"Say, if you're going to sit there all day, how about a little action?"—this from the bartender.
"Oh, hell," I exclaimed, "bring me anything you like—or have it yourself on me."
"Thanks, I'll take half a dozen cigars," he said, rattling a box. "Damned if you aren't a queer guy. From the East, I guess."
"Yes—but please do me the favour to keep still."
"I'm not trying to butt in on nobody," he muttered, aggrieved again. "And I'm good enough to talk to any stuck-up Eastern guy that comes along."
As I disappointed him by ignoring this last remark, he took refuge in polishing glasses. I was conscious of a distant rumbling inside him from time to time. But I did not dare go back to Helen until I had got control of myself again. Furthermore, I must make up my mind about what I was to tell her. There seemed no way in which I could force my thoughts into an orderly arrangement. Little glimpses of our life together—of all we had done and planned in the last four years—kept interposing themselves between me and the present. "Helen—Helen—my Helen—my wife," was ceaselessly echoing inside my head. Finally a resolve came to me. "I can't tell her," I said to myself—"right or wrong, I can't."
I went to the telegraph office and sent a message to Mr. Claybourne. Then I took the long journey back to our bungalow. Helen was sitting on the verandah when I got there, the baby riding a hobby-horse near her, and Miss Brock reading aloud. Helen's face was thin now, but she had lost none of her delicate beauty. I went up to her and kissed her.
"What did the doctor say, Ted dear? How long you have been."
"He says it is all right, sweetheart. I am bringing good news." I wondered that the lie did not choke me.
"Honour bright, Ted?" she exclaimed, her eyes lighting up. It was our one oath of truthfulness that she demanded of me. Never before had I violated it.