CHAPTER XII
AGAIN, THE WEEKS ground. Jimmie felt like a hard lump in a dull-edged mill.
No word from Audrey. He had taken to chasing her, failed to catch up, and decided that this was a new act. Flight. Dan and Adele were always polite, on the phone or at the door.
She’d gone out—they didn’t know where. She’d run up to Chicago for the week end. Out.
Away. He hunted for her among her friends without success. He wrote a note to her. No answer. So he quit. The kind of game she played was too intensive, too unfunny, too exhausting. He heard that she had flown East, finally. Visiting somebody in the Carolinas.
Biff came home. Jimmie heard all about that, too, from the rant and waggle of Muskogewan tongues. Biff was healed—even could drive a car. But he was not well. The accident must have injured his head, or something, they said. Jimmie was worried about that—until he heard the rest of the story. Biff couldn’t sleep, had terrible headaches, demanded constant care. And so—he’d brought home a special nurse.
Genevieve, of course.
Jimmie smiled wryly inside himself. Outwardly, he shook his head and said it was too bad. He wondered what his father and mother would do if they found out the reason for Biff’s malingering. Dalliance. The moron!
The one bright spot in all that creep of time was a mere flash: Sarah’s call, with Harry—to introduce a new husband and rapturously to thank an older brother. Sarah’s good looks were that day organized into meaning. All the meaning was focused on Harry.
He was a nice chap, Jimmie thought. Humorous, clever, and violently but adroitly in love with his wife. They stopped at the club for a quarter of an hour and hurried away—in the midst of laughter. Honeymoon on the West Coast. From the rice-dripping new roadster, Sarah yelled to Jimmie, “Tell Audrey we love her to pieces! We couldn’t reach her or we’d have had her at the wedding!” Gears meshing. Tires slipping. Old shoes kicking on the gravel.