ECLIPSE
589
than the others carried, any of these guests would have changed places
with her. What would have astonished them was that she would
have bowed to the change on some nights, welcomed it for that same
undemanding contentment. They had finished! They accepted! They
were fortunate! She felt that if she could take just one more step
which they had already accomplished she would have the tenuous
thing, whatever it was, in common with Mrs. Phipps.
The men never stopped. Stocks and bonds and hot spots, an
enterprise here, an escapade there, were still mapping the world
in their way. The world was shown: how civilization swooped
through hell holes, master hands seized keys, took tribute; new emis–
saries, like the swashbuckling conquistadors of old with flag in hand,
penetrated foreign lands, trailing through wildernesses the name of
their continent, their nation, as introduction and souvenir. A shaft
sunk into yellow desert sand, a blast set off by sweating black men
amidst jungle foliage, the hammering of a drill raising green birds
into sun, such images that appeared briefly in Mrs. Herrick's mind
were overlaid, were turned into paper money, fluttered away. Paus–
ing with his cigar in one hand, his spoon in the other, the fat lo–
quacious member of the team interrupted himself to shout boister–
ously, "What's your name, waiter? George?" "Charles." "Charles?
Haw! George, does this place die at nine o'clock?" Mrs. Herrick
fingered her book, her velvet bag. Mail from home picked up at
the desk before dinner was in the bag. The women at nearby tables
seldom received a letter so that as a rule out of delicacy for them
she kept hers to read in her own room later. The letters burned in
her bag; because of the moon they would have to wait longer than
usual. She glanced at her watch.
She signed the check, moved swiftly through the door. People
in the cheerful lobby were discussing the eclipse. "I've seen enough
of them in my day," a gentleman with a spade of goatee on his
chin and Phi Beta Kappa key on his belt was saying, ending the
subject. Groups began making up bridge tables. Still quickly Mrs.
Herrick walked past them and into the sun parlor, where tall glass
doors provided a view of gardens, lake, heavens. Here in deference
to the impending event nobody had switched on the chandeliers.
In
the blackness she made out a sprinkle of quiet spectators sitting in
a row as before the curtain of an unpopular play. She found a seat
with empty chairs on either side.
