"No, I want to think."
"But you can think there all you want... And it's such a miserable night."
"I'm going to Brookline to Mother's, anyway; I'll go as far as your door," said Fanshaw.
"You can amuse yourselves picking my character to pieces all the way out," said Wenny boisterously.
They none of them laughed.
"Well, then, good night."
Wenny watched them go down the steps, Nan in her long buff coat, Fanshaw with his wet hat pulled over his eyes. Nan half turned and waved with a little thwarted gesture of the hand. For a second she paused, then with the slightest shrug of the shoulders followed Fanshaw's tall figure out of sight past the change booth. Wenny took two steps to follow, but the impulse died sickeningly like a spoiled skyrocket falling. He thought he was going to cry, and turned about and walked recklessly into the blinding bright dance of the snow.
* * * *
The wind had dropped. Great sloppy flakes were spinning slowly down between the houses, filling with glitter the tents of light cast by the street lamps. Wenny had been walking fast with long irregular steps muffled by the crunching carpet of the snow. His feet and legs were wet and very cold. At a corner he stopped and leaned a moment against a wall. The shadows in the windows of the house opposite seemed concrete and the walls built heavily out of reddish darkness. People were grey ghosts with faces of unnatural bright pink that flitted past him through the leisurely chaos of the snow. In their eyes, at the edges of hats, from the ledges of shop windows glittered little globules of moist brightness. From gutters came a continual drip of melted snow. Now, what bar haven't I been to? he kept asking himself, as he stood listening to the little hiss of the snow and the slushy padding of footsteps.
I'd forgotten Frank Locke's; and he walked on with lurching strides.