6
Eleven at night. The Country Club was bright; Henry passed it on the farther side of the street. He could hear music and laughter there. They choked him. With averted face he rushed by.
Henry entered at the gate before the old Dexter Smith mansion; then slipped off among the trees.
His throat was dry. He was giddy and hot about the head. He wondered, miserably, if he had a fever. Very likely.
There were lights here, too; downstairs.
Some one calling, perhaps—that friend of James B. Merchant's.
Henry gritted his teeth.
It was too late to call. Yet he had had to come, had been drawn irresistibly to the spot.
What mattered it after all, who might be calling. He told himself that his life was to be, hereafter, one of sorrow, of frustration. He must be dignified about it. He must make it a life worthy of his love and his great sacrifice.
The front door opened.
A man and a woman came down the steps. An elderly couple. He stood very still, behind a tree, while they walked past him.
A sign of uncontrollable relief escaped him. It was something. Cicely had at last spared him a stab.
Lights went out in the front room. Lights came on upstairs.
Still he lingered.
Then, after a little, his nervous ears caught a sound that tingled through his body.
The front door opened.
And standing in the opening behind the screen door, silhouetted against the light, he saw a slim girl.
His temples were pounding. His throat went dry.
The girl came out. Paused. Called over her shoulder in a voice that to Henry was velvet and gold—'In a few minutes'—and then seated herself midway down the steps and leaned her head against the railing. He could see her only faintly now.
Henry moved forward, curiously dazed, tiptoeing over the turf, slipping from tree to tree. Drew near.
She lifted her head.
There was a breathless pause. Then, 'What is it?' she called. 'What is it? Who's there?... O—oh! Why, Henry! You frightened me... What is it? Why do you stand there like that. You aren't ill, Henry?... Where on earth have you been? I've waited and waited for you. I couldn't think what had happened, not having any word.... What is the matter, Henry? You act all tired out. Do sit down here.'
'No,'—the queer breathy voice, Henry knew, must be his own. He was thinking, wildly, of dead souls' standing at the Judgment Seat. He felt like that.... 'No, I can't sit down.'
'Henry! What is it?'
Henry stood mournfully staring at her. Finally in the manner of one who has committed a speech to memory, he said this:—
'Cicely, I asked you this afternoon if we couldn't have an “understanding.” You know! It seemed fair to me, if—if—if you, well, cared—because I had three thousand dollars, and all that.'
She made a rather impatient little gesture. He saw her hands move; but pressed on:—
'Since then everything has changed. I have no right to ask you now.'
There was a long silence. As on other occasions, in moments of grave emergency, Henry had recourse to words.
'There was trouble at the office. I couldn't leave Hump to carry all the burden alone. And I was being sued for libel. My stories... So I've had to make a very quick turn'—he had heard that term used by real business men; it sounded rather well, he felt; it had come to him on the train—'I've had to make a very quick turn—use every cent, or most every cent, of the money. Of course, without any money at all—while I might have some chance as a writer—still—well, I have no right to ask such a thing of you, and I—I withdraw it. I feel that I—I can't do less than that.' Then, after another silence, Henry swayed, caught at the railing, sank miserably to the steps.
'It's all right,' he heard himself saying. 'I just thought—everything's been in such a mid rush—I didn't have my supper. I'll be all right...'
'Henry,' he heard her saying now, in what seemed to him, as he reflected on it later that night, at his room, in bed, an extraordinarily matter-of-fact voice; girls were complicated creatures—'Henry, you must be starved to death. You come right in with me.'
He followed her in through the great hall, the unlighted living-room, a dark passage where she found his hand and led him along, a huge place that must have been the kitchen, and then an unmistakable pantry.
'Stand here till I find the light,' she murmured.
It was the pantry.
She opened the ice-box, produced milk and cold meat. In a tin box was chocolate cake.
'I oughtn't to let you,' he said weakly. 'I knew you were angry to-day there——'
'But, Henry, they could hear you! Thomas and William. Don't you see——'
'That wasn't all,' he broke in excitedly. 'It was my asking for an understanding.'
She was bending over a drawer, rummaging for knife and fork.
'No, it wasn't that,' she said.
'I'd like to know what it was, then!'
'It was—oh, please, Henry, don't ever talk that way about money again.'
'But, Cicely, don't you see——'
She straightened up now, knife in one hand, fork in the other; looked directly at him; slowly shook her head.
'What,' she asked, 'has money to do with—with you and me?'
'But, Cicely, you don't mean——'
He saw the sudden sparkle in her dark eyes, the slow slight smile that parted her lips.
She turned away then.
'Oh,' she remarked, rather timidly, 'you'll want these,' and gave him the knife and fork.
He laid them on the table.
They stood for a little time without speaking; she fingering the fastener of the cake box, he pulling at his moustache. Finally, very softly, she said this:—
'Of course, Henry, you know, we would really have to be very patient, and not say anything about it to people until—well, until we could, you know....'
And then, his trembling arm about her shoulders, his lips reverently brushing her forehead in their first kiss—until now the restraint of youth (which is quite as remarkable as its excesses) had kept them just short of any such sober admission of feeling—her cheek resting lightly against his coat, she said this:—
'I shouldn't have let myself be disturbed. I don't really care about Thomas and William. But what you said made me seem like that sort of girl. Henry, you—you hurt me a little.' His eyes filled. He stood erect, looking out over the dark mass of her hair, looking down the long vista of the years. He compressed his lips.
'Of course,' he said bravely. 'We don't care about money We've got all our lives. I guess I can work. Prob'ly I'll write better for not having any. You know—it'll spur me. And I'll be working for you.'
He heard her whisper:—
'I'll be so proud, Henry.'
'What's money to us!' He seemed at last to be getting hold of this tremendous thought, to be approaching belief. He repeated it, with a ring in his voice: 'What's money to us!'
After all what is money to Twenty?