4

Henry glanced behind him. The sliding door had closed. There was a scuffling of feet on the steps.

Henry reached up and switched off the electric lamp in the chandelier.

Then he stepped forward, found the piano, felt along the top, closed his fingers on the hat, and stood motionless. His first thought was that he would probably be shot.

There were steps on the porch. The front door opened and closed. Mr Henderson was standing in the hall now, but not in the parlour doorway. Probably just within the screen door. The hall light put him at a disadvantage; and he couldn't turn it out without crossing that parlour doorway.

'Who's there!' Mr Henderson's voice was quiet enough. It sounded tired, and nervous. 'Come out o' there quick! Whoever you are!'

Henry was silent. He wasn't particularly frightened. Not now. He even felt some small relief. But he was confronted with some difficulty in deciding what he ought to do.

'Come out O' there!'

Then Henry replied: 'All right.' And came to the hall doorway.

Mr Henderson was leaning a little forward, fists clenched, ready for a spring. He still had the cigar in his mouth. But he dropped back now and surveyed the youth who stood, white-faced, clasping a straw hat tightly under his left arm. He seemed to find it difficult to speak; shifted the cigar about his mouth with mobile lips. He even thrust his hands into his pockets and looked the youth up and down.

'I came for this hat,' said Henry. 'It was on the piano.'

Still Mr Henderson's eyes searched him up, and down. Eyes that would be sleepy again as soon as this little surprise was over. And they were red, with puffs under them. He was a tall man, with big athletic shoulders and deep chest, but with signs of a beginning corpulence, the physical laxity that a good many men fall into who have been athletes in their teens and twenties but are now getting on into the thirties.

It was understood here and there in Sunbury that he had times of drinking rather hard. Indeed, the fact had been dwelt on by one or two tolerant or daring souls who ventured to speak a word for his wife. She had always quickly and willingly given her services as pianist at local entertainments. Perhaps because, with all her brisk self-possession, she must have been hungry for friends. She played exceptionally well, with some real style and with an almost perverse touch of humour. She was quick, crisp, capable. She disliked banality. To the initiated her playing of Chopin was a joy. The sentimentalists said that she had technique but no feeling. She could really play Bach. And I think she was the most accomplished accompanist that ever lived in Sunbury; certainly the best within my memory.

'Say'—thus Mr Henderson now—'you're Henry Calverly, aren't you?'

'Yes.'

'Well, I'd like to know what you're doing here.'

'I told you. I came for this hat.'

'Your hat?'

'Didn't you see the initials?'

'No. I noticed the hat there. Why didn't you come in the front way? What's all this burglar business?'

Henry didn't answer.

'I'll have to ask you to answer that question. You seem to forget that this is my house.'

'No, I don't forget that.'

Mr Henderson took out his cigar; turned it in his fingers. Colour came to his face. He spoke abruptly, in a suddenly rising voice.

'Seems to me there's some mighty queer goings-on around here. Sneaking in at two in the morning!'

'It isn't two in the morning.'

'Dam' near it.'

'It isn't half-past one. I tell you——' Henry paused.

His position seemed rather weak.

Mr Henderson studied his cigar again. He drew a cigar case from an inside pocket.

'I don't know's I offered you one,' he said. He almost muttered it.

'I don't smoke,' said Henry shortly.

Mr Henderson resumed the excited tone. It was curious coming in that jumpy way. Even Henry divined the weakness back of it and grew calmer.

'I've been out on——' He paused. Mildred had trained him not to use the phrase, 'on the road.' He resumed with, '—on a business trip. More'n a month. I swan, I'm tired out. Way trains and country hotels. Fierce! If I seem nervous.... Look here, you seem pretty much at home! Perhaps you'll tell me where my wife is!'

Henry considered this. Shook his head.

'Trying to make me think you don't know, eh!'

'I do know.'

Mr Henderson knit his brows over this. Then, instead of immediately pressing the matter, he took out a fresh cigar and lighted it with the butt of the old one.

'Seems to me you ought to tell me,' he said then.

'I can't.'

'That's queer, ain't it?'

'Well, it's true. I can't.'

'She wrote me that she had Corinne Doag visiting here.'

'Yes. She's here.'

'With my wife? Now?'

Henry bowed. He felt confused, and more than a little tired. And he disliked this man, deeply. Found him depressing. But outwardly—he didn't himself dream this—he presented a picture of austere dignity. An effect that was intensified, if anything, by his youth.

'Anybody else with her and Corinne?'

Henry bowed again.

'A man?'

'Yes.' Henry was finding him disgusting now. But he must be extremely careful. An unnecessary word might hurt Mildred or Humphrey. Good old Hump!

Mr Henderson turned the fresh cigar round and round, looking intently at it. In a surprisingly quiet manner he asked:—

'Why doesn't she come home?'

Henry looked at the man. Anger swelled within him.

'Because you're here?' He bit the sentence off.

He felt stifled. He wanted to run out, past the man, and breathe in the cool night air.

Mr Henderson looked up, then down again at the cigar. Then he pushed open the screen door.

'May as well sit down and talk this over,' he said. 'Cooler on the porch. Dam' queer line o' talk. You're young, Calverly. You don't know life. You don't understand these things. My God! When I think... Well, what is it? You seem to be in on this. Speak out! Tell me what she wants. That's one thing about me—I'm straight out. Fair and square. Give and take. I'm no hand for beating about the bush. Come on with it. What does she think I ought to do?'

'I can't tell you what she thinks.' Henry was downright angry now.

'Oh, yes! It's easy for you! You haven't been through...' His face seemed to be working. And his voice had a choke in it. 'But how could a kid like you understand I How could you know the way you get tied up and... all the little things... My God, man! It hurts. Can you understand that. It's tough.' He subsided. Finally, after a long silence, he said huskily but quietly, with resignation, 'You'd say I ought to go.'

Henry was silent.

Mr Henderson got up.

'I guess I know how to be a sport,' he said.

He went into the house, and in a few minutes returned with his suit-case.

'It's—it's sorta like leaving things all at loose ends,' he remarked. 'But then—of course...'

He went down two or three steps; then paused and looked up at Henry, who had risen now.

'You'—his voice was husky again—'you staying here?'

'No,' said Henry; and walked a way up the street with him.

Mr Henderson said, rather stiffly, that the hot spell really seemed to be over. Been fierce. Especially through Iowa and Missouri. No lake breeze, or anything like that. Muggy all the time. That was the thing here in Sunbury—the lake breeze.'