A little pond lay in the very center of it, all deep with the blue sky, and golden October gloried all about it--swaying in wild-tinted treetops, blowing in dry leaves, sparkling on every spot of wet, and all suffused and splashed and strangely fresh with the low, red, radiant sunlight. There was splendor in the place, and the air dripped with glorious life, and through it all went the lovers, silent, estranged, pitiable.
It was a bench under a tree, facing the pond. They sat down, each gazing on the ground, and the leaves dropped on them, and squirrels ran up to them, tufted their tails and begged for peanuts with lustrous beady eyes, and now and then some early walker or some girl or man on the way to work swung lustily past and disappeared in foliage and far low vistas of tree trunks.
The suspense became intolerable again. Joe turned a little to her.
She was trembling; a moment more she would be in his arms, sobbing, forgiving him. But she hurried on in an unnatural way.
"You wanted to speak to me--I'm waiting. _Why_ don't you speak?"
It was a blow in the face; his own voice hardened then.
"After the fire--" his voice snapped, and it was a space before he went on, "I felt I was guilty.... I went to a mass-meeting and one of the speakers accused the ... class I belong to ... of failing in their duty.... She said ..."
Joe felt suddenly silenced. Something unpleasant was creeping in between them. He did not know enough of women, either, to divine how Myra was suffering, to know that she had reached a nervous pitch where she was hardly responsible for what she thought and said. He went on blunderingly:
"I felt that I was accused... I felt that I had to make reparation to the toilers, ... had to spend my life making conditions better.... You see this country has reached a crisis ..."
"Exactly what do you mean?" she asked, sharply.
"I mean"--he fumbled for words--"I must go and live among the poor and arouse them and teach them of the great change that is taking place...."
"Oh--an uplifter, settlement work, charity work--"
"Yes, I see," she said, raising her voice a little; "you're going to live in the slums and you want me to release you. I do. Anything else?"
She was making something sordid of his beautiful dream, and she was startlingly direct. He was cut to the heart.