“You didn’t go to Cleveland that night, as you said,” she declared, watching the curve of his black lashes.
The eyes darted her way.
“Lucky, I didn’t,” he said. “God! How I wanted to! New York had me bluffed that night, before you came to the rescue.”
“Why didn’t you go?”
“I was up close to Grand Central with my bag, when the idea struck me—the idea that has since come out in the story series that has caught on. I could hardly realize that I had your money. I kept it in my hand—the hand in my pocket. That was a turning point in a life. New York had frightened me pretty nearly to death—the hunger thing, you know. All I wanted on earth was to crawl into that train for Cleveland, but it was as if you were calling on me to stay.”
She turned in pain and amazement. He was looking straight ahead and talking softly. She saw every twist and drive of his mind as he dramatized the situation unfolding to him. He was deeply absorbed in the pictures which his fertile brain uncovered one by one. It hurt her like the uncovering of something perverted in herself.
“Don’t go on like that,” she said. “You’re not working now. You are just walking in the street. You mustn’t make stories when you talk.”
He glanced at her sorrowfully, as one realizing in himself a truth so big that he is willing to wait for it to be believed.
“It is God’s truth,” he said. “That was the turning point in my career—that night—the night I turned back from the train. It was as if you were calling me, and it was as if the idea came from you. I knew I had to stay on and do the work here, close to the markets.”
She looked into his face and laughed.