第80章

The sun had gone down, and the last of its lingering glory had died before the yawl managed to cajole her way back to her mooring.

Dinner was ready by the time the hungry threesome, laughing and talking, arrived at the cottage.Howard, spoiling for a cocktail, made for the small square dining-room, and Irene, waving her hand to Tootles, cried out, "Cheero, dearie, you missed a speedy trip, Idon't think," and took her into the house to tidy up in the one bathroom.Martin drew up short on the edge of the stoop, listened and looked about, holding his breath.It was most odd, but--there was something in the still air that had the sense of Joan in it.

After a moment, during which his very soul asked for a sight of her, he stumped into the living room and rang the bell impatiently.

The imperturbable Judson appeared at once, his eyebrows slightly raised.

"Has any one been here while I've been away?" asked Martin.

"No, sir.No one except Miss Capper, who's been reading on the stoop.""You're quite sure?"

"You never can be quite sure about anything in this life, sir, but Isaw no one."

"Oh," said Martin."All right, then." But when he was alone, he stood again, listening and looking.There was nothing of Joan in the room.A mixture of honeysuckle and tobacco and the aroma of cooking that had slipped through the swing door into the the kitchen.That was all.And Martin sighed deeply and said to himself "Not yet.Imust go on waiting," and went upstairs to his bedroom.He could hear Irene's voice above the rush of water in the bathroom and Howard's, outside, raised in song.In the trees outside his window a bird was piping to its mate, and in the damp places here and there the frogs had already begun to try their voices for their community chorus.It was a peaceful earth, thereabouts falsely peaceful.An acute ear could easily have detected an angry roar of guns that came ever nearer and nearer, and caught the whisper of a Voice calling and calling.

When Martin returned to the wood-lined sitting room with its large brick chimney, its undergraduate chairs and plain oak furniture, its round thick blue and white mats and disorderly bookcase, Tootles was there, a Tootles with a high chin, a half defiant smile, and honeysuckle at her belt.

"Tootles."

"Yes?"

"Have you been alone all the afternoon?"

"Yes." (Fight? Tooth and nail.) "Except for the flies....Why, boy?""Oh, nothing.I thought--I mean, I wondered--but it doesn't matter.

By gum, you have made the room look smart, haven't you? Good old Tootles.Even a man's room can be made to look like something when a girl takes an interest in it."If she had been a dog she would have wagged her tail and crinkled up her nose and jumped up to put her nozzle against his hand.As it was she flushed with pleasure and gave a little laugh.She was a thousandfold repaid for all her pains.But, during the first half of a meal made riotous by the invincible Howard and the animated Irene, Tootles sat very quiet and thoughtful and even a little awed.How could Martin have sensed the fact that she had been there?...

Could she,--could she possibly, even with the ever-ready help of nature,--hope to win against such a handicap? She would see.She would see.It was her last card.But during all the rest of the meal she saw the picture of a muscular sun-tanned youth carrying that pretty unconscious thing down the incline to a car, and, all against her will, she was sorry.That girl, pampered as she was, outside the big ring of hard daily effort and sordid struggle as she always had had the luck to be, loved, too.Gee, it was a queer world.

The stoop called them when they left the boxlike dining room.It was still hot and airless.But the mosquitoes were out with voracious appetite and discretion held them to the living room.

Irene flung herself on the bumpy sofa with a cigarette between her lips and a box near to her elbow."This's the life," she said."Ishall never be able to go back to lil' old Broadway and grease paint and a dog kennel in Chorusland.""Sufficient for the day," said Howard, loosening his belt."If a miracle man blew in here right now with a million dollars in each hand and said: 'Howard Guthrie Oldershaw,'--he'd be sure to know about the Guthrie,--'this is all yours if you'll come to the city,'

I'd..."

Irene leaned forward with her mouth open and her round eyes as big as headlights."Well?""Take it and come right back."

"You disappoint me, Funny-face.Go to the piano and hit the notes.

That's all you're fit for."