"Send you a check. From now on I'm made of money—so long—"
"Bert dear—" she cried, against the click of a closed receiver. Then with a long, relaxing sigh she slowly put down the telephone. After a moment she went into the bedroom, switched on the lights, and began to pack shirts and collars into his bags. She was smiling, because happiness and hope had come back to her; but her hands shook, for she was exhausted.
It was thirty-two days before she heard from him again. A post-dated check for a hundred dollars, crushed into an envelope and mailed on the train, had come back to her, and that was all. But she assured herself that he was too busy to write. The month went by slowly, but it was not unbearably dreary, for she was able to keep uneasy doubts in check, and to live over in her memory many happy hours with him. She planned, too, the details of the house they would have if this time he really did make a great deal of money. He would give her a house, she knew, whenever he could do it easily and carelessly.
When the telephone awakened her one night at midnight her first thought was that he had come back. She was struggling into a negligée and snatching a fresh lace cap from a drawer when it rang again and undeceived her.
Long distance from Coalinga had a call for her and wished her to reverse charges. She repeated the name uncertainly, and the voice repeated: "Call from Mr. Kennedy in Coalinga—"
"Oh, yes, yes! Yes. I'll pay for it. Yes, it's O.K." She waited nervously in the darkness until his voice came faintly to her.
"Hello, Helen! Bert. Listen. Have you got any money?"
"About thirty dollars."
"Well, listen, Helen. Wire me twenty, will you? I've got to have it right away."
"Of course. Very first thing in the morning. Are you all right?"