That afternoon they had four hours to think over their words. When Edith came downstairs, Hardy was waiting for her in the lobby.
“Edith!” he said. “Edith! I don’t know how I could have been such a brute! Edith, I can’t—”
“Oh, Joe, you weren’t! I know it must seem heartless to you for me to talk that way: but you don’t understand, Joe!”
As they walked toward the Subway, she tried to tell him. It was the hottest hour of that sultry September day, and she looked so jaded, so pale, that he was frightened. He held her arm, his tall head bent, to catch every word, his eyes fixed on her face.
“You see,” she said, “I owe so much to Aunt Bessie. She took me when I was a tiny girl, after mother died, and she gave up everything for me—everything, Joe! She used the little bit of money she had to send me to a good school, and when that was gone she went to work. That’s what ruined her health—working in an office; and she did it for me, Joe. If she’s a little—a little trying now, I—you do see, don’t you, Joe?”
“Yes, my darling girl, I see,” he answered, more gently than she had ever heard him speak before. “I think—see here, Edith! Could you spare time for a soda?”
She thought she could. They went into a shop near by, and sat down at a little table in a dark corner. He stretched out his hand toward hers, which lay on the table, but he drew it back again. He wasn’t going to do anything that might bother her, never again. He would be patient, he would do anything in the world she wanted. He was sick with remorse and alarm at her pallor and fatigue.
“I’ll do whatever you want, Edith,” he said. “Only—I love you so! If you[Pg 153] would just tell me more about yourself! It’s hard not to know.”
It was her hand that grasped his.
“As if I didn’t understand! Oh, Joe, I worried so awfully about you that time you got wet! If you had been sick, I couldn’t have been with you. I didn’t even know who there’d be to take care of you.”