Marise

“ Marise saw everyone's eyes turn to the center of the room and looked back to the plant. The big pink bud was beginning visibly to swell.
A silence came into the room. No one coughed, or stirred, or scraped a chair-leg. It was as though a sound would have wounded the flower. All those human souls bowed themselves. Almost a light shone upon them . . . a phrase from Dante came to Marise's mind . . . "la mia menta fu percossa da un fulgore . . ."
With a quick involuntary turn she looked at Marsh, fearing his mockery of her, "quoting the Paradiso, about Vermont farmers!" ”

“ Over the coffee and Chartreuse, facing another well-satisfied man sat another secretive woman, talking in one key, feeling in another, and finding the process far from enlivening. Down below the surface of the sparkling, chatting Marise, drooped a listless, dispirited Marise for whom a birthday was a most depressing occasion. ”

“ Can't I kiss her good-by? How long will she be away?" cried Marise wildly, starting from the fascinated immobility in which she had gazed at the nun's face.
Sœur Ste. Lucie laid a quieting hand on her shoulder, her kind old face yearning over the child. "Dear little Marise, I think it will be better for your mother not to see you, or any one just now. She needs quiet, perfect quiet."
Marise looked at her hard. She had no idea whether she was being told the truth, or only some kind invention which they thought suitable for her to hear. "Can't I go to see her at the Convent?" ”

“ Papa's face was no longer red. He said to Marise in a queer voice, "The doctor says that Maman must not be disturbed, but we may go in to see her for a moment if we will be quiet and not talk."
They turned, all of them, and started down the long, gray stone corridor. Marise tip-toed along beside her father. She was a little frightened in spite of herself, at a loss to know what to think or feel or believe. The emptiness of the corridor echoed around them. Marise's ears rang with the emptiness of it! And how long it was. It took them forever to walk through it. ”

“ It had been driven away by the certainty that there was a worse fear than any he knew, or ever would know. No matter what risk or catastrophe lay before them, Marise would never look at him out her clear eyes and act a thing that was not true. Marise would always be Marise. Why then, whatever came he could bear it.
Life might be cruel and pitiless, but it was not base, when it had among its gifts such a certainty as that, rock-like under his feet, bearing him up in his pain. ”

“ Across the intervening space and beyond all those carelessly alive bodies, Marise's eyes caught the unmistakable aspect of death in the tiny creature lying there.
"Mother!" cried Elly, "his eyes look so! He can't get his breath. Mother!" Marise felt the child's agitation and alarm knock at her heart. She looked down helplessly at the dying creature. That tiny, tiny scrap of down-covered flesh to be alive, to contain the miracle and mystery of life, and now to be struggling, all alone, with the miracle and mystery of death! ”

“ Of course, as Marise had grown less childish, walks had been free of hoop-rolling with its inevitable encounters with irascible old gentlemen's legs, but she had developed other tastes quite as bothersome. Flora's pretty, slender feet ached with fatigue at the recollection of the long hours she had stood beside Marise, who, sucking hard on a barley-sugar stick, and hooking her elbows over the parapet of the bridge over the Adour, gazed endlessly down on dirty, smelly ships being unloaded by dirty, smelly workmen. ”

“ Marise set her candle down on a stand, and herself sank down on the piano stool, her back towards the keys, staring at the lonesome looking room. How perfectly dead it did look. Marise could hear faintly in the distance an echo of the brisk voice of Jeanne and Isabelle, laughing and carrying on over the dishes. But in here, in the empty salon, there wasn't a sound. Her ears fairly rang with the nothingness all around her. Her heart was big and heavy. ”

“ Marise heard nothing more of what he said, although his voice went on with words the meaning of which she could not grasp. It did not seem to her that she had really understood with the whole of her brain anything he had said, or that she had been able to take in the significance of it. She could think of nothing but a frightening sensation all over her body, as though the life were ebbing out of it. Every nerve and fiber in her seemed to have gone slack, beyond anything she had ever conceived. She could feel herself more and more unstrung and loosened like a violin string let down and down. ”

