He felt she was looking at him, but being busy with the car he was silent.
"I really believe you've forgotten."
He caught a glance at her. She looked charmingly provoked. The fact that she was centring her attention on him was in itself flattering. "Not at all," he assured her and wondered to what she referred.
"It was at the American Legion Ball," she reminded him.
And then he remembered. It all came back to him. It had been a dismal evening, way back in April. He had noticed her that evening. She had worn a weird thing of silver and black. She had even sat beside him on a sofa by the door—she and her partner. But he had not met her; he was sure of that. He had remarked, he remembered now, how curiously alert her eyes were, how alive, taking everything in.
"You were in uniform," she continued.
"Yes," he replied. Nearly every man present had been.
For a few moments silence. Then reaching Broadway and less traffic they rolled along a little more easily, with less tension.
"I'm Myrtle Macomber," she at length essayed. "In case you had forgotten."
Joe grinned. Then he turned to her, "And my name's Hooper."
She gave him another one of her roguish glances through her lashes.
"I was trying to remember," she laughed.
Then he asked her the way home and she told him. After that she chatted more freely, made comments on some of the people they passed. The evening had turned out fine. Broad orange pennons streamed out of the west. The little fountain in the city park tinkled delightfully as they passed.
"It's a pretty car," she said once; "so roomy and comfortable."
He made no reply and wondered if his silence were reprehensible.
Under her direction they turned into a quiet side street and stopped before a grayish frame house with a fancy bulbous tower at one corner and bilious green outside shutters. A woman was stooped over a flower bed in the centre of the yard. She arose stiffly at their approach.
Miss Macomber turned to Joe, but he had already alighted from the car and gone around to help her out. As he held the door open for her she seemed a bit distrait. Slowly they walked across the pavement to the gate. The woman in the yard came forward to meet them.
There was a moment's pause. And then: "This is Mr. Hooper, mama."
The woman gave him an appraising look, glanced at the car, then smiled and held out her hand. It was damp and flabby.
"Please excuse my appearance, Mr. Hooper," she smirked. "I was getting some flowers for the table, dearie," she added to the girl.
Joe wondered vaguely at the contrast. Here was another of nature's paradoxes. Mrs. Macomber looked worn and quite untidy. She was fat; her figure looked as though it had been allowed to run wild. Her face was heavily lined with wrinkles and was not too clean. And her eyes were tired. The house dress that she wore open at the neck and held together by a bleak-looking cameo pin might have been destined for dust rags in some families, and not extravagantly, either.
She gazed at her daughter with open admiration.
"Thank you so much, Mr. Hooper," said the latter, and as she spoke she barred the entrance through the wooden gate with a dainty arm in a long, white-silk glove. But she smiled at him archly. "Call me up sometime."
And then she turned and, gently pushing the drab creature before her, went up the walk and into the house.
Joe looked back over his shoulder at them as he drove away.
Therest of that troublous day passed hazily for Mary Louise. She avoided Maida, who in her turn seemed disposed to avoid her. She made a hasty escape after the tea-serving hour and hurried home.
The sun was setting as she entered her room; the tall spire of the First Church was all ruddy with the glow of it as she threw open the window, and as she paused for a moment with palms on the sill, she looked down into the deepening shadows of back passages and alleys, nooks and recesses, where lurked ash and garbage cans and heaps of rubbish. A black cat came slinking around the corner of an old gray-brick stable, disappeared for a moment in a passage, and a moment later she saw him spring to the top of a rotting board fence, pause, and then lightly let himself down into the shadow of the other side. And just a hundred feet to the left—she could barely see past the front cornice of the four-story dwelling below her—Broadway was thronged with its sleek, pleasure-loving, home-going crowd. You could never tell the back from the front.
She withdrew from the window, walked slowly across the room, and sank into a chair. She felt curiously ill at ease and sat staring blankly before her at the wall.
For the difficulty, which in some ways was trivial enough, no solution presented itself. Maida Jones, her companion and business associate, had developed a side that had never been taken into account. Or perhaps she had merely presented it for the first time. So much the worse. If so, then her judgment had been all the more faulty.
She had thought she had known Maida, known her well enough to count on her. She had known she was lazy, known she was a bit slipshod and indifferent. To offset this she was good-natured and compliant. She had had the money, enough for her share in floating the venture. There had been no complexity in the problem at the start.
It was unfair for her to pan out so. Mary Louise felt in a way that she had been swindled. She had felt all along that she could dominate the tone of the establishment, and in fact she had done so. Maida was not made of the stuff to furnish opposition. That had been one of the considerations of the partnership. And in all the months of their association nothing positive had ever cropped out in her. Why, she did not have the strength to say "no." That was why—Mary Louise's thought checked itself sharply here and paused. For a while her mind wore itself out in short, futile meanderings of suppositions. Directly the dim headlines of the paper she had brought with her claimed her attention, and then tiring of that she dropped the paper and stared emptily out of the window. Why, she decided suddenly out of nowhere, she didn't even know the girl.
A swinging white finger of light came feeling across the sky in her window. She watched it grope for the brass ball on the peak of the spire, saw it slip off and fumble and come feeling again, settle with a determined grasp as if to say, "There, I've got you," and then go wandering off eastward across the sky. It was the searchlight from the new Odeon theatre, she remembered. And it might be barely possible that it was entirely an honourable affair. They might really care for each other, grotesque as it might seem. Mary Louise granted for the moment that she had been a detached, impersonal sort of companion and such a thing might well be possible without her knowledge. But if such were the case, Maida needs must be apprised at once of the proprieties. The tea room was a business proposition purely. She would wait a bit until the proper time and straighten out the kinks.
Somewhat relieved in mind, she leaned back in the chair and rocked slowly. She began to grow restless, and thought for a moment to switch on the light. But the room was a bare sort of thing, had nothing of her in it, and the thought of its bleak primness was repellent. She decided that a walk was what she needed, to clear out the cobwebs. Slowly she arose to her feet and groping along the edge of the table, felt her way to the door. An hour's walk would be enough; she would not need her coat. Slowly and thoughtfully she opened the door.
Just beyond the threshold in the dim-lit hall stood Maida, fumbling in her bag for her key. She looked up in alarm as Mary Louise opened the door. It was ludicrous, the expression on the flat face. Behind her stood the cook—the man from the army. He turned away as Mary Louise stepped out and pretended to look out the hall window.
Mary Louise had decided on a more moderate course. She had decided to forget the matter for the time being. But the sight of the boy, there in the hall, was disconcerting. Nevertheless, it was with a forced cheeriness that she spoke:
"Don't need your key, after all. I was just going out for a little while." It was trite enough civility.
Maida looked up at her dully, and Mary Louise stepped to the left and was on the point of passing on down the hall. As she walked away, the boy moved to the door, fingering his hat, and took one step across the threshold after Maida, who had preceded him, into the darkened room.
And then Mary Louise turned around. At her step he paused and looked quickly up.
"There's a chair by the window," she said, indicating a group of armchairs clustered there and a tall fern in a glazed pot on a pedestal. "You can wait there." She had spoken on the impulse, and her voice sounded strangely vibrant and remote even to herself, like the voice of a third person. She was trembling slightly.
The boy looked at her, flushed a little, seemed undecided.
The light switched on and Maida appeared at the door.
"Come on in, Tim," she said, looking strangely at Mary Louise.
