Nor did he notice as he left the shop and turned westward into the gloaming, that the child was returning from what seemed like a hasty visit to a neighbor's house across the street. Still less did he perceive, when the comforting loneliness of the marshes began once more to close round him, that a big, husky figure was stalking him. It had come out of one of the tenements over the way from the pastry shop, apparently at a summons from the wispy little girl. Like the men whom Jennie had seen eying the house in the afternoon, he suggested the guardianship of law, even though he was, so to speak, in undress uniform. His duties for the day being over, he had plainly been taking his ease in slippers, trousers, and shirt. Even now he was bareheaded, pulling on his tunic as he went along.
He didn't go very far, only to a point at which he could see the boy in front of him turn into the unused path that led to the old shack. Whereupon he nodded to himself and turned back to his evening meal.
[CHAPTER XIX]
Jennie's chief hesitation was as to cashing the checks, not because the teller at the Pemberton National Bank didn't know her, but because he did. To present a demand for money made out to Jane Scarborough Follett, and signed, "R. B. Collingham, Jr.," was embarrassing.
But she had grown since the previous afternoon, and embarrassment sat on her more lightly. Like Teddy marooned on the marshes, she seemed to have moved on, leaving her old self behind. Now she had things to do rather than things to think about. One fact was a relief to her; she was no longer under the necessity of betraying Bob.
So she cashed her checks, and counted her money, finding that she had two hundred and forty-five dollars. She didn't know how much Teddy had taken from the bank; possibly more than this, possibly not so much; but whatever the sum, this would go at least part of the way toward meeting it. If she could meet it altogether, then, she argued, the law couldn't touch him.
On arriving at the bank her first sensation was one of confusion. There seemed to be no one in particular to whom to state her errand. Men were busy in variously labeled cages, and more men beyond them sat at desks within pens. Two or three girls moved about with documents in their hands, and there was a distant click of typewriters. People passed in and out of the bank, occupied with their own affairs, and everyone, clerk and client alike, had apparently a definite end in view. It was like coming up against a blank wall of business, leaving no opening through which to slip in.
The weakest point seemed to be at a counter beneath the illuminated sign, "Statements," where two ladies waited for custom, conversing in the interim. Jennie stood unnoticed while the speaker for the moment finished her narration, bringing it to its conclusion plaintively.
"So when mother called in the doctor, it turned out to be a very bad case of ty-phoid. Statement?"
The question at the end being directed toward Jennie, the latter asked if she could see Mr. Collingham. The reply was sharp; the tone quite different from that of the domestic anecdote of which she had just heard a portion.