3
Corinne was peering into the shadows.
'Where'd they go?' she said. 'We've got to find them. This thing's getting worse every minute.'
Mildred and Humphrey were sitting on a horse block, side by side, very still. It was in front of the B. L. Ames place. Corinne stood over them. But Henry hung back; leaned weakly against a tree.
The Ames place brought up memories of other years and other girls. An odd little scene had occurred here, with Clemency Snow, on one of the lawn seats. And a darker mass of shadow in the gnarled, low-spreading oak, over by the side fence, was a well-remembered platform with seats and a ladder to the ground. Ernestine Lambert had been the girl with him up there.
Two long years back! He was eighteen then—a mere boy, with illusions and dreams. He wasn't welcome to Mary Ames's any more. She didn't approve of him. Her mother, too. And he had sunk into a rut of small-town work on Simpson Street. They weren't fair to him. He didn't drink; smoked almost none; let the girls alone more than many young fellows—in spite of a few little things. If he had money... of course. You had to have money.
He felt old. And drab of spirit. Those little affairs, even the curious one with Clem Snow, had been, it seemed now, on a higher plane of feeling than this present one with Corinne. Life had been at the spring then, the shrubs dew-pearled, God in his Heaven. And the affair with Ernestine had not been so little. It had shaken him. He wondered where Ernie was now. They hadn't written for a year and a half. And Clem was Mrs Jefferson Jenkins, very rich (Jeff Jenkins was in a bond house on La Salle Street) living in Chicago, on the Lake Shore Drive, intensely preoccupied with a girl baby. People—women and girls—said it was a beautiful baby. Girls were gushy.
He pressed a hand to his eyes. Corinne was right; the situation was getting worse every minute. During one or two of the minutes, while his memory was active, it had seemed like an unpleasant dream from which he would shortly waken. But it wasn't a dream. He felt again the tension of it. It was a tension that might easily become unbearable. First thing they knew the university clock would be striking two. He began listening for it; trying absurdly to strain his ears.
He had recently seen Minnie Maddem play Tess of the D'Urbervilles, and had experienced a painful tension much like this—a strain too great for his sensitive imagination. He had covered his face. And he hadn't gone back for the last act.
But there was to be no running out of this.
'Well,' said Corinne, almost briskly, 'we're not getting anywhere.'
Humphrey threw out his hand irritably.
'Just—just wait a little,' he said. 'Can't you see....'
'It's past one.'
Corinne's manner jarred a little on all three of the others. Mildred seemed to sink even closer toward Humphrey.
Henry felt another sob coming. Desperately he swallowed it down.
Humphrey, holding Mildred's head against his shoulder, looked up at Corinne. His face was not distinctly visible; but he seemed to be studying the tall, easy-going, unexpectedly practical girl.
'I don't think you understand,' he finally said. 'It's very, very awkward. My hat is in there.'
'Where?'
'In the parlour. On the piano, I think.'
'I don't think he lighted the parlour. We three can go up just the same. Now listen. Henry can leave his hat here with you, and get yours when he comes away.'
'It has my initials in it,' said Humphrey.
Corinne walked on the grass to the corner; came swiftly back.
'Well,' she remarked dryly, 'he's been in there. The parlour's lighted.'
Mildred stirred. 'Please!' she murmured. 'Just give me a minute or two. I'm going with you.'
'Suppose,' said Corinne, 'he has seen the initials.'
Mildred's eyes sought Humphrey's. For a long instant, her head back on his shoulder, she gazed at him with an intensity that Henry had not before seen on a woman's face. It was as if she had forgotten himself and Corinne. And then Humphrey's arm tightened about her, as if he, too, had forgotten every one and everything else.
Henry had to turn away.
He walked to the corner. Neither Humphrey nor Mildred knew whether he went or stayed. Corinne was frowning down at them; thinking desperately.
Henry stared at the house, at the dim solitary figure on the top step, at the little red light of the cigar that came and went with the puffs.
Henry was breathing hard. His face was burning hot. He hated conflicts, fights; hated them so deeply, felt so inadequate when himself involved, that emotion usually overcame him. Therefore he fought rather frequently, and, on occasions, rather effectively. Emotion will win a fight as often as reason.
He considered getting Humphrey to one side, making him listen to reason. He dwelt on the phrase. The mere thought of Mildred being driven back into that house, into the hands of her legal husband, stirred that tendency to sob. He set his teeth on it. They could take her back to the rooms. He would move out. For that matter, if it would save her reputation, they could both move out. At once. But would it save her reputation?
He took off his hat; pressed a hand to his forehead; then fussed with his little moustache. Then, as a new thought was born in his brain, born of his emotions, he gave a little start. He looked back at the shadowy group about the Ames's horse block. Apparently they hadn't moved. He looked at his shoes, tennis shoes with rubber soles.
He laid hat and stick on the ground by a tree; went little way up the street, past the circle of the corner light and slipped across; moved swiftly, keeping on the grass, around to the alley, came in at the Henderson's back gate, made his way to the side steps.
There was a door here that led into an entry. There were doors to kitchen and dining-room on right and left, and the back stairs. Henry knew the house. Kitchen and dining-room were both dark now, but the lights were on in parlour and hall.
He got the screen door open without a sound and felt his way into and through the dining-room. It seemed to him that there were a great many chairs in that diningroom. His shins bumped them. They met his outspread hands. Between this room and the parlour the sliding doors were shut.
He stood a moment by these doors, wondering if Arthur V. Henderson was still sitting on the top step with his back to the front screen door. Probably. He couldn't very well move without some noise. But it would be impossible to see him out there, with the parlour light on.
'Deliberately, with extreme caution, her slid back one of the doors. It rumbled a little. He waited, keeping back in the dark, and listened. There was no sound from the porch.
The piano stood against the side wall, near the front. On it lay Humphrey's straw hat. Any one by merely looking into it could have seen the initials. And the man on the steps had only to turn his head and look in through the bay window to see piano, hat, and any one who stood near, any one, in fact, in that diagonal half of the room.
Henry held his breath and stepped in, nearly to the centre of the room. Here he hesitated.
Then beginning slowly, not unlike the sound of a wagon rolling over a distant bridge, a rumbling fell on his ears. It grew louder. It ended in a little bang.