So Little Time Read Free Page A

nothing to do with Madge and the children. When he looked at the walls of his study and at the pictures, and at the books which he and Madge had bought and had arranged together, he had a most uncomfortable sensation. He could not believe that he owned such things as the red-backed Aldine Poets and the green Smith and Elder Thackeray and the Currier and Ives print of the “Country Home in Winter.” He and Madge had bought them because they had both liked and wanted them, but he did not seem to own them.
    â€œIt’s funny how people pop up when you least expect it,” he said. “As a matter of fact, I saw Walter last April. He spoke at the Bulldog Club lunch.”
    â€œWhat’s the Bulldog Club?” Madge asked.
    â€œOh, nothing much,” he said. “Just one of those newspaper clubs.”
    â€œYou never told me,” she said. “Jeffrey, why don’t you ever tell me anything?”
    It made him feel wretched, because he could not think of any convincing reason.
    â€œI don’t know why,” he said. “It didn’t have anything to do with you and me.”
    She sat there silently in her blue kimono. Her brown eyes looked wide and hurt.
    â€œOther people,” she began, “other people—”
    Jeffrey reached across the table and took her hand.
    â€œNever mind about other people,” he said, “I love you, Madge.”
    He had not realized he was going to say it, and when he did, it sounded like a complete answer to everything. She was looking back at him, still puzzled.
    â€œI wish you’d say that more often,” she said, and she sighed. “You’re awfully hard to understand.”
    He never could see what there was in him that was puzzling, because to himself he seemed extraordinarily uncomplex. It was only that you could not share your whole life with anyone else in the world, although this was what women seemed to want. No two people, whether they were married or not, could possibly look at any subject in exactly the same way. Everyone’s vision was warped by individual astigmatism. He picked up one of his letters and opened it and began to read before he heard her voice again.
    â€œJeff, is that from Alf?” She must have seen the writing. “You just sent him five hundred dollars, didn’t you?”
    â€œIt looks as though he’s broke again,” he answered. “You know Alf.”
    But she did not know Alf the way he knew him. You could not share everything with anybody in the world.
    â€œIf you’d just put him on a definite allowance,” she began. “Other people’s brothers—” She stopped, and Jeffrey looked back at the letter. It was Air Mail from California. Soon there would be a telegram and then there would be a telephone call, charges reversed. He knew Alf.
    â€œJeffrey,” he heard her say, “Jim’s overdrawn. There’s a letter from the Cambridge Trust Company.”
    Jeffrey folded his letter.
    â€œWhen he tells me about it, I’ll take it up with him,” he said. Breakfast was over, and it was time that he was going.
    â€œDon’t forget,” she told him, “to put some money into the housekeeping account this morning, and then there’s the country—”
    â€œWhat’s wrong in the country?” Jeffrey asked.
    â€œClosing the house,” she told him. “Mr. Gorman had the Martinelli boy wrapping up the rosebushes. You know how much you like the garden.”
    â€œOh yes,” he said, “the garden.”
    â€œJeff.” A change in her voice made him look at her quickly. “You’re not sorry, are you?”
    â€œSorry?” he repeated after her. “Sorry about what?”
    â€œI mean,” she said, “you’ve liked it, haven’t you? The children and the country and being here in the winter. You have liked it, haven’t you?”
    You would think that everything was