“Will you be going downtown to-day, Mr. David? Or will you be here to lunch?”
“I’m going downtown,” he said sharply. He looked in her face and found the soft intimate sense of her offensive: a too cloying sweetness for his stomach. On the heels of his discovery a great remorse and disgust at himself. It drove him toward a demonstration of bravado: he needed almost to make clear to this searing presence of the Deanes that he owed Anne much, was more like Anne than like them, and was aware of it. This too was checked, left him dangling.
Lois caught him looking her through, and came over to where he worked at a stubborn bag: she said: “Let me help you, David.”
“No need,” he said with a tone studiedly similar to the one he had addressed to Anne. There was balm in that. It seemed, however, not to disturb Lois: and Anne was out of the room.
His cousin helped to the extent of loosing one strap. She sat on the gladstone and was suddenly languid, and forgot....
With Lois cornering his eye, David found he had the whole group in his mind. Mr. Deane was still at paces on the floor, calling for breakfast. David was amazed at his insignificance in this concise room. His wife paid him no attention. Twice she brushed against him, crossing the room: twice also she brushed against a bag. Her reactions were one. Muriel went up to him and said: “Father, let me have about twenty dollars more, will you?” Mr. Deane’s pacing slowed against this new ordinance. He stopped, snapped the bills from his wallet and handed them to his daughter. Muriel was at the moment looking over her shoulder, giving an order to Anne. She did not stop. Her eyes did not go with her receiving hand. Mr. Deane resumed his pacing. His wife said, half in the air: “In a moment, Anthony, we shall be able to spare Anne.” Lois, musing in her corner, suddenly flared forth: “Father, you are making me nervous with your walking like a lion in his cage!” But at once her face went soft, she forgot what she had said. Then her father had left the room, following the bright discovery that Anne had left before him.
David felt it was time to be off for downtown. He went to his aunt.
“Good-by.”
“I hope, David, you don’t squander your money at those expensive lunch places.”
David said he did not. He did not add he was afraid of them. He went to Lois.