National Avenue by Booth Tarkington (book recommendations website .txt) 📕

continued to disagree with him, and presently was surprised by the suspicion that she enjoyed hearing him talk, and in a way, found him congenial in spite of their differences.

“You’re the only person I ever heard of that criticized the Renaissance,” she said, when he got up to go. “You’re all wrong, of course, even if I can’t prove it. You’re too much for me, but that’s only because you’re such an admirable bookworm.”

Then, as he went down the long path to the gate, she observed that his shoulders had acquired a little more habitual stoop in them than she remembered. Otherwise the tall figure might have been that of a thin athlete; and Harlan had a well-shaped head;⁠—she was readily able to comprehend what one of her friends had written her of him: “And Harlan Oliphant seems to be just as sarcastic as he used to be, but he is awfully distinguished-looking as he grows older.” Nevertheless, even in this view of his back, Martha found something irritating, something consciously aristocratic, over-fastidious, skeptical, and precise. “That’s just what you are!” she said half-aloud, before she turned to go into the house. “You can be rather fascinating, but you’re really only an admirable bookworm in a nice, clean white collar!”

The admirable bookworm, unconscious that the definition of him had been enlarged, walked down National Avenue, keeping within the continuous shade of the big maple trees and perplexing himself with introspections as he went. He was dry and cold, as he knew, yet far from incapable of ardour, and he had never entirely lost the ardour he felt for Martha; but what surprised him was the renewed liveliness of that ancient pain she evoked within him. He had thought it dead, but evidently it had only fallen into a doze in her absence.

Of course he asked himself why he should ache because she had at once resumed with him her old critical attitude, and why, moreover, he should care about her at all. She had almost no coquetry and little more of the quality called “sheer feminine charm”; she was too downright and plain-minded to possess much of either. She was not masculine yet, as her father said with the plaintive irascibility of a man who knows because he has suffered, she was imperious. “A man might as well be dead as bossed to death,” he often complained. And although she was a handsome creature and graceful, Harlan saw a dozen prettier girls at the new Country Club every day that he played golf there. Notwithstanding all this, she had only to let him see her again after years of absence, and at once his heart leaped, then ached, and he could think of nothing but this Martha who thought so little of himself.

He was not the only member of his family who found Martha’s return disturbing; his sister-in-law also had long thoughts connected with the arrival from Italy. That evening before dinner, Dan was whistling in his bathroom, shampooing himself lavishly, when Lena came into his bedroom and addressed him through the open door.

“I suppose you’ve seen her,” she said, and gave utterance to an emotional little titter that quickly stopped his whistling.

He had heard such semblances of amusement from her often enough to understand their prophetic meaning. “In for it again!” was instantly his thought. “Seen her?” he said. “Who do you mean?”

“Your fair mountain range,” Lena replied, affecting a light mockery. “Of course you didn’t know she’s home again! Innocent old Dannie!”

“I heard she was to get here today, so I suppose she’s here; but I haven’t seen her. What about it?”

“Oh, nothing!” Lena returned, continuing her archness. “Do you suppose she can stand it?”

“Stand what?”

“Why, the sight of us⁠—of her old sweetheart married to me,” Lena explained. “She’s stayed away till she thought she could bear it, but do you suppose she will be able to?”

“Yes, I think she’ll bear it,” he said gruffly and went on with his lathering.

“How about you? Do you think you’ll be able to contain yourself when you⁠—”

“I expect so.”

“Why don’t you ask me how she looks?” Lena inquired, still affecting to rally him gaily. “I know you’re dying to. I’ve seen her; I was looking from my window and saw her go out and walk up the street this afternoon. I laughed so!”

“What about?”

“She was such a perfect picture of a big Western woman! Absolutely typical!”

“You mean like mother, for instance?”

“No; your mother’s a dear thing who’d be lovely anywhere; I never think of her as Western at all,” Lena said. “She isn’t.”

“She is as much as Martha is⁠—or anybody else. She was born here and⁠—”

“Not at all!” Lena interrupted airily. “The real Western woman is like your mountain girl. They love to be huge; that’s why they live in the prairie country⁠—so they’ll look even bigger. One reason I laughed was because your friend was just exactly as much the typical Western woman after all this time abroad as she was before she went. She was wearing all kinds of expensive clothes, and I haven’t a doubt she’d got them in Paris, but on her they looked perfectly as Western as if she’d just bought ’em and put ’em on downtown at Kohn & Sons! Do you suppose you’ll be able to control your raptures at all when you meet her again, old innocent Dannie?”

“See here,” he said, “I wish you’d let me get fixed for dinner. I had a pretty hot day’s work and I’d like to⁠—”

“Of course you would!” Lena said. “You’d like to make yourself beautiful because you’re going to hurry over there to her just as soon as you’ve finished your dinner, aren’t you? That’s what you have been planning, isn’t it?”

“Why, yes; certainly,” he answered. “I’d like to have you go with me. She’s an old friend of mine and all our family; she’s been away a long time, and it wouldn’t look very cordial not to⁠—”

“Why, no; so it wouldn’t!” Lena mocked, but now her