They joined the others, drinking at the table. Charlotte was telling a joke. It was not a nice joke. He had not thought of her jokes before—because Iris and Chuck and Lefty had not been listening to them. Now, he was embarrassed. Iris asked him to dance with her. They went out on the floor.
"Lovely little thing, that Charlotte," she said acidly.
"Isn't she!" Hugo answered with such enthusiasm that she did not speak during the rest of the dance.
Finally the ordeal ended. Lefty and his guests embarked in an automobile for the city.
"You know such people," Charlotte half-whispered. Hugo's cheeks still flamed, but his heart bled for her.
"I guess they aren't much," he replied.
She answered hotly: "Don't you be like that! They're nice people. They're fine people. That Iris even asked me to her house. Gave me a card to see her." Charlotte could guess what Iris wanted. So could Hugo. But Charlotte pretended to be innocent.
He kissed Charlotte good-night and walked in the streets until morning. Hugo could see no solution. Charlotte was so trusting, so good to him. He could not imagine how she would receive any suggestion that she go to New York and get a job, while he returned to college, that he see her during vacations, that he send money to her. But he knew that a hot fire dwelt within her and that her fury would rise, her grief, and that he would be made very miserable and ashamed. She chided him at breakfast for his walk in the dark. She laughed and kissed him and pushed him bodily to his work. He looked back as he walked down to the curb. She was leaning out of the window. She waved her hand. He rounded the corner with wretched, leaden steps. The morning, concerned with the petty business of receipts, refurbishings, cleaning, went slowly. When he returned for lunch it was with the decision to tell her the truth about his life and its requirements and to let her decide.
She did not come to the door to kiss him. (She had imagined that lonely return.) She did not answer his brave and cheerful hail. (She had let the sound of it ring upon her ear a thousand times.) She was gone. (She knew he would sit down and cry.) Then, stumbling, he found the two notes. But he already understood.
The message from Valentine Mitchel was reckless, impetuous. "Dear Hugo—Charlotte and I have fallen in love with each other and I've run away with her. I almost wish you'd come after us and kill me. I hate myself for betraying you. But I love her, so I cannot help it. I've learned to see in her what you first saw in her. Good-bye, good luck."