An overpowering anger came swelling in the latter's veins. She walked back to the door and stood before the placid bovine figure of her room-mate. For a moment she could not trust herself to speak, she was trembling so.
"I said for him to wait outside—there," she repeated with quavering emphasis.
Maida's face looked flat and large and sober. There was a great, vast, pasty blank of cheek from her sombre eyes to the downcast corner of her mouth. "I heard you," she replied. "Come in, Tim."
Mary Louise felt impotent. She watched the face before her, stolid, immutable, expressionless. She felt suffocated for breath. She plucked at her skirts with her fingers. Finally she gasped out:
"Not—not into my room. If he does, I'm through with it—and you. You understand?"
Maida shrugged her shoulders, and a slight smile curled the corners of her lips. She turned away.
"That's your lookout, not mine. You're making an awful fool of yourself, McCallum."
And then she closed the door.
Mary Louise walked blindly down the hall. She stumbled into the elevator and did not answer when the elevator boy spoke to her. When she gained the street the rush of the night air against her face steadied her a bit. She turned off promptly north and struck out for the down-town district.
By the time she had walked a block her faculties were returning. It had all been preposterous, crude. She had blindly lost her temper. Something kept crying out to her that she was an old maid. Perhaps she shouldn't have minded. She was finicky and squeamish. A girl had to have some privacy in the place she entertained her company. But Maida—and the cook! The thought of that flat, pasty, sullen face stirred in her a sudden repulsion.
She crossed Broadway and turned west toward Fourth, walking rapidly. Maida! Maida! The girl she had known for eighteen months in the Red Cross tea room! The girl who had sat through a year of war without ever changing the vacuity of her smile! Sat—that was it, positively sat. A woman with a figure like that had no right to a lover. And a cook! An ordinary cook, hired out by the week! His beady, close-set eyes and hair sleeked back. Like a rat! Andshewas mixed directly up in it,she—Mary Louise McCallum, the daughter of Angus McCallum. She shuddered and hurried on.
As she passed Chestnut Street they were going into the "movie" theatre. There was a long queue stringing out on the pavement. She was hardly aware of it but kept on walking straight north. More than one head was turned to watch her as she plunged resolutely on. Her apparent fixity of purpose was incongruous for that time of the evening.
The preposterousness of the whole affair kept hammering at her thoughts. To think that she had tied herself up with such a creature. To think that she had been so blind to the coarseness, the commonness that must have been there all along. What would Aunt Susie think about it? What would they all think? And in her own room! The brazen, callous nerve of the creature! Like a big, fat, lumbering ox. She trembled all over with sensitiveness.
Before she knew it she had come to Main Street. Beyond her dipped the hill that led to the river. The lamps were dim, and sparsely lighted the alleyways and loading platforms of the dark, forbidding warehouses. She realized suddenly that she must make some decision. She could not go back to the room. Slowly and thoughtfully she crossed the street and retraced her steps on the other side. What was she to do? She could not go back. Not under any circumstances. The friends she had were mere casual acquaintances; she could not call on them.
She passed out into the more crowded district again. She began to be a little perturbed, forgot her anger; at least it was dimmed. Coming to Spruce Street she saw the usual crowd of men hanging about the door of the Ardmore. They always stood there, clustered about on the steps, with their cigarettes and their half-burned cigars and their flashy clothes and their burnt-out eyes and their appraising looks. For a moment she contemplated crossing the street to avoid running the gauntlet of their inspection. Where would she go then? Farther south it was darker and more unfriendly, with great stretches of shade and silence. She paused for a moment on the corner and watched the throng about the steps across the street. People were hurrying in and out; motors were humming; trolley gongs were clanging. She felt a sudden fear of it, that familiar neighbourhood with the tea room less than a block away. Hot, flushed, nervous, excited, she wanted to run somewhere, slink down into a cool, quiet shelter as had the cat she had seen from the window earlier in the evening. The world was a cruel place. One had to know how to get along in it. Every scrap of assurance seemed to have left her.
Suddenly she turned to the right and walked down Spruce Street. She came to the lobby of the Patterson and walked boldly in. With her pulses hammering she went up to the desk, took the pen, and signed her name to the register.
A level-eyed man with a very naked head came forward and considered her. His face was as cryptic as the outline on a mummy case. It was as easy to read his thoughts. He merely inclined his head and looked slightly away, suggesting that his ear was hers if she so desired.
"Single room with bath," faltered Mary Louise.
The clerk resumed his upright position. He looked at her gravely as though she had said, "What will you take for your hotel?" He looked past her into the vast stretches of the lobby and found there much for philosophic speculation. Thus absorbed, he asked vacantly, "Any luggage?"
"No," said Mary Louise. "I—it will be here in the morning."
He turned and stepped back into the sanctum of interwoven grilles and partitions.
Mary Louise was desperately nervous. It seemed that a thousand eyes were watching her; her back felt peppered with them. She shifted one foot and leaned slightly against the desk. All about her men were pressing up for mail, keys, reservations, information. She dared not look around. There were no women in the constricted circle of her vision except the telephone operator over to her left.
The clerk was taking a long time. She was getting even more anxious. Suddenly she heard her name called. It startled her even while it brought a tremendous sense of relief. She turned and Claybrook was standing by her elbow.
"How's tricks?" he inquired.
For a moment she could not answer, only look at him gratefully.
"I've been out of town. Just got back. Was going to call you up this evening, but I didn't have the chance," he went on.
She murmured something unintelligible.
"Waiting here for something?" At her nod of assent he came and stood beside her, leaning his elbow on the desk, his gaze idly and comfortably sweeping the lobby. "Hot to-night," he said.
The inscrutable clerk returned. Mary Louise felt his inspection before she actually saw him. She turned, expectant.
"Sorry," he murmured. "Can't do anything for you."
Mary Louise received the blow standing. "But," she faltered, "Later on?—I'm not in a hurry. Are you really all filled up?"
The clerk gravely smiled and shook his head.
She stared at him in desolate appeal. Her thoughts went rocketing off. What was she going to do?
"How's this?" she heard Claybrook say. "Full up?" He had turned from his idle inspection of the lobby. "Not in two weeks. You can rent a floor in this hotel."
He looked at Mary Louise. "You want a room here?" He seemed a bit surprised.
"Yes," she stammered. "For the night."
Claybrook turned to the clerk. "Tell McLean Miss McCallum wants a room here for the night," he said.
"But——" interrupted the clerk.
Claybrook cut him off short, tossing a card across the desk. "Take that to McLean and tell him Miss McCallum wants a room. And give her the best service you've got."
The clerk disappeared again. Mary Louise was hot and embarrassed and uncomfortable. She looked up and saw Claybrook regarding her quizzically but kindly. He seemed very big and she warmed to him. He asked her no questions. She was about to speak when the clerk returned again and, calling a bell-boy, tossed out a key to him, bowed, and murmured, "Six fourteen," indicating Mary Louise.
Before following the waiting boy, she held out her hand impulsively to Claybrook and looked into his eyes.
"Thank you so much," she said. "I don't know what I would have done without you. It's all so ridiculous. Tell you all about it sometime."
She left him standing there in front of the desk, with a puzzled look upon his face, a big, reliant, kindly figure. He had not asked her a single question. He had come to her assistance when she needed it sorely. His was a friendship worth having.
