THE LIGHT WAVERS As Blake drove the runabout north through the fine autumn morning, he perceived suddenly that his subconscious mind was playing him a trick. He had started out to get light, air, easement of his soul among woods and fields. And now, instead of turning into Central Park at Columbus Circle, he was following Upper Broadway, where, in order to reach the great out-of-doors, he must dodge trucks and cabs between miles of hotels and apartment houses. In fact, he had been manoeuvering, half-unconsciously, so that he might turn into the park at the Eighty-Sixth Street entrance and so pass that most important of all dwellings in Manhattan, the house where Annette Markham lived. Any irritation which he had felt against her, after the unpleasant evening before, was lost in his greater irritation with her aunt. Annette appeared to him, now, as the prize, the reward, of a battle in which Mrs. Paula Markham was his antagonist. As he turned the corner into her street, ten years rolled away from him; he dreamed the childish, impossible dreams of a very youth. She might be coming down the steps as he passed. Fate might even send a drunkard or an obstreperous cabman for him to thrash in her service. But when he reached the house, nothing happened. The front door remained firmly shut; no open window gave a delicious glimpse of Annette. After his machine had gone ahead to such position that he could no longer scan the house without impolite craning of his neck, he found that his breath was coming fast. Awakened from his dream, a little ashamed of it, he opened the control and shot his machine ahead to the violation of all speed laws. He was crossing Central Park West, and the smooth opening of the park driveway was before him, when he looked up and saw--Annette. Her honey-colored hair, glistening dull in the autumn sunshine, identified her even before he caught her characteristic walk--graceful and fast enough, but a little languid, too. She was dressed in a plain tailor suit, a turban, low, heavy shoes. He slowed down the automobile to a crawl, that he might enter the park after her. A boyish embarrassment smote him; if he drove up and spoke to her, it would look premeditated. So he hesitated between two courses, knowing well which he would pursue in the end. As he entered the park, still a dozen yards behind her, he saw that the footpath which she was following branched out from the automobile drive. Within a few paces, she would disappear behind a hydrangea bush. On that perception, he gave all speed to his machine, shot alongside and stopped. Even before he reached her, she had turned and faced him. He fancied that the smile of recognition on her face had started even before she began to turn; she did not appear surprised, only pleased. Beating around in his mind for a graceful word of introduction, he accomplished an abrupt and ungraceful one. "Will you ride?" he asked. "With pleasure," she responded simply, and in one light motion she was in the seat beside him. He turned at low speed north, and as his hands moved over wheels and levers, she was asking: "How did you happen to be here?" He put a bold front on it. "I drove past your home, by instinct, because I was coming north. And I saw you. Which of your spirits"--he was bold enough for the moment to make light of her sacred places--"sent you out-of-doors just before I passed?" "The spirit of the night before," she answered, passing from smiles to gravity. "That long sleep without rest has been troubling me again. I remembered how exercise set me up in the country, and I started out for a little air. Aunt Paula is out this morning--something about the plumbing. Dear Auntie, how I'd love to take those cares off her shoulders. She'll never let me, though. And next week our housekeeper, whom we've held for two years, is leaving; she must advertise and receive applicants--and likely get the wrong one. So that's another worry for her. I was alone in the house when I awoke, and I could not waste such autumn weather as this!" He looked at her with anxiety--the physician again. "I saw trouble in your face last night. It isn't normal that you should be tired out so soon after the perfect condition you achieved at Berkeley Center." "No, it isn't. I know that perfectly, and I'm resigned to it." "I won't ask you to let me treat you--but why don't you go to some physician about it? You know how much this case means to me." For a time she did not reply. She only kept her eyes on the autumn tints of the park, streaking past them like a gaudy Roman scarf. "No," she said at length, "no physician like you can heal me. Greater physicians, higher ones, for me. And they will not--will not--" She was silent again. "Are you coming back again to that queer business of which you told me--that day on the tennis court?" "To just that." "What can such a thing have to do with your physical condition?" "You will not laugh?" "At you and yours and anything which touches you--no. You know I could not laugh now. Little as I respect that obstacle, it is the most serious fact I know." His eyes were on the steering of the automobile. He could not see that her lips pursed up as though to form certain low and tender words, and that her sapphirine eyes swept him before she controlled herself to go on. "Aunt Paula says it is part of the struggle. Some people, when the power is coming into them, are violent. Men, she says, have smashed furniture and torn their bodies. I am not strong to do such things, but only weak to endure. And so it takes me as it does. "Don't you see?" she added, "that if I'm to give up so many powers of my mind, so