The Goddess Abides: A Novel by Pearl S. Buck Page A

drank the soup as though it were coffee.
    “What’s next?” she inquired.
    “Broiled squab, like you said, madame,” Rose replied.
    “Put it on the table,” Amelia ordered. “Serve the salad, and leave us.”
    “Yes, madame.”
    Alone with Amelia, she unfolded her plan of a house, a place not yet clear in her own mind.
    “I met a young man—”
    “Aha,” Amelia said triumphantly. “I thought so! You look ten years younger. There’s nothing so absolutely cosmetic for a woman as a young man, or so I am told.”
    “Amelia, you are repulsive,” she said severely.
    “My dear, when were we not honest with each other?” Amelia demanded. “You are looking unnaturally beautiful—and have—ever since you returned from Vermont.”
    “Amelia, will you stop?”
    “Don’t pretend then, Edie!”
    The two women looked at one another over the low silver bowl filled with small pink hothouse roses. Amelia’s black eyes were laughing and Edith turned her own blue eyes away.
    “I don’t know why I tolerate you, Amelia Darwent.”
    “Because you know I never tell anyone what you tell me, Edith Chardman!”
    “There’s nothing to tell,” Edith said. She put out her hand and touched a rose. “I can’t see why your roses are always better than mine.”
    “Bone meal,” Amelia said. “So what has the young man to do with the house?”
    “Nothing,” Edith said. She helped herself to a squab.
    “Nothing,” Amelia repeated.
    “Except I’ll ask him for suggestions,” she amended. “But that’s nothing.”
    “Then let’s not talk about him,” Amelia retorted. “Let’s talk about you. You’re someone to talk about! My dear, how shall you amuse yourself?”
    “By building the house, of course.”
    “But where?”
    “Somewhere—by the sea.”
    She was improvising as she went. She had not thought of a house by the sea, but the moment she spoke the words, she knew that of course it was what she had wanted for years. She had even spoken of it to Arnold once, long ago, but he had refused the idea.
    “That surf, pounding all night! We’d not be able to sleep.”
    “You’d not be able to sleep,” she had retorted. “I’d be lulled.”
    “You can sleep anywhere,” he said with one of his wry smiles, never unkind and yet edged. He was always the superior mate, an attitude that she attributed to the combination of English and German elements in the ancestry, dating from the marriage of an early English great-grandfather with a German Mädchen. Environment had encouraged these ancestral traits. He had not even been overly impressed by her Phi Beta Kappa key, won in her senior year at Radcliffe. It would take time for her to recover from the atmospheric pressure of her marriage.
    As if she had divined these thoughts, Amelia now spoke.
    “Do you know, I am quite curious about you, Edith.”
    “Why?” she asked.
    “Arnold kept such a strict hand.” Amelia was vigorously salting and peppering her salad. “I shall be watching you, lovingly, of course, for I am very fond of you, to see just how you will blossom. For I don’t doubt you’ll blossom, my dear, with the charming looks you have. There are young men who actually prefer women over forty. Oh, yes, there are—don’t look so surprised!”
    “Do I look surprised?” she inquired.
    “Shocked, perhaps,” Amelia said. For an instant she pondered whether to confide in Amelia, that old friend, the astounding news of her unexpected new relationship with Edwin. Immediately she decided against it. She had never been given to confidences and, moreover, she was certain that Amelia would not be able to comprehend the quality of the relationship. Amelia would laugh, or Amelia would make ribald comments about lecherous old men, comments that would indeed apply, doubtless, to most old men, but not to a man as intelligent, as learned, as wise, as Edwin Steadley. To Amelia love was sex, whatever others might call it. Instead of confidence she replied with mild