She waited until the bell-boy had left her in the room and then she closed the door and locked it. Then she threw herself face down upon the bed and buried her flushed cheeks in the pillow. What a disgraceful, disreputable affair it all was. All on account of her own blindness and folly. She felt like a little child helped out of a scrape. But all the mischief was not remedied. She at least could find other lodgings to-morrow. She would not wait another day. Thanks to Claybrook she was in off the street. Suppose she had had to spend the night on a park bench? Once that had had a humorous sound to it. Claybrookwasa masterful person. He had made that clerk step around. How humiliating it had all been.
She got up and switched off the lights. Then she lay down again and watched the twinkle of the lamps of an electric sign about a block away across the roofs. What was she going to do about Maida? What was she going to do about the tea room? Something would have to be done. It was impossible to go on with it any further.
She would have to buy Maida out. She could force her to sell, she supposed. But where would she get the money? She was already in debt for part of her share. Perhaps Maida would buy her out. What would she do then? Go back to Bloomfield? Just when the venture was beginning to pan out nicely? Not without a struggle, she wouldn't. Back and forth she debated the question, her mind a welter of confused decisions.
After a while she fell asleep....
Two days later she met Claybrook again. Nothing had been decided. Maida had seemed utterly indifferent. "Perfectly satisfied with things as they are," she had said; there was a diabolical stubbornness in her manner. She made capital of her own inertia. She was as cool as if dealing with an entire stranger. Finally, after two days of backing and filling, of bickering and contesting, she had named her price. "Fifteen hundred," she had said and there was nothing in the way she said it that gave the slightest hope that it would be any less. It was a hold-up.
Mary Louise met Claybrook; she was passing through the lobby of the Patterson where she still had her expensive room. He saw the trouble in her face and drew her to the lounge in the ladies' entrance.
"What's wrong?" he said shortly. "You've been hard to catch lately—something's on your mind."
"No, there isn't. Honestly," she protested. She saw that he was not to be put off. Moreover, she was feeling entirely weak and helpless, no longer the masterful and self-reliant female. And she told him the story—most of it.
When she finished he smiled at her. He seemed genuinely amused. "It's quite a tragedy," he admitted.
"And what am I going to do?"
"That's just the point," he agreed. "Has the tea room been making you money? Does it look good to you?"
"Yes," she said. "Too good to let go of." And then she launched into a digressive and rather vague prospectus of its activities and profits.
"How much money would it take?" he asked at length.
She told him.
"Well, then, forget it," he concluded. "I told you that if you got in a jam, to call on me. Well, I was not talking just to hear myself talk. I meant it." He paused and stared away at the opposite wall. "Meet me here this afternoon at three and I'll have a check for you."
Mary Louise was for the moment incredulous. Then a great sense of relief flooded over her, and then a feeling of regret.
"But I couldn't," she faltered.
"Why couldn't you?" He rose to his feet and looked down at her.
"I couldn't take money from you. You don't know what I'd do with it, don't know what sort of business woman I am, or anything."
"I know enough to satisfy myself," Claybrook assured her soothingly. "And I'm not giving you the money. You can write me out a note for it. Six per cent. is better than four," he added. And then he smiled.
Two days later Maida Jones moved out and Mary Louise saw her no more.
Lonelinesswages a Fabian warfare. It is likewise a craven. At the slightest opposition it turns tail and flees, frequently to steal back furtively and lurk slinking in the vicinity, clouding it. Only on rare occasions does it boldly come out and proclaim itself.
Another week had passed. Joe was finding leisure. And in leisure there are echoes, as in all vast vaulted spaces, where slight sounds linger reverberating and faint shadows stretch away to void. There was time to see the drabness of his boarding place, so he changed it. The change cost him more money and left him more leisure. He took his meals wherever he happened to be. The town was full of people, kindly enough, but each with his own circle of interests. To some of these he sold motor cars. There would be a short period of contact, then that would pass and the customer would slip into the whirlpool of casuality and be swept away. None of the relationships seemed to last. Each one left him more alone than ever.
He ran across Mrs. LeMasters. Mrs. LeMasters was an ancient lady with a penchant for lavender. The day he called on her she was wearing a flowered dress with a sash, with bits of lace about the neck and cuffs. She put on a bonnet of lavender straw before the glass in her front hall and bound it to her by yards of voluminous cream tulle, wrapped under her chin and about her neck with trembling fingers.
"Does it blow much in your car?" she called to him in a quavery voice.
He assured her that it was quite desirably calm.
"The Stokes car is most delightful," she said. "Just like sitting in my own room. Not the sign of a bump—and I could not realize we had been going twenty-five miles an hour."
He smiled politely. "We'll see what this one will do."
"I've been struggling to keep off this evil hour for, oh, so long," she explained as she followed him timidly down the walk to the curb. "It was a terrible thing when the world went mad for haste and now has to be jerked around from place to place without ever drawing a sane breath. I've two horses and three carriages, one a Victoria that I bought in Paris. What am I going lo do with these if I buy your car, Mr. Hooper? Oh, what a pretty car!"
She narrowed her sharp little eyes—she was quite near sighted—and stepped out into the street and around the rear of the automobile, caught sight of her image in the back panel, came around and felt of the leather in the seat, rubbed the polished surface of the bow socket as though she had bought motors for years. Then she turned to Joe: "And the engine? Is it a good engine?"
"It is guaranteed to be the best." And then he went on quietly to tell her a few of the more spectacular things about it. He did not overdo it.
As he was speaking she was watching his face with a dreamy, vague expression on her wrinkled features. When he had finished, she brightened and laid her hand on his arm. "And now let's go for a nice ride." She was as enthusiastic as a girl. "I'm sure this is a nice car."
They went out in the country a short distance, out on the Bloomfield pike. She found he was from Bloomfield and trilled away in a high, shrill cackle that she loved every stick and stone in that adorable country. And when she found that he was the nephew of Mrs. Mosby, or, rather, Loraine Fawcette, that was, her ecstasy knew no bounds.
"Why, I took Tom LeMasters away from her," she giggled, and leaned over with her wrinkled and scented face close to his, grasping him by the arm.
After that they were bosom friends. He told her about Bloomfield as it came back to him, rhapsodized over its meadows and woods and "purling streams," and felt a rising desire to taste its joys again. And all the while his voice would fall on deaf ears and her eyes would take on a misty look as though peering down dark, dusty corridors; and interrupting him, she would recall the circumstances of some famous party, summoning forth the creaking images of old men and women, yellow and withering, some of them long dead.
The afternoon passed swiftly away. They found themselves in a bit of lane that dipped down into a little grove of trees, just as the sun was gathering his cohorts for departure. A breath of fragrant breeze, heavy laden with clover and sweet with the stretch of cool, moist shade through which it had passed, came sweeping across the road, and the sounds of a farm hand whetting his scythe. Through a rift in the trees appeared a patch of delicate blue sky and the edge of a rosy cloud. Mrs. LeMasters came to the wistful end of an alluring and musty reminiscence and gazed regretfully at the tawdry beauties of the present. Then she turned her eyes upon Joe, and with a sigh that was sodden with romance: "How could you ever bear to leave that adorable spot?"
Joe smiled in mellow acquiescence and almost agreed with her.
