Red flame spurted in the middle of the wheatfield. He felt the sharp crash in his eardrums.
He walked fast through the rain. Behind him, at the door of the shack, he could hear excited voices. He walked recklessly on, the rain blinding him. When he finally stepped into the light he was so dazzled he could not see who was in the wine shop.
“Well, I'll be damned, Chris,” said Andrews's voice. Chrisfield blinked the rain out of his lashes. Andrews sat writing with a pile of papers before him and a bottle of champagne. It seemed to Chrisfield to soothe his nerves to hear Andy's voice. He wished he would go on talking a long time without a pause.
“If you aren't the crowning idiot of the ages,” Andrews went on in a low voice. He took Chrisfield by the arm and led him into the little back room, where was a high bed with a brown coverlet and a big kitchen table on which were the remnants of a meal.
“What's the matter? Your arm's trembling like the devil. But why.... O pardon, Crimpette. C'est un ami.... You know Crimpette, don't you?” He pointed to a youngish woman who had just appeared from behind the bed. She had a flabby rosy face and violet circles under her eyes, dark as if they'd been made by blows, and untidy hair. A dirty grey muslin dress with half the hooks off held in badly her large breasts and flabby figure. Chrisfield looked at her greedily, feeling his furious irritation flame into one desire.
“What's the matter with you, Chris? You're crazy to break out of quarters this way?”
“Say, Andy, git out o' here. Ah ain't your sort anyway.... Git out o' here.”
“You're a wild man. I'll grant you that.... But I'd just as soon be your sort as anyone else's.... Have a drink.”
“Not now.”
Andrews sat down with his bottle and his papers, pushing away the broken plates full of stale food to make a place on the greasy table. He took a gulp out of the bottle, that made him cough, then put the end of his pencil in his mouth and stared gravely at the paper.