Winfield had said, “I ought to!” It is strange that we always say “I ought to” with skepticism, wondering both “Shall I?” and “Will I?” If our selves are our real gods, we are all agnostics.
The next morning Sheila woke with less than her yester joy. Leisure was not so much a luxury and more of a bore. Not that she felt regret for the lack of rehearsals. She was not interested in plays, but in the raw material of plays, and she was not so proud of her noble renunciation of Bret Winfield as she had been.
To fight off her new loneliness she decided to go shopping. When men are restless they go to clubs or billiard-parlors or saloons. Women go prowling through the shops. The Clinton shops were as unpromising to Sheila as a man’s club in summer. But there was no other way to kill time.
As she set out she saw Bret Winfield’s car loafing in front of her hotel. He was sitting in it. The faces of both showed a somewhat dim surprise. Sheila quickened her steps to the curb, where he hastened to alight.
“You didn’t go,” she said, brilliantly.
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I—I couldn’t.”
“Why?”
“Well, I didn’t sleep a wink last night, and—”