Of course, the Stokes car never had a chance. Before he took his leave of her he had her signed order for a "Sedan" for immediate delivery. And she grasped his hand and held it, leaning coyly close. "We're going to have some wonderful times this fall. We'll drive to Bloomfield, just you and I. And what am I going to do about a chauffeur? What will I ever do with a strange creature who cares for nothing but speed? Why don't you stay with me and drive for me? We'll just not stay home a minute."
He temporized, laughing, and finally tore himself away. And when he stepped from the car outside of Blake's Restaurant and was met by a blast of hot air, laden with the breath of fried onions, he felt himself very much alone. He ate his supper dreamily and retrospectively. The vacant chair across the little table added to the plaintiveness. He had liver and onions and a chocolate eclair and felt that he needed a woman to look after him.
He got in the car and drove slowly south. When he came to Lytle Street he turned off to the right. It was not quite dark and people passing on the pavement seemed to him to peer out at him. He felt self-conscious and slowed down the car still more till he barely crept along, with headlights blazing two bright paths before him. Myrtle Macomber had told him he might come and he did not wish to seem to be too eager. But as he sought his bearings, watching the unfamiliar fronts of houses and clumps of shade, he suffered little tremblings of expectancy in spite of his restraint.
Directly the house appeared; he had no difficulty in recognizing it. It stood out bleakly against the evening sky, with its pointed cupola thrust upward like a warning finger, with its wooden fence and gate. It bad no modest shrouding of trees and bushes in the shadow of which one might veil one's entrance. For a moment he was afraid lest he be too early, so he alighted, switched off the lamps, and proceeded across the pavement to the gate very slowly. Then from the shelter of the vines on the side porch he heard the hum of voices and a laugh. Grasping his dignity firmly like a walking stick, he stalked up the pavement to the house.
Myrtle came to meet him. The dim outline of her in her filmy dress and the elusive scent of her presence stirred him again. Her voice was gentle as she laughed a greeting and she gave his hand an imperceptible squeeze as he came up the steps. His stiffness vanished, but the sound of voices from back in the shadow disturbed him. An absurd personality crowded to his lips as she led him forward, but he repressed it.
He was introduced. There was quite a crowd assembled and in the dark he was conscious of only a blob of faces and the grip of one hand that was quite too hot. Even in the dark he felt embarrassed, as the conscious caller exposed nakedly to the world. What had she done this for? It was not too considerate of her. Perhaps it was purely accidental. He began to speculate on how soon the crowd might break up, and found himself dangling uncomfortably on the porch railing close beside the chair of a shadowy girl who was buried in its depths. He could look down into the place where he imagined her face might be. He was quite close to her and in the jabber of voices she was silent. No one seemed to pay him the slightest attention, and his interest mounted in a growing intimacy of silence with this girl in the chair. A door opened and he saw Myrtle's figure pass across the room within and busy herself with something on the table. In the faint light that now pervaded the porch he again peered down at the figure beside him. Instantly the glamour vanished. The face he saw was thin and sharp, with hair slicked back from the forehead and narrow, slanting sharp eyes. He caught a glimpse of neck and shoulders above a brazen filmy waist, and in the splash of light and shadow there was no softness of contour, but cruel bones and hollows.
"Think you'll know me next time?" came a harsh voice and a laugh, and he straightened up and murmured an apology. He felt very much embarrassed and disturbed. His mellow complacence had fled precipitately. In his ears sounded the rattle of personalities. It was as harsh and as constant and as senseless as machine-gun fire. At least he could make an early "get-away."
Myrtle came and stood beside him from somewhere in the darkness. The tip of her little finger barely touched his hand as she stood there, leaning against the railing and firing back some "chaff" into the darkness. There came a lull in the chatter and Joe was feeling a bit mollified. Suddenly, before he realized it, the crowd was leaving, and one by one they filed past him, each bidding good-night. There was the thin girl in the chair, then two boys who were entirely nondescript, with noisy throats cut out of the same copper plate, a soft billowy shadow of a woman under a floppy hat and exuding a ghastly sweet, cloying perfume. Her bare arm was as soft and flabby as jelly as she stretched it out to Myrtle. After her came another man, rather hesitantly, and keeping in the shadow. His voice was good, rather deep, rather strong. As he passed, he called Joe by name. Twisting around in the light, Joe saw that it was Hawkins, one of the owners of the "Kum-quik Tire Company," a rather taciturn, solemn sort of man to do business with. Joe was surprised.
In a moment they were all gone and the porch was dark and still. Their passage was as inexplicable as their presence had been. A dim band of light lay across the floor of the porch and Myrtle stood before him, facing him. He could not see her face.
"Well?" she said, as though she had known him for years.
"Well?" he echoed uncertainly. Her tone had implied a question or perhaps it was a suggestion. She stood quite motionless; he could have reached out his hand and put it on her shoulder, "Suppose we go for a ride," he suggested lamely, not feeling quite sure of himself, feeling that perhaps it was not just the thing to propose on his first call.
For a moment she made no answer, but stood there looking at him. He could feel rather than see the fixity of her gaze. Suddenly she tripped away from him and ran into the house, calling back over her shoulder, "Have to get a wrap. Be back in a minute."
After they had started he regretted the suggestion. It had shut off the prospect of a languorous evening. It was not in harmony with his mood; he had much rather loll back on a bench and steep himself in musings.
Accordingly, he turned away from town, keeping on quiet back streets. He did not even ask her where she wanted to go. The night was soft and dark with a sky that hung low like black velvet in which was sprinkled a soft studding of stars. The air wrapped about them, lazy and warm; it was not like night air at all. There was a peculiar exotic feel to it which kept the senses in a state of semi-coma yet alive to the slightest change. Joe half closed his eyes and leaned back against the cushion like an old cat getting her back scratched. The soft perfume of the girl's hair, the delicious mystery of the impenetrable sky above them, the caress of the air, all seemed to have been provided for his own especial enjoyment. He was suddenly exultant that he had escaped the house, that he was out and beneath the sky, and above all, that he had someone with him. The feeling of unfulfillment that had wracked him constantly was giving way. He imagined a sort of proprietary right to the conditions about him. Luxury, ease, pleasure, all that rolling along underneath those stars with an exquisite, beautiful thing beside him was symbolical of, seemed justly to have fallen to his lot. The dull, unfathomable ache of suppressed desire had vanished and he was complacent.
"Well," a voice startled him. "Aren't you ever coming back to earth?"
He was suddenly confused.
"I don't think it's a bit nice, carrying me off and then thinking about some other girl. Aren't you ever going to say a word?"
He recovered and found that they had travelled about two blocks. The spell faded. He regained mastery of himself. "I've been waitin' for permission to speak. Yon only said I might take you for a ride." He turned and gave her a personal look.
"Where are you taking me then?" Her liveliness seemed to be returning. "Do you have to have permission for everything you do?"
"I'm not sure," said Joe. "We're goin' to take a look at the river. That's my own idea."
"How'd you know I wanted to? Perhaps I had rather do something else."
He looked at her suddenly, but before he could speak, she leaned toward him impulsively and laid her hand on his shoulder. "There, I was just kidding. There's nothing in the world I'd rather do. It's a heavenly night. And I like you for your silence. It takes a real person to be still at the right time. Go ahead and dream all you want. It's heavenly."
