“Didn’t you know what I was risking,” the girl continued. “When I was still a student nurse I sat in the solarium with you night after night and if the superintendent had come up I’d have been finished.”
Again Atlanta could hear only an indistinguishable murmur from him.
“I know I’m just a small town girl to you. But all I want to know is why did you make me love you so?”
Now Carley turned his head and Atlanta heard his words plainly.
“Nevertheless it’s a pretty high dive from Chimney Rock.”
—then Isabelle again.
“I don’t care if it’s five thousand miles—if you don’t love me there isn’t any living. I’m going to climb up there and see how quick I can get to the bottom.”
“All right,” Carley agreed. “Please don’t leave any notes addressed to me.”
IV
Back in the seat with Roger, Atlanta stared out at the receding crowd, neglecting now to wave or to be gay. There was a faint drizzle in the air again and people were putting coats and papers over their heads; autos honked imperatively from parking spaces and the bands died one by one at the corners, their instruments giving out last gleams as they were cloaked against the increasing rain.
The Lake Lure party hurried from the float to their car—Atlanta got in front beside Roger. When they dropped Isabelle at her apartment, Roger asked her: “Don’t you want to sit in back?”
“No.”
They drove out of the city facing a splitting windshield in silence.
“I’d like to talk to you,” she said finally, “but you’re so cross with me.”
“Not any more,” Roger said. “I couldn’t get that way twice.”
“Well, something’s happened that seems terrible and—”
“That’s too bad,” he interrupted sympathetically. “But since you’ll be back with your mother in just a week now, you can tell her about it.”
At his coldness Atlanta instinctively began a sort of emergency primping, wiping the clown’s paint from her face, removing pads from her waist, shaking her wet hair wild and combing it to an aura around her head. Then bending forward into the faint dashboard light she begged him:
“Let me ask you one thing.”
“Not tonight, Atlanta. I haven’t recovered from the shock.”
“What shock?”
“The shock of finding that you’re just another woman.”
“I’m going to ask you one thing—did anybody ever really kill themselves because they loved someone too much? I mean do you think so?”
“No,” he said emphatically. “Why? Are you planning to kill yourself for Mister De Luxe?”
“Don’t talk so loud. But listen, there have been people who’ve done that, haven’t there?”
“I don’t know. Ask one of the script writers back home—they’ll tell you. Or ask Prout. Hey, Prout—”
“Don’t start a row again!”
“Then let’s don’t talk.”
The car passed Chimney Rock and pulled up at the hotel in a dripping quiet. They had been on the road an hour but it seemed only a minute to Atlanta since she had heard Isabelle Panzer’s voice on the float. She was not angry—her feeling was one of overwhelming grief—and in the midst she felt perversely sorry for Delannux.
But when he asked in the lobby if everyone was absolutely determined to go to bed—a question obviously aimed to her—she said hastily:
“I’m for the tub. I’ve never felt so uncomfortable.”
But she could not sleep. For the first time in her life, for better or worse, she was emotionally wide awake, trying by turns to analyze her passion for the man, to argue him from her mind, to think what should be done. Had Roger not been concerned she would have gone to him and asked him—but now there was no one. Toward morning she dozed—to awake with a start before seven. One glance at a somber window told her there would be no work for a few hours anyhow, and her maid confirmed the fact on her arrival. Atlanta got listlessly into her bathing suit and went down to the lake for a dip, swimming on an unreal surface that existed between a world of water like mist and a drizzling firmament of air. She went up to the hotel and breakfasted and dressed, and then it was almost nine o’clock.
Downstairs she read a letter from her mother, and for a moment stood with Prout on the verandah.
“Roger’s in a bad humor,” he announced. “He’s got camera parts laid all over his bed.”
“Maybe he’s lucky to have something to do on a rainy day.”
Presently she went into the lobby and asked the number of Mr. Delannux’s room. When she knocked at his door and when he answered “Yes?” she called:
“Why don’t you ever get up? Do you hide all day? Are you an owl?”
“Come in.”
Inside the door she stopped. The room was full of luggage in disarray and Carley was in the process of helping a boy belt down a suitcase.
