“Oh.”
Then——
“Not right now. When I'm through with these. But will you ask her if she's going to be in this afternoon—I want to tell her about my taking the New York job.”
Satisfied oil pouring back into the telephone with a pleased, thin chuckle.
“Yes, Nancy has decided. Well, dear, I think she had better tell you herself—”
Nancy is looking dolefully down at her thumb. Foolish not to have cooled off that water a little—she has really burned herself. For an instant she hears Oliver's voice in her ears, low and concerned, sees Oliver kissing it, making it well. But these things don't happen to sensible, self-respecting modern girls with experienced mothers, especially when all the former have now quite made up their own minds.
XIX
It was with some nightmare surprise that Oliver on waking regarded his tidy cell. Then he remembered and in spite of the fact that yesterday evening with all that belonged to it kept hurting wherever it was that most of him lived with the stiff repeating ache of a nerve struck again and again by the same soft hammer, he couldn't help laughing a little. The popular college remedy for disprized love had always been an instantaneous mingling of conflicting alcohols—calling a large policeman a big blue boob seemed to produce the same desired result of bringing one to one's senses by first taking one completely out of them without the revolving stomach and fuzzed mind of the first instance. He tried to think of yesterday evening airily. Silly children quarreling about things that didn't matter at all. Of course Nancy should have the job if she wanted—of course he'd apologize, apologize like Ecclesiastes even for being alive at all if it was necessary—and then everything would be all right, just all right and fixed. But the airy attitude somehow failed to comfort—it was a little too much like trying to shuffle a soft-shoe clog on a new grave. Nancy had been unreasonable. Nancy had said or hadn't denied that she wasn't sure she loved him any more. He had released her from the engagement and told her good-by. He stared at the facts—they sprang up in front of him like choking thorns—thorns he had to clear away with his hands before he could even touch Nancy again. Was he sure—even now? All the airiness dropped from him like a clown's false face. As he thought of what would happen if Nancy had really meant it about not loving him, it seemed to him that somebody had taken away the pit of his stomach and left nothing in its place but air.
Anyhow the first thing to do was to get out of this place—he examined the neat bars in the door approvingly and wondered how the devil you acted when you wanted to be let out. There wasn't any way of opening a conversation about it with no one to talk to—and the corridor was merely a length of empty steel—and, damn it, his train left at Ten Seven and he had to see Nancy and explain everything in the world before it left—and if he didn't get back to New York in time he might lose his job. There must be some way of explaining to the people in charge that he hadn't done anything but kid a policeman—that he must get out.