2
Henry turned away from Donovan's soda fountain, wiping froth from his moustache, and sauntered to the nearer of the two doors. His brows were knit in a slight frown that suggested anxiety. There was earnestness, intensity, in the usually pleasant gray-blue eyes as he peered now up the street, now down.
A low-hung Victoria, drawn by a glossy team in harness that glittered with silver, swung at a dignified pace around the corner of Filbert Avenue, two wooden men in plum-coloured livery on the box, two dignified figures on the rear seat, one middle-aged, large, formidable, commanding, sitting erect and high, the other slighter and not commanding.
Instantly, at the sight, Henry's frown gave place to a nervously eager smile, returned, went again. When the carriage at length drew up before Berger's grocery, across the way, however, he had both frown and smile under reasonable control and was a presentable if deadly serious young man.
The footman leaped down and stood at attention. The formidable one stepped out and entered Berger's. And the slight, fresh-faced girl, leaned out to welcome the youth who rushed across the street.
In Sunbury, in the nineties, a youth and a maiden could 'go together' without a thought of the future. The phrase implied frank pairing off, perhaps an occasionally shyly restrained sentimental passage, in general a monopoly of the other's spare time. An 'understanding,' on the other hand, was a. distinctly transitive state, leading to engagement and marriage as soon as the youth was old enough or could earn a living or the opposition of parents could be overcome.
The relationship between Cicely and Henry had lately hovered delicately between the two states. If it seemed, after each timid advance, to recede from the 'understanding' point; that was because of the burdens and the heavy responsibility that instantly claimed their thoughts at the mere suggestion of engagement and marriage:
There were among the parents of Henry's boyhood friends, couples that had married at twenty or even younger, and on no greater income than Henry's rather doubtful twelve dollars a week. But that day had gone by. An 'understanding' meant now, at the very least, that you were saving for a diamond. You could hardly ask a nice girl to become engaged without one.
And marriage meant good clothes for parties, receptions and Sundays, and the street; it meant membership in the Country Club, a reasonably priced pew in church, a rented house, at least, preferably not in South Sunbury and distinctly not out on the prairie or too near the tracks, a certain amount invested in furniture, dishes and other house fittings, and reasonable credit with the grocer and at the meat-market. You could hardly ask a nice girl to go in for less than that. You really couldn't afford to let her go in for less.
So they were marrying later now; six or eight or ten years later. And the girls were turning to older men. Here in Sunbury, Clemency Snow had married a man seven or eight years older whose younger brother had been among her playmates. Jane Bellman had married a shy little doctor of thirty-one or two. And Martha Caldwell, whom Henry had 'gone with' for two or three years, was permitting the rich, really old bachelor, James B. Merchant, Jr., to devote about all his time to her. He was thirty-eight if a day.
It was a disturbing condition for the town boys. Thoughts of it cast black shadows on Henry's undisciplined brain as he looked at the girl in the Victoria, felt, in the very air about them, her quick, bright smile, the delicately responsive liftings of her eyebrows, her marked desirability.
'Oh, Henry,' she was saying, 'I've just been hearing the most wonderful things about you! You can't imagine! At Mrs MacLouden's tea. There was a man there——'
Henry sniffed. A man at a tea! And talking to Cicely! Making up to her, doubtless.
'—a friend of Mr Merchant's, from New York. And what do you think? Mr Merchant showed him your stories. The ones that have come out. He's been keeping them. Isn't that remarkable? They read them aloud. And this man says that you are more promising than Richard Harding Davis was at your age. Henry—just think!'
But Henry was scowling. He was thinking with hot, growing concern, of the man. A rich old fellow, of course! One of the dangerous ones.
He leaned over the wheel.
'Cicely—you—you're expecting me to-night?'
'Oh! Why yes, Henry, of course I'd like to have you come.'
'But weren't you expecting me?'
'Why—yes, Henry.
'Of course'—stiffly—'if you'd rather I wouldn't come...'
'Please, Henry! You mustn't. Not here on the street!' He stood, flushing darkly, swallowing down the emotion that threatened to choke him.'
She murmured:—
'You know I want you to come.'
This was unsatisfactory. Indeed he hardly heard it. He was full of his thoughts about her, about the older men, about those tremendous burdens that he couldn't even pretend to assume. And then came a mad recklessness.
'Oh, Cicely—this is awful—I just can't stand it! Why can't we have an understanding? Call it that? Stop all this uncertainty! I—I—I've just got to speak to your aunt——'
'Henry! Please! Don't say those things—-'
'That's it! You won't let me say them.'
'Not here——'
'Oh, please, Cicely! Please! I know I'm not earning much; but I'll be twenty-one on the seventh of November and then I'll have more'n three thousand dollars. Please let me tell her that, Cicely. Oh, I know it wouldn't do to spend all the principal,—but it would go a long way toward setting us up—you know—' his voice trembled, dropped even lower, as with awe—'get the things we'd need when we were—you know—well, married.'
He felt, as he poured out this mumbled torrent of words, that he was rushing to a painful failure. Cicely had drawn back. She looked bewildered, and tired. And he had fetched up in a black maze of despairing thoughts.
The footman must have heard part of it. He was standing very straight. And the coachman was staring out over the horses. He had probably heard too.
Then Madame Watt came sailing out Of Berger's; fixed her hawk eyes on him with a curious interest.
He knew that he lifted his hat. He saw, or half saw, that Cicely tried to smile. She did bob her head in the bright quick way she had.
Then the Victoria rolled away, and he was standing, one foot in the street, the other on the kerb, gazing after them through a mist of something so near tears that he was reduced to a painful struggle to gain even the appearance of self-control.
And then, for a quarter-hour, mood followed mood so fast that they almost maddened him.
He thought of old Hump, up there in the office, fighting out their common battle. Perhaps he ought to go back; do his best to understand the accounts. Figures always depressed him. No matter. He would go back. He would show Hump that he could at least be a friend. Yes, he could at least show that. Thing to do was to keep thinking of the other fellow. Forget yourself. That was the thing!
But what he did, first, was to cross over to Swanson's flower shop and sternly order violets. Paid cash for them.
'Miss Cicely Hamlin?' asked the Swanson-girl.
'Yes,' growled Henry, 'for Miss Hamlin. Send them right over, please.'
Then he walked around the block; muttering aloud; starting; glancing-about; muttering again. He could hardly go to Cicely's. Not this evening! Not when she had been willing to leave it like that.
He meant to go, of course. Too early. By seven-thirty or so. But he told himself he wouldn't do it. She would have to write him. Or lose him. He would wait in dignified silence.
The early September twilight was settling down on Sunbury.
Lights came on, here and there. The dusk was a relief.
He had wrecked everything. It wasn't so much that he had proposed an understanding. In the circumstances she couldn't altogether object to that. It was risking the vital, final decision, of course. But that, sooner or later, would have to be risked. That was something a man had to face, and go through, and be a sport about. No, the trouble seemed to be that he had lost himself. He had made it awkward, impossible, for both of them. Through his impatience he had created an impossible situation. And in losing himself he had lost her, and lost her in the worst way imaginable. He had contrived to make an utterly ridiculous figure of himself, and, in a measure, of her. He had to set his teeth hard on that thought, and compress his lips.
He was on Simpson Street again. Yellow gas-light shone out of the windows of the Gleaner offices, over Hemple's. Old Hump was hard at it.
He went up there.