"Oh, please, Vonnie, don't cry. I know I'm no good. I just can't help it about that phonograph record."
"Well, you don't suppose I'd bawl this way if I could help it. Now don't be patting me on the back. I don't love you enough to let you, 'There! there!' me."
She moved resolutely to the door and by the time she reached it the line had come to her.
"I ought've known," said Vonnie, "no good could come out of taking up with a fellow that thinks Mertes is a better outfielder than George Browne."
CHAPTER XVI
I
Vonnie made good her threat and two weeks after the quarrel Peter received a picture postcard of a giant redwood. The message said, "Well Peter here I am in San Francisco—Vonnie." It was the first written communication he had ever received from her and so he did not know whether or not the brevity was habitual or was intended to convey a rebuke. It seemed safe to assume the latter as Vonnie sent no address.
Peter found himself turning to Pat for companionship. Perhaps he did not exactly turn, but was rather tugged about without will of his own. The needs of Pat were increasingly greater and Peter was caught up into them now that he had nothing in particular to do with his evenings. Instead of taking Vonnie out to an early dinner before the show he helped to put Pat to bed. It didn't seem quite virile to Peter, but it was easier than hanging around Jack's or Joel's or the Eldorado. Of course, Pat was supposed to be in bed long before the night life of New York had really begun, but bit by bit he edged his time ahead until it was often eleven or after before he fell off to sleep. The child fought against sleep as if it were a count of ten. Never within Peter's memory did Pat express a willingness to go to sleep, much less a desire. It was always necessary to conduct him forcibly over the line where consciousness ceased.
Peter was swept under the tyranny of this obligation a couple of nights after Vonnie went away. Unable to think up anything to do, he came back to the flat a little after ten. He saw a light burning down the hall in Pat's room and occasional entreaties and commands drifted out. Pat wanted a drink of water and the toy alligator and the electric engine and six freight cars. Looking at his watch Peter found that it was half past ten. He walked into the child's room and exclaimed sternly, "What's all this racket about?"
"He wants the funny section read to him," explained Kate, "and it's been lost some place. I can't find it anywhere."