The deadly danger of it was cold at her heart as she lay back on the divan and closed her eyes. Through her shut lids she saw the paragraph with the words of the address standing out like the writing on the wall. She had heard directly from him once, a letter the day after he had fled; the only one that even he, reckless in his despair, had dared to send. In that he had told her to watch the personal column in a certain paper and had given her the names by which she could identify the paragraphs. She had watched and twice found the veiled message and twice waited in sickening fear for discovery. It had not happened. Now he had grown bolder, telling her where he was—it was as if his hand beckoned her to come. She could write to him at last, do it this evening and take it out after dark. Lying very still, her hands clasped behind her head, she ran over in her mind letter-boxes, post-offices where she might mail it. Were the ones in crowded districts or those in secluded byways, the safest? It was like walking through grasses where live wires were hidden.
A ring at the bell made her leap to her feet with wild visions of detectives. But it was only Anne Tracy, come in to see if she was back from her visit on the Sound. It was a comfort to see Anne, she always acted as if things were just as they had been and never asked disturbing questions. In the wilting heat she looked cool and fresh, her dress of yellow linen, her straw hat encircled by a wreath of nasturtiums had the dainty neatness that always marked Anne’s clothes and Anne herself. She was pale-skinned and black-haired, satin-smooth hair drawn back from her forehead and rolled up from the nape of her neck in an ebony curve. Because her eyebrows slanted upward at the ends and her eyes were long and liquid-dark and her nose had the slightest retroussé tilt, people said she looked like a Helleu etching. And other people, who were more old-fashioned and did not know what a Helleu etching was, said she looked like a lady.
She was Sybil’s best friend, was to have been her bridesmaid. But she knew no more of Sybil’s secrets since Jim Dallas had disappeared than any one else. And she never sought to know—that was why the friendship held.
They had a great deal to talk about, but chiefly the Twelfth Night affair. Anne was immensely pleased that Sybil had agreed to play. She did not say this—she avoided any allusions to Sybil’s recent conducting of her life—but her enthusiasm about it all was irresistible. It warmed the sad-eyed girl into interest; the Viola costume was brought from its cupboard, the golden wig tried on. When Anne took her departure late in the day, after iced tea and layer cake in the kitchenette, she felt much relieved about her friend—she was “coming back,” coming alive again, and this performance off in the country, far from her old associations, was just the way for her to start.
Anne occupied another little flat on another of the mid-town streets in another of the brownstone houses. Hers was one room larger, for her brother, Joe Tracy, lived with her when not pursuing his profession on the road. There were hiatuses in Joe’s pursuit during which he inhabited a small bedroom in the rear and caused Ann a great deal of worry and expense. Joe apparently did not worry, certainly not about the expense. Absence of work wore on his temper not because Anne had to carry the flat alone, but because he had no spending money.
They said it was his temper that stood in his way. Something did, for he was an excellent actor with that power of transforming himself into an empty receptacle to be filled by the character he portrayed. But directors who had had experience of him, talked about his “natural meanness” and shook their heads. When his name was mentioned it had become the fashion to add a follow-up sentence: “Seems impossible the same parents could have produced him and Anne.” People who tried to be sympathetic with Anne about him got little satisfaction. All the most persistent ever extracted was an admission that Joe was “difficult.” No one—not even Sybil or Hugh Bassett—ever heard what she felt about the fight he had had with another boy over a game of pool which had nearly landed him in the Elmira Reformatory. Bassett had dragged him out of that, and Bassett had found him work afterward, and Bassett had boosted and helped and lectured him since. And not for love of Joe, for in his heart Bassett thought him a pretty hopeless proposition.
That evening, alone in her parlor, Anne was thinking about him. He had no engagement and no expectation of one, and it was not wise to leave him alone in the flat without occupation. “Satan” and “the idle hands” was a proverb that came to your mind in connection with Joe. She went to the window and leaned out. The air rose from the street, breathless and dead, the heated exhalation of walls and pavements baked all day by the merciless sun. Passers-by moved languidly with a sound of dragging feet. At areaways red-faced women sat limp in loose clothing, and from open windows came the crying of tired little children. To leave Joe to this while she was basking in the delights of Gull Island—apart from anything he might do—it wasn’t fair. And then suddenly the expression of her face changed and she drew in from the window—Hugh Bassett was coming down the street.
The bell rang, she pushed the button and presently he was at the door saying he was passing and thought he’d drop in for a minute. He was a big thick-set man with a quiet reposeful quality unshaken even by the heat. It was difficult to think of Bassett shaken by any exterior accident of life, so suggestive was his whole make-up of a sustained equilibrium, a balanced adjustment of mental and physical forces. He had dropped in a great deal this summer and as the droppings-in became more frequent Anne’s outside engagements became less. They always simulated a mutual surprise, giving them time to get over that somewhat breathless moment of meeting.
They achieved it rather better than usual to-night for their minds were full of the same subject. Bassett had come to impart the good news about Sybil, and Anne had seen her and heard all about it. There was a great deal of talking to be done that was impersonal and during which one forgot to be self-conscious. Finally when they had threshed out all the matters of first importance Bassett said:
“Did you tell her that Walberg wanted Aleck Stokes for the Duke?”