CHAPTER XXXII
or a week—the week before Christmas—Carl had seen neither Ruth nor Gertie; but of the office he had seen too much. They were "rushing work" on the Touricar to have it on the market early in 1913. Every afternoon or evening he left the office with his tongue scaly from too much nervous smoking; poked dully about the streets, not much desiring to go any place, nor to watch the crowds, after all the curiosity had been drawn out of him by hours of work. Several times he went to a super-movie, a cinema palace on Broadway above Seventy-second Street, with an entrance in New York Colonial architecture, and crowds of well-to-do Jewish girls in opera-cloaks.
On the two bright mornings of the week he wanted to play truant from the office, to be off with Ruth over the hills and far away. Both mornings there came to him a picture of Gertie, wanting to slip out and play like Ruth, but having no chance. He felt guilty because he had never bidden Gertie come tramping, and guiltily he recalled that it was with her that the boy Carl had gone to seek-our-fortunes. He told himself that he had been depending upon Gertie for the bread-and-butter of friendship, and begging for the opportunity to give the stranger, Ruth Winslow, dainties of which she already had too much.
When he called, Sunday evening, he found Gertie alone, reading a love-story in a woman's magazine.
"I'm so glad you came," she said. "I was getting quite lonely." She was as gratefully casual as ever.
"Say, Gertie, I've got a plan. Wouldn't you like to go for some good long hikes in the country?"
"Oh yes; that would be fine when spring comes."
"No; I mean now, in the winter."
She looked at him heavily. "Why, isn't it pretty cold, don't you think?"