“ The savage old flame, centuries and ages older than she, flared for an instant high and smoky in Marise's heart. "There is a man who knows how to fight for his wife and keep her!" she thought fiercely. ”

“ For Marise it had the sweetness of a longed-for anaesthetic, it had the very odor of the dreamless quiet into which she longed to sink. But Agnes shrank away, drew hastily closer to Marise, and whispered in a sudden panic, "Oh, don't it scare you? Aren't you afraid to be here all alone, just you and me? We'd ought to have had a man stay too."
Marise tried to answer simply and kindly, "No, I'm not afraid. It is only all that is left of dear Cousin Hetty." But the impatience and contemptuous surprise which she kept out of her words and voice were felt none the less by the old woman. ”

“ She was not hurt at all, only frightened half to death! She was not just a woman in love, ready to give herself up to a man. She was Marise in love with Neale.
He had come up to them now, his breath coming fast as though he had been running. For an instant he did not speak, taking her hand silently in his. All that life had made of him looked out on her from his clear eyes. ”

“ You never saw anything in your life so funny! All of us wrong side up, with our heads ... oh, ha! ha! ha!"
She and Marise went off into peals of laughter which they immediately suppressed to giggles and then to smothered muffled gasps, as they saw the Reverend Mother's dignified black draperies moving down the side-aisle. They'd hear from it at school if Reverend Mother caught them in such a breach of manners as laughing in a public place!
"Who won the prize, my darling?" whispered Jeanne, in Marise's ear, as she smoothed down the collar of her coat. ”

“ Later on Marise fell into a real sleep, deep and unbroken, and when she woke up, much later than usual, to find Mlle. Hasparren all dressed, the folding-bed put away, the window open and the sunshine coming in, she found that she seemed to have grown stronger since yesterday, that the black pit was not so fathomless. She felt infinitely older and as though she would never laugh again. She lay in bed, looking up at the ceiling, thinking fixedly about what had happened, and found that she could endure it now without crying out or bursting into tears as she had done yesterday. ”

“ Once in a thousand years, it seems to me, you come across a human being who's alive as you are, who speaks your language, is your own kind, belongs to you. When you do, good Lord! What a moment!"
He pronounced this in a perfectly impersonal tone, but something about the quality of his voice made Marise flash a quick glance at him. His eyes met hers with a sudden, bold deepening of their gaze. Marise's first impulse was to be startled and displeased, but in an instant a quick fear of being ridiculous had voiced itself and was saying to her, "Don't be countrified. ”

“ No one who can play The Tragica as you do, is cold. You are only a child. You Anglo-Saxons take so long to ripen. But all the better for your technique—that quaint prolongation of infancy. But now," she put down her cup and looked at Marise deeply and masterfully, "now your infancy has lasted long enough. In with you! Dive from the nearest rock! Head over heels! I shall hear the splash from across the world and rejoice."
Marise laughed a little nervously, partly because she was amused and partly because she was excited. ”

“ Marise held on to the Sister's nice, soft, old hand and followed her around from one thing to another, taking a good big drink of the water, and kneeling down whenever Sœur Ste. Lucie stopped to pray before a shrine. Marise didn't pray much, but watched the crowd, the endless crowd shuffling slowly past. She was proud to be kneeling there beside a Sister, who had the right of entrance everywhere, who opened any gate in any railing she liked, and walked right in to say a prayer where the common run of people didn't dare go. ”

“ How lovely she would look in it!
"Yes," whispered the young caretaker, in answer to Marise's look of bewilderment, "she doesn't remember you were here yesterday. She often imagines you are with her when she is quite alone. ”

