390
PARTISAN REVIEW
That night he didn't go over his dolls. The next morning he was
busy. After lunch he and Mary strolled in the garden . They both felt
Daisy's absence was temporary and shouldn 't be made too much of. He
even thought it was easier and more natural to put his arm around
Mary. They both felt light and gay, and went out again. But later, at
dinnertime, when he went up to the bedroom for her, he was surprised
to
find her there alone. He'd forgotten for a moment that Daisy was
gone, and now her absence made him strangely uneasy. Mary might
well be a woman without a doll again; but he could no longer separate
the two in his mind, and the fact that the house didn't seem to notice
she was missing was like a kind of madness. Also, the way Mary
wandered back and forth in the room, apparently not thinking of
Daisy, reminded him of a madman drifting around naked, in a daze,
forgetting to dress. They went down to dinner. And there, sipping his
French wine, he stared at her in silence, till finally he thought he
caught a hint of Daisy in her. Then he began
to
understand what the
two women meant to each other. Whenever he thought of Mary, he
remembered her fussing over Daisy, arranging her clothes, sitting her
up straight so she wou ldn 't sag and planning to surprise him with her.
If
Mary didn't play the piano-as, for instance, Frank's girl friend-it
was because she expressed herself in her own original way through
Daisy. To strip her of Daisy would be like stripping an artist of his art.
Daisy wasn't just part of her personality but her most charming side; so
that he wondered how he could ever have loved her before Daisy came.
Perhaps in those days she'd found other means or ways to express that
part of herself. But a while back, when he'd gone up to the bedroom for
her and found her alone, she'd seemed strangely insignificant. "Be–
sides," he went on to himself, still sipping his French wine, "Daisy was
an unknown obstacle," which probably explained why he kept on
tripping over her on his way to Mary.
After dinner he kissed Mary's cool cheek and went in to look at his
glass cases. One of them showed a Carnival scene. Two masked dolls, a
blonde and a brunette, in Spanish costumes, leaned over a marbl e
balustrade. To the left was a staircase with masks, hoods, paper
streamers, and other objects scattered on the steps with artful neglect.
The scene was dimly lit; and suddenly, watching the brunette, he
thought he recognized Daisy. He wondered whether Mary had sent for
her as a surprise. Before going into the matter, he opened the glass
door. On his way up the staircase, he stepped on a mask, which he
picked up and threw over the balustrade. The gesture gave the objects
around him an unpleasantly physical sensation, and he was disap-
