He sprang up the stairs three at a time, too nervous to wait for the elevator, looked around the room, which was in disorder; his man couldn’t keep it tidy. Martin flung everything about.
He would take nothing with him but a dress suit case. He caught sight in the corner of an old box covered with deerskin, tied together with a thick rope; he had taken it from the garret after his grandfather’s death, but had never opened it. He untwisted the knots, one after the other. It was a hard job. It hurt his fingers. He took out a pair of mountain boots, goat’s leather, with large nails in the soles. Martin looked down at his feet; they would fit him. He pulled out an old woollen shirt, a pair of corduroy trousers, a felt hat with a green feather, a bright colored vest, and red handkerchiefs. There was a small chamois bag with strange coins, Swiss money—Martin examined them curiously; a pack of old letters, a photograph of a young boy and girl, a cow, and a high mountain at the back. That mountain fascinated him; he looked at it long, intensely. The raw boy and girl in Swiss dress were his grandparents. Martin thought of his mother. On the back of the card there was something printed which he made out with difficulty: “Val Sinestra.” He had never heard the name. He put everything back in the trunk and roped it; the idea came suddenly: he would take it with him, to Switzerland.
16
After Julie left, Floyd spent his evenings at the club; there were many strange to him. The membership had increased; it was still a mark of class to be seen lounging at the club-window in the afternoon.
He missed Martin. He was different from the others. When he raved against the world, he said things in bad taste, but often the bitter truth. With a sudden impulse, he wrote a few lines, asking him to lunch at the club the following day. He’d be furious when he heard Julie had sailed. He’d say, “You might have given me a chance to send her a few flowers.” Floyd smiled; yes, he liked Martin; more than that, he loved him; he was interwoven with the memories of his childhood, his youth. He wished that episode had not happened when Julie was ill, but she was unconscious of it. She had never in all that time mentioned his name. It was all in his own evil mind. He mentally asked pardon of Martin. The next morning at breakfast he had a feeling of agreeable expectancy.
The boy was crying upstairs. Bridget couldn’t quiet him.
“What’s the matter up there?”
The child fretted for his mother. He had caught a cold, and had been kept in the house for some days. He was standing with his boat in his hands, sobbing piteously. Floyd pacified him by running the water into the bath which was sunken in the center of a tiled room. The boy handed his father the boat.
Floyd turned it over in his hand.
“A costly toy. Mamma is good to you.”