects of conversation with his fellow-countryman, in whom

d naming names-the Silberhorn, the Gletschhorn, the Schneehorn, the Niesen, the Bettfluh-that impressed the i

. "I've lived a good deal abroad," was the res

s, its unmoving expression, and its stamp of suffering, was really sympathetic. Something in the composure of the manner and the measured way of speaking imposed this new acquaintance on him as a superior. Instinctively he said "sir" to him, as to an elder, though the difference in their ages could

s at the concierge's desk, Chip saw his new acquaintance, wearing an Inverness cloak over his dinner-jacket, and a soft felt hat,

the little park? It's rather pleasan

d met on the previous day. Though the row of shining spiritual presences had withdrawn, the valley was spanned by a Velvety luminosity, thr

for many years. In fact, I've made some slight study of them. When the autho

Chip murmure

of their countries, and nothing else-wholly or nearly unaffected by the current of life outside. B

ged to say: "It isn't that I s

iti

ous. It implied no more than a

ip answered, with

or resting." Then, after a pause:

d so, and replied to that effec

e question, he added, with a glance at C

e boy in New York," Wa

merely that a certain point in their mutual understanding ha

rn to stare through the moonlight, where the length of the bench lay between them. He felt that he

laugh had there been amusement in it. "Against ev

rown him before which he could not back down. Nevertheless, he determined to keep fr

"Oh, nothing but the obvious things-pursuing another man's wi

man, and what the devil was he driving at? It was all he could do to answer coolly,

loose somewhere-I mean, a screw loose in wh

marriages?-permanen

y direct: "That's what I hop

don't kn

on't know, because I'm not happily married." A s

"But you are married, sir?" To clear the air, he

of. Quietly moving, low-voiced couples paced up and down the promenade, and from the music-pavilion in the distance came the whine and shiver of the Mattiche. "In divorce," the measured voice resumed, "there are some

ry. "May I ask, sir, on what

ssfully the dead are buried, they may come back aga

, that you held this th

heory; I didn't k

"And do I understand you to be telling

could as ea

a voice he tried to keep firm: "If they have come back,

unders

ging him forward. "And would it be fair to

It's partly becau

ink I ought

ask me-that you oug

me-to

'm only struck by-by the

believe I had

aside. "That's hardly my affair. You'r

es

you didn't

ay? Was she suffering? Was it through her that he had been recognized? The fact that he had been recognized brought with it a kind of humiliation. The humiliation was the greater because of the way in which he had singled out this man and approached him. During all those days of studying the stranger

of hurrying away,

oice broke in, courteously. "If you have time to wa

e be any po

not." He added presently: "It's a wise policy to let sleeping dogs

eted

ve some vague idea concerning the proce

nd moved away. He watched him as, with stately, unhastening step, he walked down

f Edith to feel free to go away. He couldn't go away while the other man's plans remained enigmatical; but he wished

Kleine Schanze. It was not an accidental meeting.

we were referrin

on his guard. "Did

ou may be interested to know it. She was ill whe

she's

I'm taking your time i

with some difficulty: "Does sh

sn't sa

anything abo

er. But I should like you to know at once tha

leaving Chip to guess blindly

Idleness would have got on his nerves, and Berne begun to bore him, had it not been for the knowledge that he was under the same roof with Edi

ring themselves within mortal ken. Rounding the corner of the promenade at the end remote from the hotel, at a point from which he had the whole line of the bluff and the green depths of the valley and the slopes of the Gurten and

of the tower and in the midst of the tower and round about the tower white pinnacles glistened in white air. Nothing had happened that he could define, beyond a heightening of his own capacity to see. Nothing on that horizon seemed to emerge or to recede: looking wrought the wonder; he either saw or he didn't see; and just now he saw. He t

crowded to the parapet. As the children were still in school, it was a quiet throng, elderly and sedate. Leanin

ers. They were almost in profile toward himself, the man's erect, stately form allowing the fact that a woman was clinging to his arm to be just percep

supported by him, possessed by him, coming and going with him, living and eating with him, bearing him children, sharing with him whatever was most intimat

pierced. He saw now that, in all the three years since he had heard she was married, he hadn't really known it. Perhaps it was his imagination that was at fault-perhaps his incapacity for believing what wasn't under his very eyes-perh

rt of situation it would be he couldn't guess; but he was sure that behind the immobile mask of the other man's grave face there was something that would be worth the penetration. He would give him a chance. He would go forward to meet them. No, he wouldn't go forward to meet t

y as possible in full view, but with his face toward the mountains. It gave him a preoccupied air to be seen relighting his c

adow warned him

hi

the feverishness of her eyes reminded Chip of the morning little Tom was born. He was on his feet-sil

s soon as I reached Paris; I didn't want him not to kn

that came to him: "Was there any harm in it-our meeting?

