“Good-night, Mr. Tush.”
Afterward, whenever Hewitt thought over his meeting with Peter Bradley, the monosyllable loomed up big and disconcerting. What preceded and followed it were nothing. He had not minded Bradley’s drunken tyranny; the experience was novel. He had not objected to undressing the boy and putting him to bed; it was inevitable. But the lie meant something, and the memory of it hurt; although he believed it to be the simplest, most effective way of disposing of Tush.
Hewitt spent what was left of the night on his divan, and got up in time for a nine o’clock. He would have much rather slept until noon; but he did not want to be in his room when Bradley woke; he felt it might be rather trying for Bradley. So he hung clean towels over the edge of the bathtub, and pinned a note to the back of the chair on which he had laid his guest’s clothes, saying: “Sorry I have to run away. Hope you’ll find everything you want.” It was after eleven o’clock when he came back; but the fellow was still sleeping. Horace stood in the doorway a moment and watched the flushed, childish face on the pillow; it seemed incredible that Peter should be curled up there in bed. Then he tiptoed away and had luncheon at a hotel in town, and spent the afternoon looking at shop-windows.
Three days afterwards, while Hewitt was waiting in his room for Curtiss, who was coming round for a walk, Bradley came to see him. It was probably not a very easy thing to do; but Bradley did it adequately. His manner—sober—was the kind that a stranger attributes to shyness, an intimate friend to simplicity.
“I wasn’t nice at all the other night, was I?” he said, after a moment of awkwardness, during which they both laughed. “I’m awfully sorry about it really; it must have bored you like anything.”
“It didn’t at all,” declared Horace. He held out a package of cigarettes.
“Well, tell me what happened; I think I must have been a great deal tighter than you thought I was.”
“No, I don’t think that—” began Hewitt, at which they laughed some more. “Why, nothing very much happened; you merely—do you remember getting the champagne and burgundy?”
“Oh, perfectly.”
“Well, do you remember lying down in the street and refusing to get up?”