She removed her hand, but in some way she seemed to remain nearer to him than she had been. A little, delightful shudder of appreciation ran through him. He no longer felt isolated. The proprietary sense was growing stronger.
They wound in and out in a devious path, for the streets in the eastern part of the city were laid out in accordance with whim and not by plan. And the rows of cottages lining the streets had acquired something of mystery from the canopy of night, and even the squalid sheds that appeared on the edge of the city's virility were wrapped in a shadow that loaned them charm. There came a short stretch of hedge-encompassed road and a damp musty smell of water, beyond, in the blackness on both sides. Then they rolled out upon a clattering bridge, turned a corner, and before them lay the river.
Joe slowed down the car. A tiny light flashed and then lay stretching its rays in a yellow ripple out into a blue-black immensity. A shadow, beyond it and entirely detached, appeared drifting slowly, and passed them, an empty "plop-plop" following vaguely in its wake. The road turned again, a little to the left this time, and swishing branches brushed the car, and then almost at their feet stretched away to the left a broad, black, moving shadow, matching the sky and studded likewise by tiny pin-pricks of light. Ahead, unwound the road, a straight ghostly ribbon fading away into a giant's mouth, and softly swept down upon them the river wind, almost imperceptible in its rustling and a little chill. Joe felt a quiver of happiness.
"You're the noisiest man I ever knew," interrupted Myrtle plaintively. "Ooh! This place gives me the creeps."
He could feel the warmth of her and he laughed. "Swampy here a bit from the creek bottom. Up ahead it is higher and better. That crowd all come to see you? You shouldn't have run them away."
"Oh, it was time they were going. They knew I wanted to see you." He could almost feel her eyes and felt that she was making a play for him. It was a new and pleasing experience.
"So you really did, did you? I'm flattered."
There was a coaxing, cloying note in her voice when she spoke directly, that in some way coincided with the breath of the night and the feel of that velvet sky. He got her to talk just to hear the sound of her voice and she chattered on for a while about airy nothings that vibrated pleasantly in his ear: told him about a trip she had just had up to the Indiana lakes, regretted the ruining of a summer frock on a boating party, asked him his opinion of the necessity of chaperones on picnics. There was a suggestion of deference in her manner as well as lightness, a quality that stirred him a little more pleasantly even than the other qualities. She was different from others he knew.
They mounted a slight rise in the road and then dipped into a cool hollow fringed about by the shadows of willows. She paused suddenly in her recital and gave a little ecstatic cry. Seizing his arm she pointed. Over beyond, through a gap in the willows, lay a stretch of shadowy river meadow reaching back for a great distance to the second rise and fringed about its edge by even blacker shadows. And above it danced a million fire-flies weaving ceaselessly to and fro, waving their soft lanterns. They hung, a cloud of twinkling radiance, upon a soft black curtain.
"Oh, stop the car," cried Myrtle. "The lovely things! Let's watch 'em from here."
For some moments neither spoke. They were drawn up to one side of the road partly in the shelter of the willows that lined it and it was snug and pleasant and warm. The light breeze could not reach them. Joe felt exalted. In this communion of spirit he was experiencing something entirely new. It was as though he had known her always. He could feel sure about her. She liked the things he liked. She was alive and she was not aloof. There was a joy in living; she felt it and he felt it. And she was sitting very close. With an easy stretching of cramped muscles he slid his arm along the back of the seat and let it slip carelessly about her shoulder. There was a moment of delicious freedom and relaxation, of kindliness and friendliness and a thousand other little sensations, to say nothing of a spark of a thrill—when she moved easily forward, contracting her shoulders.
"Let's go," she said dully.
Instantly the illusion vanished. Back into his self-belittling he slipped and was silent. Away fled the ease and complacency, and the wind came up from the river and chilled his ankles.
A moment later she asked him quite brightly, "Whatdo you do?"
He had been thinking upon his sin and was startled at the casualness of the question. He laughed, a bit nervous. "Why, didn't you know? What'd you imagine?"
"Of course I don't know. Run some sort of plant, I would guess."
"Nope," he replied, and his voice had not the low, ringing assurance he might have wished, but was a little too loud, a little too high. "Nothing but this car."
"I don't understand," she replied. "How do you mean?"
"I'm selling 'em. This is a demonstrator, and I am responsible for it."
"Oh, I see—well—isn't that nice!"
And somehow from that time on the evening grew chilly and less pleasant and clouds came up and obscured the soft velvet sky. In a very few minutes they turned about and went home.
She bid him a casual good-night.
When he climbed the stairs to his room about thirty minutes later, they seemed endless. His breath was coming short as he gained the top and a vast, sudden, sickening weariness swooped down upon his body and consumed it. As he passed the open window in the hall the night breeze made him shiver and he went chattering to bed. He pulled the covers up beneath his chin and realized that he had made a fool of himself, which somehow didn't matter much; realized that he was alone—just as much alone as ever—which mattered quite a lot. All this and the chill shivering and the vast, aching weariness. He fell asleep and dreamed of desolate wastes and wanderings and parching heat.
Halfof August had joined the past. And with it was passing Joe's complacency. Each day brought a certain routine: customers to be developed, doubtful and recalcitrant ones to be urged to the purchasing point. One day's work was very like the next. But each day passing brought a certain satisfaction, of being one day nearer to the day ahead.
The day that he had taken Myrtle Macomber up the river road had been Tuesday. On Wednesday he had risen, sluggish and weary, with an ache in his bones. A half-hearted, spasmodic attempt at work had ended at eleven o'clock. He had called up Myrtle. They went that afternoon to a ball-game. Thursday morning came, bright with promise, and a profitable forenoon was spent in the old hammer-and-tongs manner. By noon he had two orders in his pocket and felt quite exhausted. The heat drank up the very marrow from one's bones. He met Myrtle on the street. They had lunch together. All that afternoon they paddled about in the river and came home with hair wet and nerves sagging. Friday passed, a long dreary day. By the time five o'clock arrived Joe would willingly have sunk down on the cement pavement in some shaded corner, just to take his mind from the grip of the traffic. There was nothing in the selling of motor cars to give his mind anything to bite on. What was it kept him going, he asked himself? The answer suggested itself to him, but he shook it off and mused on. Summer was a dreary time. That night he dragged himself to Lytle Street. He found Miss Macomber waiting for him on the porch. She was wearing a Nile green sports suit of soft flannel, with white facings, and white shoes and stockings and a stiff sailor hat of white straw. As he came up the walk and approached the steps, he heard a scurrying and moving of chairs, and as he gained the porch he caught a glimpse of a scuttling back in a baggy shirt with suspenders, a stooped fat neck that was collarless, and a frayed-out bald spot—just a glint of it—on the head above. From humble soil is sometimes nurtured the choicest of blooms. Joe had never met Mr. Macomber and the mother always seemed to keep discreetly in the background.
They went that night to the amusement park on the river. Myrtle looked like a clipping from a style magazine; there was not a flaw in her. She drank up amusement like a thirsty sponge. They wandered about after the show. They drank lemonade. They danced in the pavilion. They wandered about some more, listened for a short time to the trillings of a robustious prima donna come upon evil days. They soon tired of this so easily attained diversion and feverishly set out for more. They danced again. They ran into a crowd of Myrtle's friends. They joined them in a series of mad dashes on the roller coaster. Myrtle's zest seemed fed from eternal springs. They danced a third time, or rather Myrtle did, with each clamouring swain, while the music bleated and whined away in expiring ecstasies and Joe leaned back against the window sill and gazed hollow-eyed at the ceiling or answered the fatuous banalities of some of the less fortunate ladies who were not dancing at the moment for various reasons. And as they went home that night, after twelve, they talked of the vast still places of the world, "where Nature leans a brooding ear" and "where one can be reposed and strong and silent and happy" and "just drink up the atmosphere in great gusty draughts, and steep oneself in calm. None of this terrible grind from day to day."
