1
A squat locomotive, bell ringing, dense clouds of black smoke pouring from the flaring smoke-stack, came rumbling and clanking in between the platforms and stopped just beyond the old red brick depot.
The crowd of ladies converged swiftly toward the steps of the four dingy yellow cars that made up, traditionally, the one-ten train. These ladies were bound for the shops, the matinées (it was a Wednesday, and October), the lectures and concerts of Chicago.
Henry Calverly, 3rd, avoided the press by swinging his slimly athletic person aboard the smoker. He stepped within and for a moment stood sniffing the thick blend of coal gases and poor tobacco, then turned back and made his way against the incoming current of men. Bad air on a train made him car-sick. He stood considering the matter, clinging to a sooty brake wheel, while the train started. Then he plunged at the door of the car next behind, in among an enormous number of dressed-up, chattering ladies. He wondered why they all talked at once; it was like a tea. He was afraid of them. Apparently they filled the car; he couldn't, from the door, see one empty seat. Well, nothing for it but to run the gauntlet. And not without a faintly stirring sense of conspicuousness that was at once pleasing and confusing he started down the aisle, clutching at seat-backs for support.
Near the farther end of the car there was one vacant half-seat. A girl occupied the other half. She was leaning forward, talking to the women in front. These latter, on close inspection—he had paused midway—proved to be Mrs B. L. Ames and her daughter, Mary.
This was awkward. He could hardly, as he felt, drop into the seat just behind them. Besides, who was the girl in the other half of that seat? The hat was unfamiliar; yet something in the way it moved about came to him as ghosts come.
He weakly considered returning to the smoker; even turned; but a lady caught his sleeve. It was Mrs John W. MacLouden.
'I wanted to tell you how much we are enjoying your stories in the Gleaner,' she said. 'Mr MacLouden says they're worthy of Stevenson. His New Arabian Nights you know. Mr MacLouden met Stevenson once. In London.'
Henry blushed; mumbled; edged away.
Mary Ames looked up.
Her cool eyes rested on him. But she didn't bow, or smile. He wasn't sure that she even inclined her head.
His blush became a flush. He forgot Mrs MacLouden. It seemed now that he couldn't retreat. Not after that. He must face that girl. Walk coolly by. He couldn't take that seat, of course; but to walk deliberately by and on into the car behind would help a little. At least in his feelings; and these were what mattered.... Who was the girl under that unfamiliar hat? Some one the Ameses knew well, clearly.
He moved on, straight toward the enemy. Dignity, he felt, was the thing. Yes, you had to be dignified. Though it was a little hard to carry with the car lurching like this. He wished his face wouldn't burn so.
The girl beneath that hat raised her head, and exhibited the blue eyes and the pleasantly, even prettily freckled face of Martha Caldwell!
Henry stood, in a sense fascinated, staring down. He had put Martha out of his life for ever. But here she was! He had believed, now and then during the summer, that he hated her. To-day it was interesting—indeed, enough of the old emotional tension fingered within him to make it momentarily, slightly thrilling—to discover that he liked her. He saw her now with an unexpected detachment. He even saw that she was prettier. The smile that was just fading when their eyes met had a touch of radiance in it.
Beside Martha, on the unoccupied half of the seat, lay her shopping bag.
In a preoccupied manner, as the smile died, she reached out to pick it up and make room. But the little action which had begun impersonally, brought up memories. Her hand stopped abruptly in air; her colour rose.
Then, as Henry, very red, lips compressed, was about to plunge on along the aisle, the hand came down on the bag.
She said, half audibly—it was a question:—
'Sit here?'
Henry was gripping the seat-corner just back of Mrs Ames's shoulder; a rigid shoulder. Mary had turned stiffly round. He couldn't stop his whirling mind long enough to decide anything. Why hadn't he gone straight by? What could they talk about? Unless they were to talk low, confidentially, Mary and her mother would hear most of it. And they couldn't talk confidentially. Not very well.
He took the seat.
What could they say?
But the surprising fact stood out that Martha was a nice girl, a likeable girl. Even if she had believed the stories about him. Even if... No, it hadn't seemed like Martha.
Henry was staring at Mrs Ames's tortoise-shell comb. Martha was looking out the window, tapping on the sill with a white-gloved hand.
A moment of the old sense of proprietorship over Martha came upon him.
'Silly,' he remarked, muttering it rather crossly, 'wearing white gloves into Chicago! Be black in ten minutes. Women-folks haven't got much sense.'
Martha gave this remark the silence it deserved. She dropped her eyes, studied the shopping bag. Then, very quietly, she said this:—
'Henry—it hasn't been very easy—but I have wanted to tell you about your stories....
