The little woman’s face was wreathed with smiles; she was confident, solicitous. She was sure of herself; sure of Martin; her concern had every semblance of sincerity. Jeannette felt baffled, vaguely irritated.
The two women said good-night to one another with appropriate phrases and amiability. Ruthie stood in the shining arch of the doorway as the motor car swept up to the steps, crunching on the fine gravel of the drive, and Jeannette and Martin got in. She even managed a little wave of the hand as its door slammed and the car started.
Jeannette hated her. It was impossible to guess what thoughts were behind that alert expression of innocent pleasure.
“You’ve come on in the world, Martin,” she observed.
“Yes, I’ve made a little money, but I’m going to make more,—a good deal more. You know, I often think of the old man and the old woman up there in Watertown settling down forty, or I guess it’s fifty, years ago, to running that little grocery business of theirs, and I can’t help wishing sometimes they were round to see how good I’ve made. They’d get an eyefull, all right! But I’ve worked for my success, Jan,—that is, I’ve worked hard the last five years. You know I was down and out for awhile?”
“Were you? I didn’t know that. How did that happen?”
Martin cleared his throat and twisted a little in his seat so as to talk more directly at her.
“I was pretty badly cut-up, Jan, when you ran out on me!”
“Were you?”
“You bet I was, and I began hitting her up there for awhile; I let things go to the devil and I was boozing a good deal. There were two or three years there when I wasn’t much better than a bum.”