“It doesn’t matter,” said Emmy. “Good night!”
IV
Kirby stood where he was until she had gone up the steps and into the house. Then he paid the cab and set off on foot for the Pennsylvania Station. When he got there he found that there was an hour to wait for the next train, and again he set off to walk about the streets, his hands in his pockets, his pipe between his teeth. All the time her voice echoed in his ears—her quiet little voice.
“Good Lord!” he said to himself angrily. “It’s no tragedy! I asked the girl out to dinner, I tried to give her a good time, and that’s all there is to it.”
But still her voice echoed in his heart, and still he felt that bitter ache of regret. Let him walk as far as he would, he could not escape from it.
“She was unhappy,” he thought, and the thought pained him. He went on walking, and when he got back to the station he found that he had missed his train. It was the last for that day; the next one left at four o’clock in the morning.
He didn’t really care. He went to an all-night restaurant and had coffee and bacon and eggs. Then he strolled back to the waiting room where he had met her, and sat down there. He had the place to himself; there was nothing to disturb his reflections.
“The trouble was,” he said to himself, “that I was disappointed.”
And, like an audible response, the words shaped themselves in his mind:
“Well, what about her?”