many needs of my soul, to this thing, I can afford to give up a few powers of my body? Am I to become a Light without sacrificing all? So I keep away from physicians. It is Aunt Paula's wish, and she has always known what is best for me." The automobile was running at an even fifteen miles an hour down a broad, unobstructed parkway. He could turn his eyes from his business and let his hands guide. So he looked full at her, as he said: "She may have a hard time keeping you away from this physician!" That, it seemed, amused her. The strain in her face gave way to a smile. "For yourself, she likes you, I think," said Annette. "She has a most apt and happy way of showing it," he responded, his slights rising up in him. "You mustn't judge her by last night," replied Annette. "Aunt Paula has many manners. I think she assumes that one when she is studying people. Then think of the double reason she has for receiving you coldly--my whole future, as she plans it, hangs on it--and she spoke nicely of you. She likes your eyes and your wit and your manners. But--" "But I am an undesirable acquaintance for her niece just the same!" "Have I not said that you are--the obstacle? Haven't her controls told her that? If not, why did she telegraph to me when she did?" Then, as they turned from the park corner and made towards Riverside Drive, something in her changed. "Must we talk this out whenever we meet? You said once that you would teach me to play. Ah, teach me now! I need it!" And though he turned and twisted back toward the subject, she was pure girl for the next hour. The river breezes blew sparkle into her eyes; the morning intoxicated her tongue. She chattered of the trees, the water, the children on the benches, the gossiping old women. She made him stop to buy chestnuts of an Italian vendor, she led him toward his tales of the Philippines. He plunged into the Islands like a white Othello, charming a super-white Desdemona. It was his story of the burning of Manila which brought him back to the vexation in his mind. "That yarn seemed to make a very small hit last night," he said, turning suddenly upon her. "I didn't like it so much last night," she answered frankly. "What was the matter?" he asked. "Why were you so far away? Were you afraid of Mrs. Markham? I felt like the young man of a summer flirtation calling in the winter. What was it?" "I don't know," she answered. "No--tell me." "There wasn't any reason. I liked you last night as I always like you. But we were far away. Shall I tell you how it seemed to me? I was like an actress on the stage, and you like a man in the audience. I was speaking to you--a part. In no way could you answer me. In no way could I answer you directly. We moved near to each other, but in different worlds. It was something like that." "I suppose"--bitterly--"your Aunt Paula had nothing to do with that?" "You must like Aunt Paula if you are to like me," she warned. "Yet that may have something to do with it. I am wonderfully influenced by what she thinks--as is right." "Then it's coming to a fight between me and your Aunt Paula? For I'll do even that." "Must we go all over it again? Oh like me, like me, and give me a rest from it! I think of nothing but this all day--why do you make it harder? I do not know if I can renounce and still have you in my life. Won't you wait until I know? It will be time enough then!" "'Renounce,'" he quoted. "Then you know that there is something to renounce--and that means you love me!" So giddy had he become with the surge of his passion that his hands trembled on the steering-wheel. Afraid of losing all muscular control, he brought the automobile to a full stop at the roadside. Her sapphirine eyes were shining, her hands lay inert in her lap, her lips quivered softly. "Have I ever denied it--can I ever deny it to you?" The pure accident of location gave him opportunity for what he did next. For they were in one of those country lanes of Upper Manhattan which, though enclosed by the greatest city, seem still a part of remote country. Heavy branches of autumn foliage guarded the road to right and left; from end to end of the passage was neither vehicle nor foot-passenger. One faculty, standing unmoved in the storm of emotions which had overwhelmed him, perceived this. He reached for the trembling hands which gave themselves to his touch. She swayed against him. Her hands had snatched themselves away now--only to clasp his neck. And now her lips had touched his again and again and somehow between kiss and kiss, she was murmuring, "Oh, I love you--I love you--I love you. I love you so much that life without you is a perfect misery. I love you so much that my work now seems stale and dreary. I love you so much that I don't want ever to go away from you. I want to stay here forever and feel your arms about me, for that is the only way that I shall ever know happiness--or peace. I wake in the morning with your name on my lips. I wander through the day with you. If I try to read, you come between me and the page. If I try to play you come between me and the notes. You are my books. You are my music--my--my--everything. I go to bed early at night often so that I can lie in the dusk and think of you. And oh, the only nights that rest me are those filled with dreams of the poem we would make out of life--if--if--" Her voice faltered and he felt the exquisite caress of her lips trembling against his cheek. As though she were utterly spent, she ended where she had begun, "I love you--I love--I love you." He was aware now that another car whirred behind them. He managed--it took all the force in his soul--to