THEIR night came unheralded.
Kennicott was on a country call. It was but Carol on the porch, rocking, meditating, rocking. The house was and repellent, and though she sighed, “I ought to go in and read—so many to read—ought to go in,” she remained. Suddenly Erik was coming, in, open the screen door, her hand.
“Erik!”
“Saw your husband out of town. Couldn't it.”
“Well——You mustn't more than five minutes.”
“Couldn't not you. Every day, evening, I had to see you—pictured you so clear. I've been good though, away, haven't I!”
“And you must go on being good.”
“Why must I?”
“We not here on the porch. The Howlands across the are such window-peepers, and Mrs. Bogart——”
She did not look at him but she his as he indoors. A moment ago the night had been empty; now it was incalculable, hot, treacherous. But it is who are the once they the of the hunt. Carol was as she murmured, “Hungry? I have some little honey-colored cakes. You may have two, and then you must home.”
“Take me up and let me see Hugh asleep.”
“I don't believe——”
“Just a glimpse!”
“Well——”
She the way to the hallroom-nursery. Their close, Erik's as they touched her cheek, they looked in at the baby. Hugh was pink with slumber. He had into his pillow with such energy that it was almost him. Beside it was a rhinoceros; tight in his hand a picture of Old King Cole.
“Shhh!” said Carol, automatically. She in to the pillow. As she returned to Erik she had a of his waiting for her. They at each other. She did not think of Kennicott, the baby's father. What she did think was that some one like Erik, an older and Erik, ought to be Hugh's father. The three of them would play—incredible games.
“Carol! You've told me about your own room. Let me in at it.”
“But you mustn't stay, not a second. We must go downstairs.”
“Yes.”
“Will you be good?”
“R-reasonably!” He was pale, large-eyed, serious.
“You've got to be more than good!” She and superior; she was about pushing open the door.
Kennicott had always out of place there but Erik with the of the room as he the books, at the prints. He out his hands. He came toward her. She was weak, to a warm softness. Her was back. Her were closed. Her were but many-colored. She his kiss, and reverent, on her eyelid.
Then she that it was impossible.
She herself. She from him. “Please!” she said sharply.
He looked at her unyielding.
“I am of you,” she said. “Don't everything. Be my friend.”
“How many thousands and millions of must have said that! And now you! And it doesn't everything. It everything.”
“Dear, I do think there's a of in you—whatever you do with it. Perhaps I'd have loved that once. But I won't. It's too late. But I'll keep a for you. Impersonal—I will be impersonal! It needn't be just a thin fondness. You do need me, don't you? Only you and my son need me. I've wanted so to be wanted! Once I wanted love to be to me. Now I'll be if I can give. . . . Almost content!
“We women, we like to do for men. Poor men! We on you when you're and over you and on you. But it's so in us. You'll be the one thing in which I haven't failed. Do something definite! Even if it's just selling cottons. Sell cottons—caravans from China——”
“Carol! Stop! You do love me!”
“I do not! It's just——Can't you understand? Everything in on me so, all the people, and I look for a way out——Please go. I can't any more. Please!”
He was gone. And she was not by the of the house. She was empty and the house was empty and she needed him. She wanted to go on talking, to this out, to a friendship. She to the living-room, looked out of the bay-window. He was not to be seen. But Mrs. Westlake was. She was walking past, and in the light from the arc-lamp she the porch, the windows. Carol the curtain, with movement and paralyzed. Automatically, without reasoning, she mumbled, “I will see him again soon and make him we must be friends. But——The house is so empty. It so.”
II
Kennicott had and absent-minded through that supper-hour, two after. He about the living-room, then growled:
“What the have you been saying to Ma Westlake?”
Carol's book rattled. “What do you mean?”
“I told you that Westlake and his wife were of us, and here you been up to them and——From what Dave tells me, Ma Westlake has been going around town saying you told her that you Aunt Bessie, and that you up your own room I snore, and you said Bjornstam was too good for Bea, and then, just recent, that you were on the town we don't all go on our and this Valborg to come take supper with us. God only what else she says you said.”