Saturday, Myrtle went up-state. Saturday was hot and long and interminable. Sunday she motored, likewise up-state. It did not make the city streets the cooler, thinking of her. Sunday night produced a rain and a rising wind and a repetition of that chill, aching weariness for Joe when he dragged himself to bed. Just as relaxation slipped down between the covers upon his weary body the future came and stood at the foot of his bed and stared at him like a flat, empty sheet of yellow foolscap, without a mark on it, and away it stretched endless. It was a silly image; it stared so vacantly. But it roused him with a start and he tossed about restlessly on his bed and threw back the covers that had become oppressive and let the breeze from the window, a water-soaked breeze, blow in upon his bare chest. How long would he be selling motor cars? He shelved that question. How much would he have to make this month still, to pay all his bills? He shelved this one, too. What was the matter with him, that he felt so played out? Suddenly he shivered and was chilled to the marrow, and he pulled the sheet up under his chin and went to sleep in the absorbed contemplation of each minute bodily misery.
Monday noon found them lunching together in the tea room. Joe spoke very distantly and formally to Mary Louise when once she came in, looked around at the tables, and then disappeared in the mysterious regions behind. Tuesday night they went on a moonlight picnic on a large river steamer and got back at half-past one. There had been a blissful hour of drifting black shadows, of gleaming ripples, and the heavy sonorous exhaust of benign boilers, spent on the topmost step of the pilot-house stairs, with a moon that dipped and swam in a turgid sea of drifting clouds. The rest had been rattle and bang of jazz and chatter, and bumping about on a hot, swaying floor into obstreperous shoulders, and the smell of sweetened popcorn and fresh paint and sickly perfume. Wednesday they went for a ride again and ended up at the "Ferry" and danced and drank lemonade. And they passed a table where sat old Mrs. LeMasters with a youngish boy with a very red, sunburned face, and she wagged her finger at Joe and looked long and critically at Myrtle. Thursday night he stayed home and felt solitarily virtuous.
On Friday a picnic had been arranged. Joe "knocked off" work at four o'clock and went home and dressed by a window through which the sun streamed broiling hot. Before putting on his shoes he yielded to the lure of the bed and flung himself upon it. It was all he could do to drag himself forth and put on the finishing touches. Somehow the notion of the picnic did not thrill him. There would be the same crowd on hand, noisy, obstreperous, vulgar. They had no real "punch" to them. They were like beating a tin pan: all of it was right on the surface.
He arrived twenty minutes late and was scolded. They loaded a stack of baskets into his car; all about his feet were cumbersome bundles; and they scratched the polished panel in the tonneau behind the front seat. He could hear the grating of the straw basket across the beautiful surface and he shrank from the sound. Into the seat beside him clambered the soft, fattish girl. Her name was Penny, he had learned. She smirked at him as she adjusted her skirts. There was a line of tiny beady perspiration upon her upper lip and her white slippers gaped at the sides and were not too clean. Her pink georgette crêpe waist clung to a flabby back with a suggestion of dampness and she simpered at him:
"I hope Myrtle won't put poison in my ice-tea."
He confessed that that would distress him exceedingly.
Into the back seat clambered the two boys with the copper throats. Their names were Glotch and Trumpeter. They hailed Joe with acclaim, slapped Miss Penny on the bare neck, coyly, with little flips of the fingers, and when the slim, sour-faced girl—who was a Miss Ardle—with her slicked black hair, climbed in between them, they fell on her neck in ecstasies of greeting and threatened to kiss her and were slapped roundly for their pains amid loud guffaws. It ended by Miss Ardle coming around and sitting in the front seat to the rapturous discomfort of Miss Penny, whose fat leg was thereby squeezed against the gear-shifting lever where it was in Joe's way for the remainder of the trip.
Just before they started, Mrs. Macomber came out of the house carrying a small package which she brought round and entrusted to Joe's care. She was wearing a stiffly starched apron and her hair had been plastered down and her face scrubbed so that the deep rings in the flabby flesh below her eyes were thereby accentuated. Very pointedly she looked at Joe and very definitely she spoke:
"You'll see that they get back at a decent hour? And don't let 'em go in the water." It might have been the tone with which she exhorted Mr. Macomber. At any rate, Miss Penny pursed her lips and looked at Joe and then significantly at Miss Ardle, and ever after that made highly cryptic remarks half aloud, to herself, to the general effect that some folks' families always were so good to them and how unhappy it was to be an orphan.
They went to a hot, stuffy little grove by the side of a disconsolate stream where mosquitoes hummed and tiny gnat creatures were vulgarly familiar. Joe carried the baskets down a steep and rocky path to the very edge of the brook, scratching his face with stinging briars and tough, elastic little switches from ubiquitous bushes. The two young men in the back seat ostentatiously assisted the ladies in the descent with much demonstration and much unnecessary pawing. Joe sat down and waited for Myrtle, who was coming with Hawkins, a look of resignation on his face.
When at length she finally arrived she paid him no attention in spite of the fact that he had not seen her for over a whole day. Later on she gave him some directions in the arranging of the lunch and the building of the fire, in a strictly impersonal tone, very much the same as she had used with her mother. Joe was a bit puzzled, but he complied.
They went straight to the business of the lunch. Everything was spread out on a white tablecloth, Mrs. Macomber's second best. There was a baffling variety of sandwiches, olive and peanut-butter, lettuce and cucumber—quite soggy and dangerous—devilled ham, thin bread and butter, and a small pile whose filling was made up chiefly of discarded chicken scraps. There was a highly indigestible chocolate cake sodden enough to serve as a boat's anchor, a great quantity of jumbo pickles, and a dozen bottles of near beer. This last Mr. Glotch welcomed with a stentorian shout ably echoed by Mr. Trumpeter, each of whom fell to and consumed a bottle with much assumption of inebriety. After dissembling complete disintegration and coma, Mr. Glotch raised his head from the ground and mourned, "Oh, boy! The guy that named this juice sure was a bum judge of distance." "You said it," echoed Mr. Trumpeter, and they were rewarded by a series of titters from the ladies which encouraged them into still further excesses.
Joe felt weary. He was fortunately deaf to much of what went on about him, being concerned in the baffling mystery of Myrtle's behaviour. Was she provoked at him? Surely not. Was Hawkins, perhaps an erstwhile rival, putting in a bid for first honours? She was paying no attention to Hawkins whatever. Had he been talking too much with Miss Ardle or the coy Miss Penny? Perhaps all she needed was waking up.
They had demolished the lunch and were sitting about the wreckage in mournful speculation of its vanished glories; Myrtle was seated between the two comedians; Joe between the two ladies; Hawkins some distance in the background, on a rock. With no warning whatever Joe sprang to his feet, strode over to the lovely Myrtle in her filmy white dress, and picked her bodily from the ground.
