We Three Part 16

"Oh, it will all come out in the wash."

"It depends on how dirty the linen is!"

"American men," I said, "never seem to have the courage to retrench.

Why not take your family to a cheap boarding-house for a year or two?

Cut the Gordian knot and get right down to bed rock? Boarding-house food may be bad for the spirit, but it's good for the body. My father had dyspepsia one spring, and his doctor told him to spend six weeks in a summer hotel--_any_ summer hotel--and take _all_ his meals in it."

Just then one of the bell-boys interrupted us. He said that Mrs.

Fulton wished to speak with me. He followed me into the coat room, where the telephone is, in a persistent sort of way, so that I turned on him rather sharply and asked what he wanted.

His eyes were bulging with a look of importance and his black face had an expression of mystery. "She ain't on de telephone," he said, "she's outside."

"Well, why couldn't you say so?"

I went out bareheaded into the dusk and walked quickly between the bedded hyacinths and the evergreen hedges of Carolina cherry to the sidewalk. But she wasn't there. Far up the street I saw a familiar horse and buggy, and a whip that signaled to me.

She was all alone. Even Cornelius Twombley, as much a part of the buggy as one of the wheels, had been dropped off somewhere.

"I haven't seen you all day," she said. "I thought maybe you'd like to go for a little drive."

I simply climbed into the buggy and sat down beside her.

"Evelyn and Dawson," she explained, "were crowding the living-room, so I thought of this. Is John in the Club?"

"He was, but he said good-night to Harry Colemain and me, and I think he went home. . . . How is everything? I saw you and John from afar, walking together. I knew you could run because I've seen you play tennis, but I didn't suppose you'd ever learned to walk. You're always either on a horse or behind one."

"Was it very bold of me to come to the Club for you? I suppose I ought to have telephoned." Then she laughed. "I ought to have had more consideration of your reputation," she said.

"My reputation will survive," I said. "But look here, Lucy----"

"I'm looking!"

"I meant look with your mind. I don't know if I ought to bring it up; it's just gossip. Harry saw John coming out of the President's room in the bank. He said it looked to him as if John had been trying to make a touch and hadn't gotten away with it. You know I hate to see him distressed for money, especially now when other things are distressing him, and I wonder if there isn't some tactful arrangement by which I could let him have some money without his knowing that it came from me."

"_Aren't_ you good!" she exclaimed. "Oh, I suppose he makes things out as bad as he can so as to influence me as much as possible; but he says we are in a terrible hole, that we oughtn't to have come here at all, that if he'd had any idea how much money I'd been spending in New York before we came he wouldn't have considered coming, that everybody is hounding him for money, and that he doesn't see how he can possibly pay his bills at the end of the season. Of course it's mostly my fault; but I can't help it if the Democrats are in power and business is bad, can I?"

"Well," I said, "I'm flush just now and I'll think up a scheme.

Meanwhile let's forget about everything that isn't pleasant. Where are you going to drive me?"

"I don't care. Let's get away from the lights. What time is it? John doesn't like me to be late; and besides I haven't kissed the kiddies good-night. Let's just take a little dip in the woods. On a hot night it's almost like going for a swim. Oughtn't you to have a hat or something? If you get cold you can put the cooler on like a shawl."

Her manner affected me as it had never affected me before.

The dip from the hot dusk of the dusty road into the cool midnight of the pine woods had all the exhilaration of an adventure. The fact that she had sent into the Club for me flattered my vanity. She wanted me and not another to be with her. I felt a tenderness for her that I had never felt before. I wanted a chance to show that I understood her and was her friend without qualification. Shoulder touched shoulder now and then and it seemed to me as if I was being appealed to by that contact for support, countenance, and protection.

We chattered about the night and the pale stars, and the smells of flowers. We wished that there was no such thing as dinner, that the woods lasted forever, and that we might drive on through the soft perfumed air until we came to the end of them.

Then there was quite a long silence, and for the first time in my life I experienced the wish, well, not to kiss her, but to lay my cheek against hers. It was a wish singularly hard to resist.

"I suppose we ought to turn back."

"You know best," I said.

"Do you want to?"

"No, do you?"

"No."

But we turned back and came up out of the woods into the lights of the town.

"Where shall I drop you--at the Club?"

"Let me drop you," I said, "and borrow your buggy afterward to take me home. You ought not to drive alone at night."

"Maybe it would be better if I did," she said.

We said good-night at the door of her house, but not easily. For once it seemed hard to say anything final.

"Was I very brazen," she said, "to ask you to go with me, when I didn't want to be alone?"

"You were not," I said, "it was sweet of you. I loved it."

Cornelius Twombly lunged from the black shadow of a cedar tree and went to the horse's head.

"Good-night, Lucy. Good luck!"

Just then we heard John calling.

"That you, Lucy? You're late. I was getting anxious."

We could see him coming down the path, a vague shadow among the shadows, his cigarette burning brightly.

"Hallo, who is it? I can't see."

"It's Archie Mannering," said Lucy.

"Oh, is it? Won't you come in?"

"Can't, thanks. Got to dress. Lovely night, isn't it? Good-night.

Good-night, Lucy."

When I had driven a little way I turned and looked over my shoulder, but though I could only see the fire of John's cigarette, I imagined that I could see his face--a little puzzled, a little anxious, and very sad.

It was on that same night that he said to Lucy: "Aren't you seeing a good deal of Archie Mannering?"

And she answered: