She walked quickly down the windy street toward Market. The whirling dust-eddies over the cobbles, the blown scraps of paper, the flapping of her skirts, seemed part of the miserable confusion in her own mind.
How could she have forgotten Paul even for a moment? She had been heartless, head-strong, foolish to stay on in San Francisco, trifling so with the most precious thing in her life. Paul had been superhumanly patient and kind and unselfish to let her do it. She had never loved him more deeply than at that moment when with a dim sense of fleeing to him for refuge she hurried toward a telephone. Her voice trembled unmanageably when at last his came thin and faint across the wires. She had to speak twice to make him hear.
"Paul? Oh, Paul! It's Helen.—No, nothing's the matter. Only—I want to see you. Listen—I want to get away—Can you hear me? I say, I want to come down there for a while. Would your mother have room for me?—Right away. I could take the next train.—No, nothing, only I want to see you." The joy in his voice hurt her. "Why, don't you know I've always wanted that? You dear!—To-morrow morning, then.—I'll be glad, too,—so glad! Of course.—Truly, honest and true.—Foolish!—Good-by—till to-morrow."
CHAPTER XXIII
At the end of a long, warm summer day Helen lay in a hammock swung between two apricot-trees. From time to time, with a light push of a slippered foot on the grass, she set the hammock swaying, and above her head the pale, translucent leaves and ruddy fruit shifted into new patterns against a steel-gray sky.
The mysterious, erie hush of twilight was upon her spirit. Murmuring voices came vaguely through it; across the street two women were sitting on the porch of a bungalow, and on its lawn a little girl played with a dog. The colors of their dresses, of the dog's tawny fur, of geraniums against brown shingles, were sharp and vivid in the cold light.
"Mother seems to be staying quite a while at Mrs. Chester's," said Paul. He moved slightly in the wicker chair, dislodging the ashes from his cigar with a tap of his finger, and she felt his caressing eyes upon her. She did not turn her head, saying nothing, holding to the quietness within her as one clings to a happy dream when something threatens sleep. A puff of smoke drifted between her and the leaves.
"It is pleasant outdoors, this time of day," he persisted after a moment. Her low murmur, hardly audible, left him unsatisfied.
"Well, did you have a good time this afternoon?" His voice was brisker now, full of affectionate interest. She felt his demand for her response as if he had been tugging at her with his hands.
"Pretty good. Oh, yes, a very good time."