'What about'em?' he asked, ungraciously enough. And he dug with his cane at the grimy green plush of the seat-back before him.
'Oh, they're so good, Henry! I didn't know—I didn't realise—just everybody's talking about them! Everybody! You've no idea! It's been splendid of you to—you know, to answer people that way.'
I don't think Martha meant to touch on the one most difficult topic. They both reddened again.
After a longer pause, she tried it again.
'I just love reading them myself. And I wish you could hear the things Jim—Mr Merchant—says....'
She was actually dragging him in!
... He's really a judge. You've no idea, Henry!' He met Kipling at a tea in New York. He knows lots of people like—you know, editors and publishers, people like that. And he crossed the ocean once with Richard Harding Davis. He says you're doing a very remarkable thing... original note.... Sunbury is going to be proud of you. He wouldn't let anything—you know, personal—influence his judgment. He's very fair-minded.'
Henry dug and dug at the plush.
She was pulling at her left glove.
What on earth!...
She had it off.
'I want you to know, Henry. Such a wonderful thing has happened to me. See!'
On her third finger glittered a diamond in a circlet of gold.
'He wanted to give me a cluster, Henry. I wouldn't let him. I just didn't want him to be too extravagant. I love this stone.. I picked it out myself. At Welding's. And then he wished it on. And, Henry, I'm so happy! I can't bear to think that you and I—anybody—you know....'
Henry was critically, moodily, appraising the diamond.
'Can't we be friends, Henry?'
'Sure we can! Of course!'
'I just can't tell you how wonderful it is. I want everybody else to be happy.'
'I'm happy!' he announced, explosively, between set teeth.
She thought this over.
'I've heard a little talk, of course. I've been interested, too. Yes, I have! Cicely's a perfectly dandy girl. And she's—you know, that way. Knows so much about books and things. I didn't realise—that you were—you know, really—well, engaged?'
There was a long pause. Henry dug and dug with his stick.
Finally, eyes wandering a little but mouth still set, he said huskily:—
'Yes, we're engaged.'
'What was that, Henry?'
'I said, “Yes, we're engaged.”'
'O—o—oh, Henry, I'm so glad!'
'Don't say anything about it, Martha.'
'Oh, of course not!... You've no idea how nice people are being to me. They're giving me a party to-night, down on the South Side. We're coming back to-morrow.'
Mr Merchant met her in the Chicago depot. Henry had excused himself before Mrs Ames and Mary got up. He would have hurried off into the grimy city, but the crowd held him back. Martha saw him and dragged the rich and important man of her choice toward him.
Henry thought him very old, and not particularly goodlooking. He was a stocky, sandy-complexioned man; dressed now, as always, in brown, even to a brown hat. He looked strong enough—Henry knew that he played polo, and that sort of thing—but gossip put him at thirty-eight. He certainly couldn't be under thirty-five. Henry wondered how Martha could...
Then he found himself taking the man's hand and listening to more of the familiar praise. But on this occasion it had, he felt, a condescension, a touch of patronage, that irritated him.
'I'd like to talk with you, Calverly. There's a chance that—I'll tell you! I may be able to arrange it this evening. They're not letting me come to the party. Got to do something. I'll try it. Come around to my place between eight and half-past, and I'll explain more fully. There's a classmate of mine in town that can help us, maybe. You'll do that? Good! I'll expect you.'
He was gone.
Slowly, moodily, Henry wandered through the station and up the long stairway to the street.
He felt deeply uncomfortable. It wasn't this Mr Merchant, though he wished he had known how to show his resentment of the man's offhand manner. But he hadn't known; he wouldn't again; before age and experience he was helpless. No, his trouble lay deeper. He shouldn't have told Martha that he was engaged. Why had he done such a thing? What on earth had he meant by it? It was a rather dreadful break.
He paused on the Wells Street bridge; hung over the dirty wooden railing; watched a tug come through the opaque, sluggish water, pouring out its inevitable black smoke, a great rolling cloud of it, that set him coughing. He perversely welcomed it.
Cicely expected him in the evening. He would have to drop in on his way to Mr Merchant's. Could he tell her what he had done? Dared he tell her?
Martha and the Ameses would be gone overnight. That was something. And people didn't get up early after parties. At least, girls didn't. It would be afternoon before they would reappear in Sunbury. Say twenty-four hours. But immediately after that, certainly by evening, all Sunbury would have the news that the popular Cicely Hamlin was engaged. To young Henry Calverly. The telephone would ring. Congratulations would be pouring in.
He stared fixedly at the water. He wondered what made him do these things, lose control of his tongue. It wasn't his first offence; nor, surely, his last. An unnerving suggestion, that last! He asked himself how bad a man had to feel before jumping down there and ending it all. It happened often enough. You saw it in the papers.