XXXTHE HEAD OF THE HOUSE

XXXTHE HEAD OF THE HOUSE

EARLY the next morning in the shadowy back room, Pidge moved softly about as she dressed. She saw the new golf suit, and her lips twisted into a smile. Another toy; another bit of acting. That was all of the game he cared for—the clothes that went with it. She thought of the night on the corner when the newsboy had pointed out Rufe as a movie actor. She saw his desk by the window. It looked like a troubled face. Here she was, as usual, furiously busy with his faults—so occupied that he didn’t have to bother at all, sleeping serenely on. But he didn’t understand, never could understand, that her agony was because she saw them as part of herself; that in her own heart she couldn’t free herself from responsibility; knowing deeply thedis-ease that comes from that soul-deep question, “Am I my brother’s keeper?”

And there he was lying on his back, innocent as a child. The pain darted into her heart ... the baby carriage at Santa Monica. His complexion was almost as fresh, his black hair brushed back. It was as if he had fallen asleep with a tear in his eyes, for a little penciling of salt was on the thin blue-veined skin under the eyelid. His breast was uncovered and that spoiledthe picture, spoiled the pathos; for Rufe, though the least athletic of men, was hairy and glad of it.

She hadn’t slept. This, since coming home last night, was a show-down time, as she expressed it. She had met the same several times with her father, when the days became so black and evil that something had to happen. Deep, under words and surface thoughts, lay the affair of Fanny’s room. The dreary consciousness of that never left her, but actual thinking of details was another affair. She couldn’t give way to them, and keep the outer quiet she had determined upon. She had been too honest to hide from herself, even in the beginning, that Rufe habitually took life as it came. She never could forget his first appraisal of herself in the reception room ofThe Public Square.

So this hadn’t come in the nature of shock; rather it was a pitiless uncovering of ugliness that had been vaguely subconscious before. What hurt her most keenly, so that she was close to crying out, as she lay beside him in the night, was the inevitable tramp of Fate, audible through it all—their meeting in Dicky’s room; Dicky’s opening ofThe Public Squareto him in the first place; her own bringing of Fanny Gallup to this house; the weaving back and forth into one, of the different lives—even her father’s.

Rufe wasn’t at home when she returned that night. He hadn’t rung her at the office, but she found word with Miss Claes that he had gone down to Washington. She felt something was going to happen, but through the day she had gathered her strength together to decidethat she wouldn’t be the one to bring it about. Underneath all was the old sense of her responsibility.

Pidge was half tempted to seek Miss Claes this night. She even went so far as to learn that her friend was at home. It always happened so, when she needed help: Miss Claes might be out any or at all other times. A light was in the basement room, and no voices, but Pidge crept back upstairs without speaking.... She had failed. She had run away from her father, failing there; failing here. She must see this through alone a little longer.... The next afternoon Rufe called for her atThe Public Square. His eyes held a glint of triumph.

“I’m going to France,” he said, when they were in the street. “I’ve arranged to do a big feature for Redge Walters and a Sunday newspaper syndicate set.”

“But how about the draft?”

“Went down to Washington to start things going to fix that. Redge gave me letters. Looks as if there won’t be much trouble. You see, the Government needs the writers—public sentiment, you know.”

It wasn’t that Pidge didn’t think of things to say on this point of making public sentiment, but a great gray ennui was over her. She had said enough about his faults.

“You know, I’ve been smothering in Harrow Street—had to get away,” he added.

“Yes, I know, Rufe.” After a time, she said, “I think it’s a good thing.”

“That’s the way to look at it, Pan,” he said in arelieved voice, and confided: “I need the experience, too, you know, because I’ve never been to Europe——”

It was out before she thought: “But how did you get to the Tunisian sands?”

“I mean I’ve never stayed long enough to look around. Of course, I’ve passed through.”

He grouched for the rest of the evening, but she felt worse about this than he did. She had thought she was through nailing him like that. It had done no good, merely an additional breaking out of her abysmal temper.... On the night before he left, Rufe was at his best—the playboy she loved so much; and, of course, she was pressed harder and harder into the realms of the Arctic Princess, which was by no means her natural habitat. At last, he had her crying, which was something, because it hadn’t happened often.

“Going to miss your Rufie,” he whispered, “sorry he’s going away?”

“Oh, it isn’t that!”

“What is it, Pan?” he demanded in the tone of the head of a household. “Get it off your mind—don’t keep anything from me.”

That started her to laughing. “It’s noth-nothing, Rufe. I’m all right now,” she said brokenly. “I’m only hurt because I haven’t done it better——”

“What?”

“Us.”

“Forget it,” he said. “I never hold a grudge.”

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