It was a waste of excellent maternal diplomacy so far as he was concerned. He had already turned to Helen. He was almost speechless from having so much to say. She was entirely so for a moment. Then she gave him her hand and managed to say, “Howdy do, George,” in a tone a girl uses when the man owes her an apology.
This accusative welcome dashed him. No smile! When he was himself the very pedestal of a smile. Good heavens, what had he done? He was conscious of being innocent; yet he felt guilty.
Mrs. Adams paid no more attention to them. She had gone on, caught up with the Flitches and passed out. This was the only permission he received that he might, if he could, walk with Helen.
The girl’s inclemency stirred him as frosty weather stimulates energy. So they followed. I doubt if they were aware themselves that the distance lengthened between them and other groups of this congregation, which divided and dwindled at every street corner. Lovers are recognized on sight, long before they know themselves to be lovers. People make room for their privacy in public places. These two had a whole block to themselves by the time they entered Wiggs Street. Mrs. Adams had already disappeared in her house. The broad back of Mr. Cutter and the slim back of little Mrs. Cutter were visible for a moment before they also faded through the doorway of the Cutter residence.
Only the Flitches stood en masse on their spider-legged veranda, their eyes glued upon these two stragglers, coming slowly down the sunlit street. The Flitches were good people, of the round-eyed breed. They had a candid, perpetually interrogative curiosity which nothing could satisfy. You know the kind. It is never you, but the family that lives across the street from you, or in the next house with thin eyelid curtains over their windows through which they are perpetually regarding you, striving after omniscience about you and your affairs.
Helen had admitted that it was a “nice day” when he said it was, as they came out of the church and faced the fair brow of this June sabbath.
He had told her how much he enjoyed her solo. It was wonderful.
She merely replied that she “liked to sing.”
He was still conscious of being in the arctic region of her regard and cast about, with a lover’s distracted compass, to discover the way out. “Weren’t you in the bank yesterday afternoon?” he asked suddenly.
“Yes,” she answered coldly after a slight pause; “I was about to speak to you, but you did not recognize me,” she added.