I didn't say nothing to him about who else I'd seen in our front yard; I didn't want to stir him all up, for I knowed he'd marked Bonnie Bell off'n his books and closed the books for keeps. When I spoke to him he turns around and stands up, quiet.
"Very well," says he; "we'll go on over now."
So us two walk together out of our front door. He shuts the door then behind him and we go on down the walk together. He only turns once and looks back at the house.
The whole street laid there in front of us when we walked out from our yard to go over into theirs. The lights was all lit now, miles and miles of 'em; and below us was the hundreds of thousands more of the lights of the big city—the city that hadn't made us as happy as we thought it was going to. I heard a boat whistle deep somewheres out on the lake—it sort of made my stomach tremble.
Over west, beyond our part of the city, you could hear a low sort of sound like maybe of street cars; but on our side there wasn't anything but automobiles—thousands of 'em—going along as swift and smooth as birds. Most of them was going north still; but on the other side of the street some was going down, maybe with people going to the theaters. It was about the time when people in the city eat what they call dinner. The moon was coming up back of our house, which lay there all black—not a light in it now. I could see the flower beds in our yard, and the white naked statutes standing there. It looked right pretty, but cold like a graveyard.
The front door was shut and, the moon being up over east, the part of the house toward us was black-like. I remembered what the lawyer man had said about things being signed, sealed and delivered. Well, we'd closed the books. It was to hell with them Better Things!
I didn't tell Old Man Wright that Bonnie Bell had been there, because he had things hard enough the way it was and I was working for him yet a little while. He was ca'm as a summer day now.
I'd been his deputy once or twice when we had to go and arrest a bad man. He was now just like he was then. He walks, his thumbs, on both sides, just resting on the waistband of his pants. I don't know what he had in his mind; but you couldn't of saw the sign of a gun on him and I'd throwed my gun away. His coat tails hung straight down. Outside he was plumb civilized. His face was white and he looked right gentle—just gentle. He wasn't. As for changing him, it would of been as easy to change one of them marble statutes over in our garden.
Them Wisners wasn't watching their own gate like they'd ought to of. We walked on up their stairs and the old man rung the bell and stood there, his face without no expression now.
We heard some noises inside there—their dog begun to bark and it seemed like people was talking. Their William opened the door and we all stood there.