Which impressed Hy later when he thought it over, as a curious remark. They parted shortly after this.
But first she said, “Hy, dear, I don't like to seem to be leaving you on account of this. It must be dreadfully hard for you.” So they had a soda, sitting in the drug store window. Hy almost smiled, thinking of the madness of it—he and an unmistakable actress, in working hours, here actually in the shadow of grim old Scripture House! And it was nobody's business! It could hurt nobody! He had not known that freedom would be like this. There was a thrill about it; so deep a thrill that after he had put the sympathetic but plainly hurrying Silvia on an up-town car and had paid for her as she entered, he could not bring himself to return to the office. Even with the Worm up there, wondering what had become of him. Even with all his personal belongings waiting to be cleared from the desk and packed.
He wandered over to Washington Square, his spirit reveling in the lazy June sunshine. He stopped and listened to the untiring hurdy gurdy; threw coins to the little Italian girls dancing on the pavement. He thought of stopping in at the Parisian, ordering a “sirop” and reading or trying to read, those delightfully naughty French weeklies. He knew definitely now that he was out for a good time.
There was a difficulty. It is easier to have a good time when there is a girl about. Really it was rather inopportune that Hilda Hansen had flitted back to Wisconsin. She needed a guardian; still she had been an appealing young thing up there at the Grand Central. But she had gone! And Silvia—well, that little affair had taken an odd and not over-pleasant turn. The pagan person had, plainly, her sophisticated moments. He was glad that he had seen through her. For that matter, you couldn't ever trust her sort.
Then creeping back into his mind like a pet dog after a beating, hesitant, all fears and doubts of a welcome, came the thought of Betty Deane.
CHAPTER XXV—HE WHO HESITATED
WHERE was Betty, anyway! And why hadn't she called up the office. It began to seem to him that she might have done that after her little effort of the morning. Hitherto, before that ridiculous marriage of hers, she had always put up with Sue Wilde, over in Tenth Street. Perhaps she was there now. Mental pictures began to form of Betty's luxuriant blonde beauty. And it was something for a peach like that to leave home and rich husband, come hurrying down to New York and call you up at an ungodly hour in the morning. He remembered suddenly, warmly, the time he had first kissed Betty—over in New Jersey, on a green hillside, of a glowing afternoon. His laziness fell away. Briskly he walked around into Tenth Street and rang Sue's bell.
Betty answered—prettier than ever, a rounded but swaying young creature who said little and that slowly.