"Let's go swimming," he shouted before a single member of the crowd could give utterance.
He carried her in a couple of strides to the edge of the little stream and there held her threateningly over the bank. The two young men shouted approval and Myrtle began to squirm. At first she demanded coyly to be set down, and then with more sharpness in her tone. Joe looked into her eyes. They were unfathomable. Her peach-bloom cheeks were quite pink. But there were a few tiny wrinkles about her mouth that he had never seen before. Made her look older, somehow. He softened, for the lovely burden was becoming delightfully heavy.
"Think I'd better not?" he addressed the crowd.
"Go on," urged Mr. Glotch.
"Oh, well," he decided, "perhaps we'll only go in wading." He reached clumsily down to her foot for her slipper.
She squirmed and flushed deeper. "Don't!" she cried. "Don't, Joe!"
He disregarded her. Her foot dangled out in front, in full view; it was difficult to reach it without letting her slip and with her struggling. But he finally succeeded. He caught the French heel in a sudden swipe and the slipper went scudding off into the bushes. Immediately she drew the foot in to her and cried out. But not content he reached for the other.
"If you take that off I'll never speak to you again," she cried. She looked bewitching, struggling there in his arms all flushed and red, with her hair coming down. He wanted to kiss her but he grabbed the remaining slipper instead and firmly disengaged it from its place. And then she began to cry. And as he held her, struggling no longer, with one foot dangling disconsolately below his arm, he saw the turn of shapely ankle all sleek in its sheathing of white silk, the high arch with the delicate dip to the instep, and below it the gleam of two pink toes boldly peeping from a malignant hole.
Contrite, he set her down while the audience went hysterical. He set her down on a grassy mound and she threw him a red, angry look while the traces of tears were quickly drying. And he noticed that the other stocking was in the same condition. When he returned her the slippers she put them on without a word.
The rest of the evening she spent on the rock beside Hawkins while the two young swains made merry with the other girls and Miss Penny simpered and Miss Ardle was correspondingly caustic. Joe sat back with his head against a tree and a hard, tired smile about his mouth, and a restlessness in the pit of his stomach. He tried not to look at Myrtle and Hawkins. And once when the crowd surged in a moment's boisterousness over to another part of the picnic grounds he stretched himself, rubbed his eyes with the back of his hands to get the smart out of them, and muttered, "God, what a party!" all to himself.
Later on, when they were gathering up the remains of the lunch and folding it up in the tablecloth and returning glasses and plates and cutlery to the basket, Joe found himself standing silently beside Hawkins, watching the preparations for leaving. The moonlight was streaming down in a silvery flood through the trees and the bit of green meadow glowed like a fairy ring. There were silvery ripples on the water of the little stream that slipped off with a tinkling chatter into the deep gloom of the shadow. Somewhere near a wild honeysuckle bloomed and the fragrance of its blooming came drifting to them. Hawkins spoke. He stood with eyes fixed on the stooping figures near the tablecloth and his lips barely moved.
"How'd you get mixed up in this crowd?" he said. It was a curious question.
Joe looked at him oddly; the fellow's manner was, always had been, peculiar. "How about yourself?" he replied.
Without answering, Hawkins lifted his shoulders and threw out his hands. Then they were both called to come and help.
Joe had the sole company of Miss Penny on the return trip. She was inclined to be quiet and answered his polite attempts with monosyllables. He wondered if by chance he might be being remiss in the customs of such an occasion, but he did not care much. The three on the back seat had lapsed into a strange silence that seemed out of place, like death in a boiler shop, and when they finally reached the city limits and passed beneath the glare of the first corner light, he took a look behind him and caught Miss Ardle kissing the imperious Glotch. He turned and looked at Miss Penny. She sat with her hands in her lap, looking demurely at them.
He delivered them all to their respective destinations. And then, having the load of baskets and picnic utensils in the car, he returned to Lytle Street to see that they were properly handed over. He passed Hawkins' roadster as he turned the corner into Lytle Street and wondered if he were too late.
But as he staggered up the walk with the baskets, Myrtle came to meet him at the top of the steps and showed him where to put them. And as he turned and would have gone, she stopped him with a soft word. On the top step she came and took hold of him by both elbows and looked up into his face with eyes that were swimming with sweetness. He gulped and was bitterly sorry for his folly. He started to speak, when she reached up with her hand and softly passed it across his forehead; the touch of it was as exquisite and as transient as a dream. He felt unmentionable depths.
"Hope you're feeling better," she murmured.
"Why?" he managed to ask. And then he remembered he had told her he had been unwell Thursday which accounted for his absence. And then: "Oh, I do. Much. All right now." An errant moonbeam came straggling in between a break in the screen of vines and lighted up her face, looking up into his, flooding it with a sort of holy wistfulness. Softly she moved away, out of the light.
An hour later he clambered into his car and drove away.
Whata curious question, that of Hawkins, "How did you come to get mixed up in this crowd?" And the inane response he had made to the counter as though it all were a mystery too vast for solution. Oh, well, Hawkins was a queer bird, inexpressive and glum and commonplace. Could not be expected to register much. His thoughts probably were too rusty and old by the time they formed in his head to issue forth in sparkling deeds or words. Joe slipped a knot into his tie, gave his hair a final swipe with the brush, caught a quick glance at himself in the glass, and then rushed to the door and rattled down the stairs whistling.
It was a fine morning, the kind that gave one lots of "pep," high cloudless sky, dazzling sun, hot and bracing. The morning paper had a column on the first page listing the names of those who had succumbed to the heat; but Joe had no eyes for such morbid news. A man never felt the heat when he had plenty of good work to do and was in good shape, and things were going well with him. Funny, how much suffering of any sort was due entirely to the state of mind. He whistled as he swung along on his way to the garage. And when he stepped into the door of the garage office he mopped his streaming face and shouted to the night man who was just leaving, "'D you get those gaskets put into the old boat, Harry?"
"Whadda you think this is?" growled the man, "a mad-house? This ain't no flivver fact'ry—build you a car while you change yer shirt—course I ain't changed them gaskets." Harry clumped sullenly out of the door and down the street, keeping close to the wall, in the shade. Harry was an old married man and his feet were leaden. Joe chuckled as he gazed after him speculatively. And then he passed through the door back into the shop.
It was Saturday and only four hours till noon. There were no demonstrations scheduled for the afternoon. There was not a flaw in the sky. And yet the morning dragged. The streets were hot; great waves of heat came curling up from the asphalt, which was soft and gummy and showed the ruts of passing tires.
Toward twelve things began to quicken. Two or three insignificant details brazenly presented themselves and Joe fell upon them with feverish irritation. For a time they threatened to encroach upon a golden afternoon. A lady had sent in an inquiry about a winter top; Mrs. LeMasters was having trouble with her doors squeaking. They could just as well have waited until Monday.
It was two o'clock when he finally quieted Mrs. LeMasters, using a small oil can on the hinges and a few honeyed words upon her ruffled spirits. He drew a deep breath of exasperation and relief as he clambered into his car and drove away. He looked at his watch, paused a moment in deep thought, stopping his car dead in the middle of the street and was almost run over from behind by a nervous, excitable "flivver." The driver waved at him wildly, shouting obscenities as he swerved past and went careening down the street.