put her from him. He turned to see if they had been observed; the passengers in the other car, intent on their own chatter, did not look; only the chauffeur regarded their chassis with a professional eye, as though wondering if they were stalled. When Blake drew a long breath and looked back at Annette, her face was buried in her hands. And now, when he touched her, she drew slowly away. "Oh, drive on--drive on!" she said. "Oh, Annette--dearest." "Don't speak. I beg you--drive on or I shall die!" And though the car wavered dangerously under his unsteady touch, he obeyed, managed to gain the highroad without a spill, and to turn north. She wept silently. When at last she took her hands away and turned her face on him, his lover's observation saw how beautifully she wept. Her eyes were not red, her face was calm. He took heart from her glance, began to babble foolish love words. But she stopped him. "You are driving away from home," she said. "Drive back, and don't speak yet." After he had turned, her tears ceased. She dried her eyes. Now she smiled a little, and her voice grew natural. "I must never be weak again," she said. "But it was sweet. Dear, might I touch your arm? No, you must not stop again. Just my hand on your arm." "Dearest, why do you ask?" She drew off her glove, and all the way a light, steady pressure made uncertain his wheel-hand. They drove a mile so--two miles--and neither spoke until they came out into inhabited Upper Broadway. At the appearance of crowds, trucks and the perils of the highway, that silver thread of silence broke. She drew her hand away, and took up the last word of ten minutes ago. "It was sweet--but no more. How long it is since I kissed you! I am glad. I shall pay for it heavily--but I am glad!" He smiled on her as on a child who speaks foolishness. "You cannot renounce now!" he said. "I shall renounce. I have stolen this morning--would you rob me in turn?" "It will be the first kiss of a million," he said. "It will be the last forever," she answered. "But remember, if you do not kiss me, no man ever shall." He busied himself with guiding the automobile; it was no time to hurl out the intense things which he had to say. But when they had entered the smooth park driveway, he came out with it: "Do you think that I respect that obstacle? Can you think that I believe such moonshine even if you do? And do you suppose that I am going to let Aunt Paula keep you now?" She touched his arm again; let her hand rest there as before. "Dear," she said, "I have never thought that you believed. I have felt this always in the bottom of your heart. I only ask you not to spoil this day for me. I have stolen it. Let me enjoy it. I shall not put you out of my life--at least not yet. Later, when we are both calm, we will talk that out. But let it rest now, for I am tired--and happy." So they drove along, her light hand making warm his arm, and said no word until they came near the Eighty-Sixth Street entrance. He looked at her with a question in his eyes. "Leave me where you found me," she answered; "I shall go in alone." "But will you tell your Aunt Paula that you met me?" "I shall tell her--yes. Not all, perhaps, but that I rode with you. What is the use of concealment? She will know--" "Her spirits?" "Dear, do not mock me. They tell her everything she wants to know about me." They had drawn up at the park entrance now; before he could assist, she had jumped down. "Good-by--I must go quickly--you must come soon--I will write." He stood beside his car, watching her back. Once she turned and waved to him; when she went on, she walked with a spring, an exultation, as though from new life. He watched until she was only a blue atom among the foot-passengers, until a park policeman thumped him on the shoulder and informed him that this was not an automobile stand. * * * * * When Dr. Blake woke next morning, it was with a sense of delicious expectancy. He formulated this as his eyes opened. She had promised to write; the mail, due for distribution in the Club at a quarter past eight, might bring a note from her. He timed his dressing carefully, that he might arrive downstairs neither before nor after the moment of fulfilment or disappointment. He saw, as he crossed the corridor to his mail-box, that the clerk was just dropping a square, white envelope. He peered through the glass before he felt for his keys. It was Annette's hand. So, glowing, he tore it open, and read: DEAR MR. BLAKE: I think it best never to see you again. Aunt Paula approves of this; but it is done entirely of my own accord. My decision will not change. Please do not call at my house, for I shall not see you. Please do not write, for I shall send your letters back unopened. Please do not try to see me outside, for I shall not recognize you. I thank you for your interest in me; and believe me, I remain, Your sincere friend, ANNETTE MARKHAM. After a dreadful day, he came back to the Club and found a package, addressed in her hand. Out fell a little bundle of rags, topped by a comical black face, and a note. The letter of the morning was in a firm, correct hand. This was a trembling scrawl, blotted with tears. And it read: Dear, I have something terrible to write you. I must give you up. I cannot go into all the reasons now, and after all that would not help any, for it all comes to this--we must never see each other again. Please do not send me a letter, for though I should cover it with my kisses, in the end I would have to send it back unopened. I send you Black Dinah as I promised. It's all that's left of me now, and I want you to have it. Dearest, dearest, good-by.