At first, Minerva barely bowed her recognition and swept on toward her car, but Alice made her stop. Nora didn’t hear what Alice said because there was one of those tic-ups on Central Avenue just then, which set all the car horns blowing. But Mrs. Sloan, whom Nora recognized, nodded, though she looked mad. Nora, the three nurses and Alice Groves all got into the limousine.
Two nurses sat outdoors with the chauffeur. The car went to Central Avenue Bridge and over it and turned cast and finally reached the Mildred Tatum Infirmary.
“I’ll take the child to my home,” Minerva said.
Nora thanked the colored girls deeply and sank back on the cushions. “This is very kind of you, Mrs. Sloan,” she said in a pious tone.
She was surprised to see that Mrs. Sloan didn’t even hear her, hardly knew she was there at all. Mrs. Sloan’s mind, Nora thought, was probably failing.
11
Coley Borden was walking in the Christmas crowd, too. He looked ten years older than he’d looked on the night when he had written the full-page editorial that had ended his newspaper career and was still reverberating in the Sister Cities. But there was the same sardonic humor about him, and a hint somewhere of his subtle human understanding, his love of his fellows.
Persons in the throng who bumped him, if they troubled to look at him, also troubled to say,
“Sorry.” Not because of his age but because he looked like such a nice little guy.
He was on his way to get the only Christmas present he intended to give: something for Mrs. Slant, his housekeeper. What she needed, he reflected, thinking warmly of the good care she gave him, was Covermark for her wine-colored birthmark and a little plastic surgery for her wens. What he was going to get was a wrist watch. She’d said, months before, sighing as she picked up a dust mop and went to work on Coley’s study, “I do wish I had one of those newfangled wrist watches. Be so downright handy.”