“A cup of tea. Let me send up a cup of tea.”
The old one made a sucking sound with tongue and teeth, rubbed his chin, and proffered his suggestion in a voice that seemed to Magnolia to echo and reëcho through the hotel lobby. “Why’n’t you send a messenger around for him, madam?”
“Messenger? Around? Where?”
Sparkler made a little gesture—a tactful gesture. “Perhaps he’s having a little game of—uh—cards; and you know how time flies. I’ve done the same thing myself. Look up at the clock and first thing you know it’s eight. Now if I were you, Mrs. Ravenal——”
She knew, then. There was something so sure about this young man; and so pitying. And suddenly she, too, was sure. She recalled in a flash that time when they were playing Paducah, and he had not come. They had held the curtain until after eight. Ralph had searched for him. He had been playing poker in a waterfront saloon. Send around for him! Not she. The words of a popular sentimental song of the day went through her mind, absurdly.
Father, dear father, come home with me now.
The clock in the steeple strikes one.
She drew herself up, now. The actress. She even managed a smile, as even and sparkling and toothy as the sparkler’s own. “Of course. I’m very silly. Thank you so . . . I’ll just have a bit of supper in my room. . . .” She turned away with a little gracious bow. The eyes very wide again.
“H’m!” The old man. Translated it meant, “Little idiot!”
She took off the dress with the two dark spots on the silk of the basque. She put away his linen and his shiny shoes. She took up some sewing. But the mist interfered with that. She threw herself on the bed. An agony of tears. That was better. Ten o’clock. She fell asleep, the gas lights burning. At a little before midnight he came in. She awoke with a little cry. Queerly enough, the first thing she noticed was that he had not his cane—the richly mottled malacca stick that he always carried. She heard herself saying, ridiculously, half awake, half asleep, “Where’s your cane?”