"Now there remains nothing more for me to say that you would
care to hear. You would no longer care to know,--would
probably not believe me if I should tell you what you have
been to me--and still are--and still are, Athalie!
Athalie!--"
The letter ended there with her name. She kept it all day; but that
night she destroyed it. And it was a week before she wrote him: "--Thank you for your letter, Clive. I hope all is well with
you and yours. I wish you happiness; I desire for you all
things good. And also--for her. Surely I may say this much
without offence--when I am saying good-bye forever.
"ATHALIE."
In due time, to this came his answer, tragic in its brevity, terrible
in its attempt to say nothing--so that its stiff cerement of formality
seemed to crack with every written word and its platitudes split open
under the fierce straining of the living and unwritten words beneath
them.
And to this she made no answer. And destroyed it after the sun had
set.
* * * * *
Her money was now about gone. Indian summer brought no prospect of
employment. Never had she believed that so many stenographers existed
in the world; never had she supposed that vacant positions could be
so pitifully few.
During October her means had not afforded her proper nourishment.
The vigour of young womanhood demands more than milk and crackers and
a rare slab from some delicatessen shop.
As for Hafiz, to his astonishment he had been introduced to
chuck-steak; and the pleasure was anything but unmitigated. But
chuck-steak was more than his mistress had.
Mrs. Bellmore was inclined to eat largely of late suppers prepared on
an oil stove by her own fair and very fat hands.
Athalie accepted one or two invitations, and then accepted no more,
being unable to return anybody's hospitality.
Captain Dane called persistently without being received, until she
wrote him not to come again until she sent for him.
Nobody else knew where she was except her sisters. Doris wrote from
Los Angeles complaining of slack business. Later Catharine wrote
asking for money. And Athalie was obliged to answer that she had none.
Now "none" means not any at all. And the time had now arrived when
that was the truth. The chuck-steak cut up on Hafiz's plate in the
bathroom had been purchased with postage stamps--the last of a sheet
bought by Athalie in days of affluence for foreign correspondence.
There was no more foreign correspondence. Hence the chuck-steak, and
a bottle of milk in the sink and a packet of biscuits on the shelf.
And a rather pale, young girl lying flat on the lounge in the front
room, her blue eyes wide, staring up at the fading sun-beams on the
ceiling.