“ CHAPTER XIV MARISE PUTS ON BLACK
A girl in love with one man, flinging herself at the head of another out of pique or something worse, should have been utterly careless how she appeared to the eyes of the latter. But for some reason—she hardly knew what—Marise had been anxious to look her most desirable. She was dressed in black velvet with shimmering fringes, and a drooping black velvet hat which made her fairness dazzling, her yellowish-brown hair bright gold.
With a faint smile, and in silence, she held out her hand. Garth took it, and this time didn't crush it unduly. ”

“ And then, with a rush, Martha was gone from his mind, and Marise stood there, Marise, looking up at him with piteous, frightened eyes that softened to trust, to quiet trust.
He set off swiftly, swinging his arms and talking to himself. How could he be worthy of such a trust! He would be worthy of it. By God, he would give her a square deal. A square deal such as no other woman ever had! The whole of his heart, his respect, his honor. He would share his life with her loyally, as with an equal ... ”

“ A man who had had years with a real, living woman like Marise, didn't know whether to laugh or swear at such mannerisms and the self-consciousness that underlay them.
There she was coming down the stairs now, when she heard Marise at the piano, with the children, and knew there was no more work to be done. Pshaw! He had meant to go out and join the others, but now he would wait a while, till he had finished his pipe. A pipe beside Eugenia's perfumed cigarettes always seemed so gross. And he wanted to lounge at his ease, stretch out in his arm-chair with his feet on another. ”

“ This time she spoke sincerely, out of a very genuine admiration for his acting.
"One does what one can, what one can," said the old man, resignedly, unbuttoning his blouse and dragging it off, revealing snuffy and crumpled black garments. He looked, thought Marise, like the parish priest of a very poor and neglected parish. And he had been for years—why, for a life-time, one of the most solidly esteemed and admired actors in the finest theatrical company in the world. "What more does any man want?" Marise asked herself, wondering why his face in repose was so bitter and melancholy. ”

“ Marise saw her go into her room, heard the creak of the bed as she lay down on it, and then the old voice, "Miss Marise, will it be all right if I leave my candle burning, just this once?"
"Yes, yes, Agnes, that'll be all right," she answered. "Go to sleep now." As she went back into her own room, she thought passingly to herself, "Strange that anyone can live so long and grow up so little." ”

“ Going down the hall, silent and empty in the dawn, Marise stopped for an instant before his door. For an instant she was forced to think of him, the thought like a weakening potion. She stared hard at his door, her hands pressed tightly together, trembling from head to foot. She was going away. She would never see him again. She turned back towards her own room. She could not go. She ran desperately down the stairs, sick at the idea of what love is. ”

“ Marise was silent, startled by this shouting out of something she had preferred not to formulate.
"Vincent, you see too much," said Mr. Welles resignedly. The phrase ran from his tongue as though it were a familiar one.
Marise said slowly, "I've sometimes thought that Frank Warner did go to the Powers' a good deal, but I haven't wanted to think anything more."
"What possible reason in the world have you for not wanting to?" asked Marsh with the most authentic accent of vivid and astonished curiosity.
"What reason . . . ?" she repeated blankly. ”

“ Much practice had steadied Marise's nerves against any sort of hold-up that could be practised in social relations. She said instantly, "I think it shows one of the most charming landscapes I ever saw. Where in the world is there such a delightful composition?"
She was dealing with some one infinitely more practised than she, who was not in the least taken in by her evasion. Sighing, he turned the canvas with its face to the easel, and told her over his shoulder, "It's in my own country, where I ought to have stayed and been a dumb-beast, and happy. ”

“ Nothing gives one such self-confidence, she reflected, as the certainty of having the right sort of hat. How much better "chic" was than beauty!
With the hat still in her hand, her very eyes on it, she saw there before her, as plainly as though in a crystal ball, Marise's attitude as she had stood with Marsh that evening before at the far end of the garden. Her body drawn towards his, the poise of her head, all of her listening intently while he talked . . . one could see how he was dominating her. ”