“There’s the widow,” said the foreman, wiping his eyes.
Casey turned and looked, but the widow was not in sight. The foreman, he judged, was speaking figuratively. He swung back glaring.
“You think I’m scared to tell her what happened? She’ll know I was sober, if I say I was sober. She ain’t as big a fool——” He did not want to fight, although he was aching to lick every man of them. For one thing, he was too sore and lame, and then, the widow would not like it.
With his back very straight, Casey walked down to the house and tried to tell the widow. But the widow was a woman, and she was hurt because Casey, since he was alive and not in the crevice, had not come straight to comfort her, but had lingered up there talking and laughing with the men. The widow had taken Casey’s part when the others said he must have been drunk. She had maintained, red-lidded and trembly of voice, that something had gone wrong with Casey’s car, so that he couldn’t steer it. Such things happened, she knew.
Well, Casey told the widow the truth, and the widow’s face hardened while she listened. She had kissed him when he came in, but now she moved away from him. She did not call him dear boy, nor even Casey, dear. She waited until he had reached the point that puzzled him, the point of a Ford’s degree of intelligence. Then her lips thinned before she opened them.
“And what,” she asked coldly, “had you been drinking, Mr. Ryan?”
“Me? One bottle of lemon soda before I left town, and I left town at three o’clock in the afternoon. I swear—”
“You need not swear, Mr. Ryan.” The widow folded her hands and regarded him sternly, though her voice was still politely soft. “After I had told you repeatedly that my little ones should ever be guarded from a drinking father; after you had solemnly promised me that you would never again put glass to your lips, or swallow a drop of whisky; after, that very morning, renewing your promise—”
“I was sober,” Casey said, his face a shade paler than usual, though it was still quite frankly red. “I swear to Gawd I was sober.”
“You need not lie,” said the widow, “and add to your misdeeds. You were drunk. No man in his senses would imagine what you imagined, or do what you did. I wish you to understand, Mr. Ryan, that I shall not marry you. I could not trust you out of my sight.”