Those Times and These

by Irvin S. Cobb

If such were the care, the expedient failed. It did not in the least serve to establish them upon a common footing. The old gentleman listened, but he refused to warm up; and when he bade Olcott good day and limped off, he left Olcott profoundly impressed with the conviction that Mr. Van Nicht did not propose to suffer any element of familiarity to enter into their acquaintanceship. Feeling abashed, as though he had been rebuked after some subtle fashion for presumption and forwardness, Olcott dropped into the handiest bar and had a drink all by himself—something he rarely did. But this time he felt that the social instinct of his system required a tonic and a bracer.

Within the next day or two chance gave him opportunity for still further insight into the estimation in which he was held by other members of the Van Nicht family. This happened shortly before the close of a cool and showery July afternoon. Leaving his desk, he took advantage of a lull in the rain to go for a solitary stroll before dinner. He was briskly traversing a side street, well out of the business district, when suddenly the downpour started afresh. He pulled up the collar of his light raincoat and turned back to hurry to the Hotel Brain-ard, where he lived. Going in the opposite direction a woman pedestrian, under an umbrella, met him; she was heading right into the slanting sheets of rain. In a sidelong glance he recognised the profile of the passer, and instantly he had faced about and was alongside of her, lifting his soaked hat.

“How d'you do, Miss Van Nicht?” he was saying. “I'm afraid you'll make poor headway against this rainstorm. Won't you let me see you safely home?”

It was the younger Miss Van Nicht. Her greeting of him and her smile made him feel that for the moment at least he would not be altogether an unwelcome companion. As he fell in beside her, catching step with her and taking the umbrella out of her hands, he noted with a small throb of pity that her cheap dark skirt was dripping and that the shoes she wore must be insufficient protection, with their thin soles and their worn uppers, against wet weather. He noted sundry other things about her: Seen by daylight she was pretty—undeniably pretty. The dampness had twisted little curls in her primly bestowed hair, and the exertion of her struggle against the storm had put a becoming flush in her cheeks.

“I was out on an errand for my sister,” she said. “I thought I could get home between showers, but this one caught me. And my umbrella—I'm afraid it is leaky.”

Undeniably it was. Already the palm of Olcott's hand was sopping where water, seeping through open seams along the rusted ribs, had run down the handle. Each new gust, drumming upon the decrepit cloth, threatened to make a total wreck of what was already but little better than the venerable ruin of an umbrella.

“You must permit me to see you home then,” he said. He glanced up and down, hoping to see a cab or a taxi. But there was no hireable vehicle in sight and the street cars did not run through this street. “I'm afraid, though, that we'll have to go afoot.”

“And I'm afraid that I am taking you out of your way,” she said. “You were going in the opposite direction, weren't you, when you met me?”

“I wasn't going anywhere in particular,” he lied gallantly; “personally I rather like to take a walk when it's raining.”

For a bit after this neither of them spoke, for the wind all at once blew with nearly the intensity of a small hurricane, buffeting thick rain spray into their faces and spattering it up about their feet. She seemed so small—so defenceless almost, bending forward to brace herself against its rude impetuosity. He was mighty glad it was his hand which clasped her arm, guiding and helping her along; mighty glad it was he who held the leaky old umbrella in front of her and with it fended off some part of the rain from her. They had travelled a block or two so, in company, when the summer storm broke off even more abruptly than it had started. There was an especially violent spatter of especially large drops, and then the wind gave one farewell wrench at the umbrella and was gone, tearing on its way.