d, excitedly. "It's more. I don't

zzled. "More

no shade of its self-control. "I understand that Edith fe

y, the man behind her. "Chip, Mr

o," she interru

said so," he corrected, gently. "I said I understood. There's a difference.

to drop into a seat. "W

I hope-or-or Mr. Walker, eit

y the seat from which he had just risen. It offered him the resource of looking mo

ng part in a meeting at the Bundespalast. "Admitting that you've both made a mistake,

eyes from the mountains: "Wha

ssity of making four peopl

"there are two who must

othing can save them. But, since that is so, the question arises whether it w

now what you mean. Which are the t

ut turning his head: "He's o

sigh and a gasp she fell back a

es of the Wetterhorn up and down, "that a man achieves in saving himself from a sinki

teously. "Wouldn't it rather be that if a man can save

ou're talking about, either of you. What is it? Why

ppose your divorcing him, while my-my present wife might divorce

ent. "It's well to use p

horn with his eye. "Rather comic the

mic in the institution of marriage, we Americans. It's too late for

there laws?"

laws. They reduce marriage to the legal permission for two persons to live together as man

ge is more than th

use our freedom in the future would only stultify our action in the past. If we go in for an institutio

achfully. "Should you be

ight-hearted

ean," she corrected, with some confusion,

at rather

't know

shoulder. It seemed to him tha

itation unusual in him, "with something-something more

lared, hurriedly. "It was b

ou should both feel as I-I imagine you do. You're the wife of his youth-he's the husband of yours. The best things you've ever

bridges," she in

whole question turns on the will. If you have that I want you to under

t you

o late to do anything for us-assuming that she understands, or may come to understand, the position as I do. Your refusing happiness for yourselves in order to stand by us, o

ept as by convulsion, Chip took up the senten

cise

e would involve the cont

ltogether is out of the question. Some of us must go on paying it-all four of us, indeed, to s

s addressed to

m wistfully. "Is it this?-that, assuming what you do

est for you is hardest for me. I couldn't hold you to the letter of o

"Hasn't some one said-Shakespeare or some one-that

ing clause, 'The Spirit giveth life.' That's the vital part of it. To fi

m tearfully. "We

nd Mr. Walker to discover for your

ing away?" she

p's acquaintance with him it was a positive smile

ready lifted his hat in his stately way

, they felt that. Edith leaned across the rude table, her hands cla

what are

cigar still between his fingers. He gazed deep into her eyes. "It's

take it,

you-if

ltingly, after a minute. "Oughtn't we to get at that?

irit? How do you get at

urther and harder and faster.

, isn't it?-that we love each other as much a

s, more-oh, muc

eagerly. "Yes?

eaned still further toward him, as if to annihil

ing els

terly-I've thought it was. When we met in England I was sure it was. Since I've been back with him I've felt that I would have died

se he's been

married him-why I thought I could find a sort of rest with him. You see that, don't you?-without judging me too harshly. He's that kind. I'm used to it with him. He can't help being generous. I knew he woul

both her hands with one of his and crushing the

here's the other woman. We mustn't

e was Lil

g you? I'd hate her if she didn't. Curiously enough I don't hate her now. I wonder

ed. "She's as noble in her w

er occurred to me that you'd marry her. If it had I don't know what I should have-But it's no use going ba

-I suppose she'd let me go-just as he's letti

ould be the

me. How do I know? I should

d happen then?

She's that sort of person. But then, inwa

s it worth w

thin

t? That's the th

sadly. "I don't

uld you believe that the thing I felt to be

nk I s

ing vile. It isn't because he's so noble and good. No, it isn't that. And it isn't just the idea of passing from one man to another and back again. We have turned marriage into opera bouffe, we Americans, and we might as well take it as we've made it. It isn't that at all. It's-it's exactly what you said just now: it's like a man swimming away from a sinking ship, and leaving his wife and childre

over his eyes with it. He spoke hoa

your wife, for better or for worse. I didn't understand that. I only knew about the better. I didn't see that a man and a woman might take each other for worse-and still be true. If I had seen it-oh, what a happy wo

rha

rs. We've let them involve themselves. We can't turn our back upon them, can we? No. I thought that's what you'd say. We can't. The

inarticulate

lves where we can't keep the higher contract, the complete one, we made together-because we're bound by

something inarti

I'm going." She r

r hand in both of his, holding

t do it. We must begin on the instant. If I were to stay a minute longer now, it would be-i

nduced him to relax his hold. She with

going to s

he rotunda. "No. What's the use? What good-by is

he wa

wo of the small pillars. "Edith!" She turned. "Edith! Co

t to the opening through which he leaned,

hand. "Tell me again th

letter killeth, but t

I suppose it is f

I'll look it up. If ever I s

cause, if it gives us life, p

ew her to him and kissed he

ated with gazing, was sauntering away from the parapet. But he made no attempt to follow her with so much as a glance. Slowly, va

E