“I thought you’d be resting,” he said. “I thought on a rainy day—”
“What are you doing?” she demanded.
“Doing?” He looked a little guilty. “Oh, as a matter of fact I’m leaving. You see, Atlanta, I’m safe now and I can go back to the great world.”
“You said it’d be a week more.”
“You must have misunderstood.” She stood stock still in the middle of the floor as he went on talking. “You know when you knocked I jumped. You might have been the process server after all.”
“You said you had a week more,” she repeated stubbornly.
The negro boy shut the bag with a click. His eyes turned interrogatively toward Delannux—
“Come back in fifteen minutes,” Carley said.
The boy closed the door behind him.
“Why are you going?” Atlanta demanded, “—without saying anything to anybody? I come in and find you with your bags all packed.” She shook her head helplessly. “Of course it’s none of my business what you do.”
“Sit down.”
“I will not sit down.” She was almost crying now. “It even looks as if you did your packing in ten minutes—look at all those shoes. What do you think you’re going to do with them?”
He glanced at the forgotten shoes on the wardrobe floor—then back at Atlanta’s face.
“You were going without saying goodbye,” she accused him.
“I was going to say goodbye.”
“Yes—after you had all your bags in the car, and there was nothing to be done about it.”
“I was afraid I’d fall in love with you,” he said lightly. “Or you’d fall in love with me.”
“You needn’t worry about that.”
He looked at her with a flash of amusement.
“Come here close,” he said.
A small voice inside told her that he was trying some power of his on her, that he was just perversely playing. Then another and, it seemed, a stronger voice forgave him for that, made her interpret his command as a desperate cry of need.
He repeated:
“Come here.”
—and she took a step forward.
“Come closer.”
She was touching him and suddenly her face was reaching up to his. Then at the end of the kiss he kept her close with the pressure of his hands along her inside arms…
“So you see I think I’d better go away.”
“It’s absurd!” Atlanta cried. “I want you to stay! I’m not in love with you—honestly! But if you go I’ll always think I drove you away.”
She was so transparent now that she was not even ashamed—meaning him to see the truth underneath. “I’m not jealous of Miss Panzer. How could I be? I don’t care what you’ve done—”
“I can understand Isabelle thinking she liked me—because she hasn’t got anything. But you’ve got everything. Why should you be interested in a battered old wreck?”
“I’m not—yes, I guess I am.” She had a burst of unusual eloquence. “I don’t know just why—but all of a sudden you’re just all the men in the world to me.”
He sat down—his face was tired and drawn.
“You’re young.” He sighed, “—and you’re beautiful. You’ve got your work—and you’ve got any man you want for the asking. Do you remember when I told you that I belonged to another age?”
“It isn’t true,” she wailed.
“I wish it weren’t. But since it is, anything between you and me would be all dated—sort of mouldy.” He stood up restlessly. “You think I could live in your nice fresh world of work and love. Well, I couldn’t. We’d last about a month and then you’d be all bitter and dented—and maybe I’d care. And that might be tough for me.”
He looked up and faced her helpless love.
“Can’t you imagine somebody who’d had the best experiences in the world not wanting any more—not wanting love to be real love? Can you imagine that? I even resent your beauty because now I’m old—but once I had what it takes to love a girl like you—”
There was a knock at the door. Prout was there, his eyes darting from one to the other.
“It’s clearing off outside,” he said. “Roger told me to find you right away.”
Atlanta pulled herself together. In the doorway she paused and told Carley:
“I’ll be back in a minute. You won’t go till I see you. You promise?”
“Of course.”
“Then I’ll be right back. You can drive me over to Chimney Rock.”
A moment later, down in Roger’s room, she was listening to his instructions like a woman in a dream. The minute he was finished she dashed back up the stairs and, with a quick knock, entered Carley’s room. But it was empty.
V
She hurried down to the desk, to be told that Delannux had paid his bill and gone out to the garage—perhaps had driven off by now. Breathlessly she sped out the door, down the drive through a light rain. She was outraged, furious with herself and him. She turned a corner…
—and there he was, talking
