“His chauffeur has a broken wrist,” Anthony explained. “He's offered me the job for a month.”
“Wrist hell! Hartmann fired him, he knew too much—about sprees with Kuhn. He's a sharp duck; I'll bet he picked you up outside Spring City.”
“I met him on the Sunset Limited,” Anthony continued; “I understood he was a director in the Challenger Motorcar Company—”
“He's that, right enough; the rottenest car and shop in America; they're so dam' mean they won't provide their men with drinking water; they have to bring labor from the East, scabs and other truck.” The conviction settled heavily upon Anthony that, after all, he had made a mistake in listening to Hartmann, in falling in with his suggestion. If there had been another train through Spring City that night for California he would have taken it. But, as there was not, and he had committed himself for the next twenty-four hours, he made his way to the Berliet car indicated. There he took off his coat, and busied himself with replacing the damaged shoe. When that was accomplished the dusk had thickened to evening, the suspended gas globes in the garage had been lighted, and shone like lemon-yellow moons multiplied in the lilac depths of a mirrored twilight.
He saw, across the street, a creamery, and, at a bare table, consumed a quart of milk and a plate of sugared rusk. Then, on a chair in the line before the garage, he sat half intent upon the conversation about him, half considering the swift changes that had overtaken him in the past, few days. His fingers closed upon Eliza's letter in his pocket, and he gazed at the callous and ribald faces at his side, he heard the truculent laughter, with wonderment that they existed in the same world with her delicate beauty. She smiled at him, out of his memory, over a mass of white bloom, and the present seemed like an ugly dream from which he must awake in her presence. Or was the other a dream, a vision of immaterial delight spread before his wondering mind, and this harsh mirth, these mocking faces, Hartmann's smooth lies, the hateful reality?
The night deepened, one by one the chairs before the garage were deserted, the sharp pounding of a hammer on metal sounded from within, the disjointed measures of a sentimental song. A sudden weariness swept over Anthony, a distaste for the task of seeking a room through the strange streets; and, arranging the cushions in Hartmann's car, he slept there until morning. He awoke to the flooding of the concrete floor with a sheet of water flashing in the crisp sunlight. It was eight o'clock, and he made a hurried toilet at a convenient spigot, breakfasting at the creamery.
Hartmann appeared shortly after nine: his countenance glowed from a scented massage, his yellow boots shone with restrained splendor, and a sprig of geranium was drawn through an ironed buttonhole. He nodded briefly to Anthony, and narrowly watched the latter manouvre the Berliet from its place in the row onto the street. They sped smoothly across town to what, evidently, was the principal shopping thoroughfare; and, before a glittering plateglass window that bore the chaste design, “Hartmann & Company” drew up, and Hartmann prepared to descend.
“I think I'll go on West,” Anthony informed him; “this afternoon.”
Annoyance was plainly visible upon the other's countenance. “I was just congratulating myself on a find,” he declared; “you must at least stay with me until I get some one else.” He paused; Anthony made no comment. “Now, listen to what I will do,” he pronounced finally; “if you will stay with me for a month I'll give you a hundred dollars and your expenses—it will be clear money. I... I had thought of taking a little trip in the car, I'm feeling the store a little, and I need a discreet man. Think it over—a hundred in your pocket, and you may be able to get off in three weeks.” He left hurriedly, without giving Anthony an opportunity for further speech. It was an alluring offer, a hundred dollars secured for the future, for Eliza. He speculated about the prospective trip, Hartmann's wish to secure a “discreet” man, the foreman's insinuations. However, the motive didn't concern him, the wage was his sole consideration, and that, he decided, he could not afford to lose. He whistled to a newsboy, and, studying the baseball scores, waited comfortably for his employer.
Later he drove Hartmann, now accompanied by Kuhn, out of town, through a district of suburban villas, smooth, white roads and green lawns, into the farmland and pasturage beyond. They finally stopped at an inn of weathered grey stone set behind a row of ancient elms. A woman was sitting on the portico, and she rose and came forward sinuously as the men descended from the motor car. Anthony saw that she had a full, voluptuous figure, lustreless, yellow hair, and sleepy eyes. Hartmann patted her upon the shoulder, and the three moved to the portico, where they sat conversing over a table of whiskies and soda. Occasional shrill bursts of laughter, gross terms, reached Anthony. The woman lounged nonchalantly in her chair; she wore a transparent white waist, through winch was visible a confused tracery of purple ribband, frank rubicund flesh. When the men rose, Hartmann kissed her. “Thursday,” he reminded her; “shortly after three.”