“Don’t be late, though,” said the agent. “This’ll be the last train to-night.”
Brecky vanished, slamming the door behind him. He retraced his steps with dreamlike ease. He was not conscious of progressing until he found himself once more at the hotel. He was filled with emotions so violent, with such a confusion of hatred, jealousy, and pain, that he was truly overwhelmed. His inarticulate soul could find no other words for his anguish than—
“No one’s going to make a fool of me!”
He put his hand into his coat pocket for the key of the front door, but it wasn’t there. He was obliged to go around to the back of the house and enter through the cellar. He felt his way through the piercing cold of that black underground cavern, and ascended the shaking wooden steps to the kitchen.
The kitchen gave him a shock. It was exactly as he had left it, neat, quiet, warm, with the clock ticking, the kettle gently steaming, Kathleen’s apron across a chair. It was like the memory of a past irretrievably gone. Brecky’s heart contracted with pain. He stopped for a moment, to muster all the resolution he had.
He went upstairs into the bedroom, and from a drawer of the bureau he took what he wanted. He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror, saw his face strained and hard beneath his inevitable cap, and he thought he looked like a criminal in the movies. Well, why shouldn’t he?
He caught the train. He got in and settled himself comfortably in the smoking car, deserted except for two men playing pinochle.
The train ran on smoothly, stronger than the wind. Brecky could see very little from the window except the slanting rain and now and then a blurred light. The turmoil in his brain never ceased. He looked unpleasantly wide awake, staring, like a somnambulist. His gray eyes never seemed to blink, or his face to move a muscle.
And for all his grief and fury he had no other words than that pitifully inadequate refrain:
“No one’s going to make a fool of me!”