“All right!” Cleeburg got up, peeved, and went to the bell. “What time do you want the car? I’ll drive you to the station. But hanged if I don’t think you pay us a mighty poor compliment!”
He still showed annoyance when Brooks went up to pack his bag.
“What’s got him, anyhow?” he put to Gloria. “Damned if I ask him again!”
All the way to the station he chewed on his cigar, responding laconically when his guest tried to make conversation. The little manager had a peculiar racial pride that John Brooks unwittingly had speared.
“Good enough to hand out his weekly stipend; good enough to give him his living!” kept spinning round the active brain. “But not good enough any more to sit with at the table! Prefers his Fifth Avenue cronies for that.”
As the car stopped, Brooks swung down, reached out a hand.
“Thanks, old man. Had a great time!”
“The hell you had!” said Cleeburg.
He drove back still turning over his guest’s desertion and madder every minute. When the car pulled up he sprang out, intent upon talking the whole thing over with Gloria. He crossed the veranda, opened the front door.
She was sitting in the chair he had occupied before the fire. Her body was bent forward, head lowered. He went nearer. She was stripping the branch she had brought in of its blood-red leaves. One by one she broke them off and dropped them into the fire. And her eyes never left them as they curled up and shriveled to a crisp.