He would not have time to eat lunch. There was so much to do. Inspired, he stopped at a corner drug store and gulped down a malted milk. Then with enforced calm, and with a glance at the clock, he brushed down his clothes, looked at himself in the glass above the counter, and walked with much careless aplomb out to the car. He had timed it to a nicety.
When he got out of the car in front of the Macomber dwelling he had another struggle to keep from appearing self-conscious. As he approached the house a rosy little vision of the afternoon in prospect flitted into his mind. He glanced patronizingly at the sky. Never had there been serener blue. Descending a notch, he caught a surreptitious glimpse at upstairs windows. The one above the front door was chastely shrouded by inside shutters. But through a slight gap and beneath a raised sash he saw a flutter of white and turned away his eyes. It washerroom. He pulled the old bell knob and stood thoughtfully humming to himself on the steps.
No one came. Slightly jarred, he realized it and pulled the bell again. He stopped humming. Quite a while he waited, in growing irritation. The bell was probably broken. After many minutes—it may have been two—he stepped to the edge of the porch and speculated on going around to the back, when the door flew suddenly open and Mrs. Macomber stood peering at him through the screen.
He jerked off his hat. "How do you do?" and gave her a radiant smile.
Mrs. Macomber scowled. She was an impregnable griffin even in still life. She had on an untidy apron and her hair was squeezed back from her yellow, greasy face.
"Well?" she said.
"I've—er—Miss Myrtle?" sparkled Joe, conquering the vapours.
"Not in," said Mrs. Macomber shortly.
Joe fell back a step. The shadows swept down upon him. For a moment he was at a loss for words. "But—Mrs. Macomber—we were going to Stony Point this afternoon!" He was aghast, and he bared his feelings to the world before he sank in the engulfing sea of negation. "Are you sure?"
Mrs. Macomber smiled grimly. "My eyes haven't gone back on me entirely, I reckon."
Joe stepped up to the level of the porch which stood inviting off to the right. "Listen, Mrs. Macomber," he began, striving to be respectful. "What's wrong?" In the face of the threatening debacle he could not calmly let matters drift. He felt himself rushing into action.
Mrs. Macomber considered and then apparently made up her mind. She opened the door and stepped out upon the vine-covered porch. For a moment she stood facing him as if taking in her ground. There was something deep and lurking and resentful in her narrow eyes.
"Well, I'll tell you," she began. "You've been taking up a mighty lot of Myrtle's time here, lately."
He sinkingly realized the truth of this statement as he felt the fixity of her gaze. He was silent. The front door opened over to his left, but he was too absorbed to notice. There was a sound of someone stirring in the vestibule.
Mrs. Macomber did not like his silence. She had decided on conflict. "A man's got no right to take up a girl's time unless he means right by her. Just because a girl's good lookin' 's no sign she's a play-thing for any Tom, Dick, or Harry comes along."
Joe was stunned by the baldness of the statement.
"But, Mrs. Macomber," he managed to stammer, "I didn't know that's the way Myrtle—Miss Macomber felt about it. I'm awfully sorry——"
"Keeps other men away," she interrupted him ruthlessly, determined to have her say. "Spoils everything for her. She's just a young girl——"
"There, there, Ma," broke in a voice. Mr. Macomber joined the group, a sheepish, kindly look upon his face, and raising a restraining hand. He came and took Joe by the shoulder. There was something familiar in his round, stolid face. "Don't take on so. Gonna get a cigar. Wouldn't you like one?" he added casually to Joe, at the same time propelling him to the steps.
Joe felt he was being manipulated. He turned again in a desperate effort to regain some of the lost ground and his tone was very respectful, quite abject.
"Mrs. Macomber, please accept my humble apologies. Perhaps I should have spoken to you." He struggled. A final shred of self-respect prevented him from laying bare the throbbings of his heart, or perhaps it was a tiny, rising suspicion of doubt. There were signs of dross in his vision of pure gold. "I hope," he concluded, "that you will give me a chance to square myself."
The old woman glared at him, blocking the doorway, like a faithful dragon at the castle gates where sleeps the queen of beauty.
"Sure you will," insisted Mr. Macomber, still urging him forward. He seemed distressed in a vague sort of way.
They sauntered out of the gate, prisoner and captive, to the corner drug store. Joe mechanically selected a cigar from a proffered box. Mr. Macomber did likewise and gravely and deliberately clipped the end in the mechanical clipper on the counter, lighted it, and took a few ruminative puffs, gazing at the ceiling. Then he and Joe walked slowly to the street.
"Women fly off the handle," he ventured at length without looking at Joe. "You mustn't mind what the old lady says."
"She misunderstood," said Joe. "I suppose I was a bit too much on the job." It was not easy to express himself and he laughed nervously. "But I don't think you can blame me much." He looked at the old man for encouragement and found none. "What I can't understand is, that nothing was said to me before. It could have been prevented if it was so objectionable. You don't think there is anything wrong, do you?"
Mr. Macomber shook his head and Joe proceeded to vent the vials of his dismay. A taxi driver escaping from the drug store passed them as they were absorbed in their conversation and stared at them in curiosity. The old man stood chewing his cigar, his eyes on the ground, the breeze softly ruffing the nebulous hairs that fringed his bald head.
Joe concluded his oration. There was nothing more he could add. And Mr. Macomber, raising his eyes, looked at him frankly. "Seen you before, ain't I? Used to be at Bromley's?"
"Yes."
"I'm foreman there. Cultivator room."
And Joe remembered. It did not exactly add to his satisfaction. "Sure you are," and he tried to make his voice heartily friendly.
They walked slowly back toward the house. At the gate they paused for an awkward moment, and then Mr. Macomber held out his hand.
"See you again," he said. "Don't worry about what the old lady said to you. It's the heat. It's all right. It's all right." He turned to go. He had made no reference to Myrtle at all.
It was over. Joe stood on the curbing and watched the sturdy figure in its sagging vest and collarless shirt plod up the walk to the house. He could not help looking furtively for just a glance at that upstairs window and caught a flash of white and then vacuity. And then crestfallen and hot and sullen and ashamed, he sprang into the car and drove away.
On his way down Broadway he had a puncture. Fortunately it occurred just half a block away from the "Kum-quik Tire Company's" repair shop. He covered that half block on a flat tire and went in for help.
Hawkins came and stood silently beside him as a boy removed the tire. It was a solemn occasion. They stood there on the pavement, thoughtful, intently watching the operation. Hawkins was coatless; he had pink elastics holding up his sleeves and his hair stood up in a solemn pompadour and his high stiff collar had a spot of grease on it.
"What was the idea of the question you asked me last night, Hawkins?"
There was a moment's silence. Then Hawkins looked up and smiled queerly. "Oh, nothing particular."
Joe was not satisfied. "Is there any reason why I shouldn't be runnin' around in that crowd? What's the matter? Aren't they—isn't she—all right?"
There was a quick, sudden turning of the slim hatchet face and Hawkins looked hard into his eyes. "It isn't that," he said brusquely. "I'm engaged to marry her."
"Oh, yes," replied Joe.
The boy wrenched loose the tire and was rolling it into the shop. Slowly they followed him. Hawkins proceeded to the desk and picked up a pad of repair forms and started to scribble something on the top sheet. Joe watched his narrow, bent shoulders under the sleazy shirt. There was something pathetic in the proud crest of hair above his forehead and the pucker of lines in his brows.
"How long have you been the lucky man?"