“It's not true, any of it! I did like Mrs. Westlake, and I've called on her, and she's gone and I've said——”
“Sure. Of she would. Didn't I tell you she would? She's an old cat, like her pussyfooting, hand-holding husband. Lord, if I was sick, I'd have a faith-healer than Westlake, and she's another slice off the same bacon. What I can't though——”
She waited, taut.
“——is you to let her pump you, a girl as you are. I don't what you told her—we all sometimes and want to off steam, that's natural—but if you wanted to keep it dark, why didn't you it in the Dauntless, or a and on top of the hotel and holler, or do anything it to her!”
“I know. You told me. But she was so motherly. And I didn't have any woman——Vida 's so married and proprietary.”
“Well, next time you'll have sense.”
He her head, his newspaper, said nothing more.
Enemies through the windows, on her from the hall. She had no one save Erik. This good man Kennicott—he was an brother. It was Erik, her outcast, to she wanted to for sanctuary. Through her she was, to the eye, with her the pages of a baby-blue book on home-dressmaking. But her at Mrs. Westlake's had to active dread. What had the woman said of her and Erik? What did she know? What had she seen? Who else would join in the hunt? Who else had her with Erik? What had she to from the Dyers, Cy Bogart, Juanita, Aunt Bessie? What had she answered to Mrs. Bogart's questioning?
All next day she was too to home, yet as she walked the on she was of every person she met. She waited for them to speak; waited with foreboding. She repeated, “I mustn't see Erik again.” But the did not register. She had no in the of which is, to the of Main Street, the from blank tediousness.
At five, in a chair in the living-room, she started at the of the bell. Some one opened the door. She waited, uneasy. Vida Sherwin into the room. “Here's the one person I can trust!” Carol rejoiced.
Vida was but affectionate. She at Carol with, “Oh, there you are, dearie, so t' you in, down, want to talk to you.”
Carol sat, obedient.
Vida over a large chair and out:
“I've been you were in this Erik Valborg. I you couldn't be guilty, and I'm than of it now. Here we are, as as a daisy.”
“How a look when she guilty?”
Carol resentful.
“Why——Oh, it would show! Besides! I know that you, of all people, are the one that can Dr. Will.”
“What have you been hearing?”
“Nothing, really. I just Mrs. Bogart say she'd you and Valborg walking together a lot.” Vida's slackened. She looked at her nails. “But——I you do like Valborg. Oh, I don't in any way. But you're young; you don't know what an might into. You always to be so and all, but you're a baby. Just you are so innocent, you don't know what may in that fellow's brain.”
“You don't Valborg actually think about making love to me?”
Her sport ended as Vida cried, with face, “What do you know about the in hearts? You just play at the world. You don't know what it means to suffer.”
There are two which no being will endure: the that he hasn't a of humor, and the that he has trouble. Carol said furiously, “You think I don't suffer? You think I've always had an easy——”
“No, you don't. I'm going to tell you something I've told a soul, not Ray.” The of which Vida had for years, which now, with Raymie off at the wars, she was again, gave way.
“I was—I liked Will well. One time at a party—oh, he met you, of course—but we hands, and we were so happy. But I didn't I was to him. I let him go. Please don't think I still love him! I see now that Ray was to be my mate. But I liked him, I know how and pure and Will is, and his from the path of rectitude, and——If I gave him up to you, at least you've got to him! We together and laughed so, and I gave him up, but——This IS my affair! I'm NOT intruding! I see the whole thing as he does, of all I've told you. Maybe it's to my this way, but I do it for him—for him and you!”
Carol that Vida herself to have and a of love; that, in alarm, she was trying to her as she on, “Liked him in the most way—simply can't help it if I still see through his eyes——If I gave him up, I am not my in that you take to avoid the of and——” She was weeping; an insignificant, flushed, woman.
Carol not it. She ran to Vida, her forehead, her with a of dove-like sounds, to her with and assembled gifts of words: “Oh, I it so much,” and “You are so and splendid,” and “Let me you there isn't a thing to what you've heard,” and “Oh, indeed, I do know how Will is, and as you say, so—so sincere.”
