CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
On the Monday morning following the wedding, Jerome was at the office earlier than usual. After the lonely Sunday behind him, the day ahead was filled with expectation. First, he would tell Jean about the trip. There were many things he wanted to tell her, things that no one else would quite get. And then they would lay out the program for the piers.
The morning passed quickly, with only a few lulls in which Jerome leaned back in his chair, smoked a cigar, made notes and tried not to listen too closely for sounds across the hall. As soon as she was free she would probably come in.
But by mid-afternoon it was not so easy to keep from listening. For one thing, it was suffocatingly hot, and for another, he was not sure that Jean had been in all day. He had not heard her come or leave for lunch, and usually her hours were punctual. At three o'clock Jerome closed the transom. It made him nervous to sit listening for sounds from Jean's office. As soon as she was free she would come in. It was the kind of thing Jean did.
But Jean did not come.
Neither on Tuesday nor on Wednesday. Thursday morning, Jerome crossed the hall almost to Jean's door, and came back. If Jean were so busy that she had not a moment for him he did not wish to intrude. And if Jean had lost her interest in the conference, or had only pretended one, still less did he wish to force her. Besides there were the piers. Jean had been as eager as he and it had been understood that they would begin as soon as the wedding was over.
On Friday afternoon, Jerome opened the transom. Jean Herrick could come or not, exactly as she liked. He would not mention the conference and if she felt obliged to inquire he would cut her short as gracefully as he could. As for the piers, if it suited his convenience by the time she strolled round, he would do them, and if it did not, she could do them alone.
On Saturday he did not go to the office at all, but stayed home and worked in the garden. He pulled down a summer house that had really been a charming place to sit, and finished pruning and clipping every shrub that had escaped in the long, empty evenings of the past week.
On Sunday he took Pips, and set out for a long tramp right after lunch. But he had lost the habit of tramping alone ever since Alice had been old enough to go with him; so, although he had intended to stay out until evening, at three he turned back. The heat was at its apex, but under pretense that it was really getting cooler, Jerome increased his pace, until Pips suddenly dropped panting under a tree and refused to budge.
"All right, old man, have it your own way."