After that they were bosom friends. He told her about Bloomfield as it came back to him, rhapsodized over its meadows and woods and "purling streams," and felt a rising desire to taste its joys again. And all the while his voice would fall on deaf ears and her eyes would take on a misty look as though peering down dark, dusty corridors; and interrupting him, she would recall the circumstances of some famous party, summoning forth the creaking images of old men and women, yellow and withering, some of them long dead.
The afternoon passed swiftly away. They found themselves in a bit of lane that dipped down into a little grove of trees, just as the sun was gathering his cohorts for departure. A breath of fragrant breeze, heavy laden with clover and sweet with the stretch of cool, moist shade through which it had passed, came sweeping across the road, and the sounds of a farm hand whetting his scythe. Through a rift in the trees appeared a patch of delicate blue sky and the edge of a rosy cloud. Mrs. LeMasters came to the wistful end of an alluring and musty reminiscence and gazed regretfully at the tawdry beauties of the present. Then she turned her eyes upon Joe, and with a sigh that was sodden with romance: "How could you ever bear to leave that adorable spot?"
Joe smiled in mellow acquiescence and almost agreed with her.
Of course, the Stokes car never had a chance. Before he took his leave of her he had her signed order for a "Sedan" for immediate delivery. And she grasped his hand and held it, leaning coyly close. "We're going to have some wonderful times this fall. We'll drive to Bloomfield, just you and I. And what am I going to do about a chauffeur? What will I ever do with a strange creature who cares for nothing but speed? Why don't you stay with me and drive for me? We'll just not stay home a minute."
He temporized, laughing, and finally tore himself away. And when he stepped from the car outside of Blake's Restaurant and was met by a blast of hot air, laden with the breath of fried onions, he felt himself very much alone. He ate his supper dreamily and retrospectively. The vacant chair across the little table added to the plaintiveness. He had liver and onions and a chocolate eclair and felt that he needed a woman to look after him.
He got in the car and drove slowly south. When he came to Lytle Street he turned off to the right. It was not quite dark and people passing on the pavement seemed to him to peer out at him. He felt self-conscious and slowed down the car still more till he barely crept along, with headlights blazing two bright paths before him. Myrtle Macomber had told him he might come and he did not wish to seem to be too eager. But as he sought his bearings, watching the unfamiliar fronts of houses and clumps of shade, he suffered little tremblings of expectancy in spite of his restraint.
Directly the house appeared; he had no difficulty in recognizing it. It stood out bleakly against the evening sky, with its pointed cupola thrust upward like a warning finger, with its wooden fence and gate. It bad no modest shrouding of trees and bushes in the shadow of which one might veil one's entrance. For a moment he was afraid lest he be too early, so he alighted, switched off the lamps, and proceeded across the pavement to the gate very slowly. Then from the shelter of the vines on the side porch he heard the hum of voices and a laugh. Grasping his dignity firmly like a walking stick, he stalked up the pavement to the house.
Myrtle came to meet him. The dim outline of her in her filmy dress and the elusive scent of her presence stirred him again. Her voice was gentle as she laughed a greeting and she gave his hand an imperceptible squeeze as he came up the steps. His stiffness vanished, but the sound of voices from back in the shadow disturbed him. An absurd personality crowded to his lips as she led him forward, but he repressed it.
He was introduced. There was quite a crowd assembled and in the dark he was conscious of only a blob of faces and the grip of one hand that was quite too hot. Even in the dark he felt embarrassed, as the conscious caller exposed nakedly to the world. What had she done this for? It was not too considerate of her. Perhaps it was purely accidental. He began to speculate on how soon the crowd might break up, and found himself dangling uncomfortably on the porch railing close beside the chair of a shadowy girl who was buried in its depths. He could look down into the place where he imagined her face might be. He was quite close to her and in the jabber of voices she was silent. No one seemed to pay him the slightest attention, and his interest mounted in a growing intimacy of silence with this girl in the chair. A door opened and he saw Myrtle's figure pass across the room within and busy herself with something on the table. In the faint light that now pervaded the porch he again peered down at the figure beside him. Instantly the glamour vanished. The face he saw was thin and sharp, with hair slicked back from the forehead and narrow, slanting sharp eyes. He caught a glimpse of neck and shoulders above a brazen filmy waist, and in the splash of light and shadow there was no softness of contour, but cruel bones and hollows.
"Think you'll know me next time?" came a harsh voice and a laugh, and he straightened up and murmured an apology. He felt very much embarrassed and disturbed. His mellow complacence had fled precipitately. In his ears sounded the rattle of personalities. It was as harsh and as constant and as senseless as machine-gun fire. At least he could make an early "get-away."