Vida that she had many and matters. She came out of her like a off rain-drops. She sat up, and took of her victory:
“I don't want to it in, but you can see for now, this is all a result of your being so and not the dear good people here. And another thing: People like you and me, who want to things, have to be particularly about appearances. Think how much you can if you live up to them, scrupulously. Then people can't say you're them to your own infractions.”
To Carol was a great understanding, an of the in history. “Yes. I've that plea. It's a good one. It sets to cool. It in the flock. To word it differently: 'You must live up to the popular if you in it; but if you don't in it, then you MUST live up to it!'”
“I don't think so at all,” said Vida vaguely. She to look hurt, and Carol let her be oracular.
III
Vida had done her a service; had all so that she and saw that her whole problem was as mutton: she was in Erik's aspiration; gave her a for him; and the would take of the event. . . . But at night, in bed, she protested, “I'm not a innocent, though! If it were some one more than Erik, a fighter, an artist with lips——They're only in books. Is that the tragedy, that I shall know tragedy, anything but that turn out to be a farce?
“No one big or to for. Tragedy in blouses; the all and safe in a stove. Neither guilt. Peeping at love from curtains—on Main Street!”
Aunt Bessie in next day, to pump her, to the pump by again that Kennicott might have his own affairs. Carol snapped, “Whatever I may do, I'll have you to that Will is only too safe!” She that she had not been so lofty. How much would Aunt Bessie make of “Whatever I may do?”
When Kennicott came home he at things, and hemmed, and out, “Saw aunty, this afternoon. She said you weren't very to her.”
Carol laughed. He looked at her in a puzzled way and to his newspaper.
IV
She sleepless. She alternately of Kennicott, and his virtues, his in of the which he not cut out. Didn't he need her more than did the book-solaced Erik? Suppose Will were to die, suddenly. Suppose she again saw him at breakfast, but amiable, to her chatter. Suppose he again played elephant for Hugh. Suppose——A country call, a road, his skidding, the of the road crumbling, the car turtle, Will beneath, suffering, home maimed, looking at her with eyes—or waiting for her, calling for her, while she was in Chicago, nothing of it. Suppose he were by some woman for malpractice. He to witnesses; Westlake spread lies; his friends him; his self-confidence was so that it was to see the of the man; he was convicted, handcuffed, taken on a train——
She ran to his room. At her push the door in, a chair. He awoke, gasped, then in a voice: “What is it, dear? Anything wrong?” She to him, for the familiar cheek. How well she it, every seam, and of bone, and roll of fat! Yet when he sighed, “This is a visit,” and his hand on her thin-covered shoulder, she said, too cheerily, “I I you moaning. So of me. Good night, dear.”
V
She did not see Erik for a fortnight, save once at church and once when she to the tailor shop to talk over the plans, contingencies, and strategy of Kennicott's for a new suit. Nat Hicks was there, and he was not so as he had been. With he chuckled, “Some flannels, them samples, heh?” Needlessly he touched her arm to call attention to the fashion-plates, and he from her to Erik. At home she if the little might not be himself as a to Erik, but that she would not consider.
She saw Juanita Haydock slowly walking past the house—as Mrs. Westlake had once walked past.
She met Mrs. Westlake in Uncle Whittier's store, and that her to be rude, and was cordial.
She was sure that all the men on the street, Guy Pollock and Sam Clark, at her in an way, as though she were a divorcee. She as as a criminal. She to see Erik, and that she had him. She that Kennicott was the only person in town who did not know all—know more than there was to know—about herself and Erik. She in her chair as she men talking of her, thick-voiced, obscene, in shops and the tobacco-stinking parlor.
Through early autumn Fern Mullins was the only person who the suspense. The teacher had come to accept Carol as of her own youth, and though had she in daily to dances, welsh-rabbit parties.
Fern her to go as to a barn-dance in the country, on a Saturday evening. Carol not go. The next day, the crashed.
