Without answering, Hawkins lifted his shoulders and threw out his hands. Then they were both called to come and help.
Joe had the sole company of Miss Penny on the return trip. She was inclined to be quiet and answered his polite attempts with monosyllables. He wondered if by chance he might be being remiss in the customs of such an occasion, but he did not care much. The three on the back seat had lapsed into a strange silence that seemed out of place, like death in a boiler shop, and when they finally reached the city limits and passed beneath the glare of the first corner light, he took a look behind him and caught Miss Ardle kissing the imperious Glotch. He turned and looked at Miss Penny. She sat with her hands in her lap, looking demurely at them.
He delivered them all to their respective destinations. And then, having the load of baskets and picnic utensils in the car, he returned to Lytle Street to see that they were properly handed over. He passed Hawkins' roadster as he turned the corner into Lytle Street and wondered if he were too late.
But as he staggered up the walk with the baskets, Myrtle came to meet him at the top of the steps and showed him where to put them. And as he turned and would have gone, she stopped him with a soft word. On the top step she came and took hold of him by both elbows and looked up into his face with eyes that were swimming with sweetness. He gulped and was bitterly sorry for his folly. He started to speak, when she reached up with her hand and softly passed it across his forehead; the touch of it was as exquisite and as transient as a dream. He felt unmentionable depths.
"Hope you're feeling better," she murmured.
"Why?" he managed to ask. And then he remembered he had told her he had been unwell Thursday which accounted for his absence. And then: "Oh, I do. Much. All right now." An errant moonbeam came straggling in between a break in the screen of vines and lighted up her face, looking up into his, flooding it with a sort of holy wistfulness. Softly she moved away, out of the light.
An hour later he clambered into his car and drove away.
CHAPTER XIV
What a curious question, that of Hawkins, "How did you come to get mixed up in this crowd?" And the inane response he had made to the counter as though it all were a mystery too vast for solution. Oh, well, Hawkins was a queer bird, inexpressive and glum and commonplace. Could not be expected to register much. His thoughts probably were too rusty and old by the time they formed in his head to issue forth in sparkling deeds or words. Joe slipped a knot into his tie, gave his hair a final swipe with the brush, caught a quick glance at himself in the glass, and then rushed to the door and rattled down the stairs whistling.