«Do you—do other men come to see you often? Like those two kids?»
The question surprised her. The dark velvet eyes stared at him.
«Why, of course they do. All the time. Why—I’ve told you in letters that they did, dearest.»
This was true—when he had first come to the city there had been already a dozen boys around her, responding to her picturesque fragility with adolescent worship, and a few of them perceiving that her beautiful eyes were also sane and kind.
«Do you expect me never to go anywhere»—Jonquil demanded, leaning back against the sofa-pillows until she seemed to look at him from many miles away—»and just fold my hands and sit still—forever?»
«What do you mean?» he blurted out in a panic. «Do you mean you think I’ll never have enough money to marry you?»
«Oh, don’t jump at conclusions so, George.»
«I’m not jumping at conclusions. That’s what you said.»
George decided suddenly that he was on dangerous grounds. He had not intended to let anything spoil this night. He tried to take her again in his arms, but she resisted unexpectedly, saying:
«It’s hot. I’m going to get the electric fan.»
When the fan was adjusted they sat down again, but he was in a supersensitive mood and involuntarily he plunged into the specific world he had intended to avoid.
«When will you marry me?»
«Are you ready for me to marry you?»
All at once his nerves gave way, and he sprang to his feet.
«Let’s shut off that damned fan,» he cried, «it drives me wild. It’s like a clock ticking away all the time I’ll be with you. I came here to be happy and forget everything about New York and time——»
He sank down on the sofa as suddenly as he had risen. Jonquil turned off the fan, and drawing his head down into her lap began stroking his hair.
«Let’s sit like this,» she said softly, «just sit quiet like this, and I’ll put you to sleep. You’re all tired and nervous, and your sweetheart’ll take care of you.»
«But I don’t want to sit like this,» he complained, jerking up suddenly, «I don’t want to sit like this at all. I want you to kiss me. That’s the only thing that makes me rest. And anyways I’m not nervous—it’s you that’s nervous. I’m not nervous at all.»
To prove that he wasn’t nervous he left the couch and plumped himself into a rocking-chair across the room.
«Just when I’m ready to marry you you write me the most nervous letters, as if you’re going to back out, and I have to come rushing down here——»
«You don’t have to come if you don’t want to.»
«But I do want to!» insisted George.
It seemed to him that he was being very cool and logical and that she was putting him deliberately in the wrong. With every word they were drawing farther and farther apart—and he was unable to stop himself or to keep worry and pain out of his voice.
But in a minute Jonquil began to cry sorrowfully and he came back to the sofa and put his arm around her. He was the comforter now, drawing her head close to his shoulder, murmuring old familiar things until she grew calmer and only trembled a little, spasmodically, in his arms. For over an hour they sat there, while the evening pianos thumped their last cadences into the street outside. George did not move, or think, or hope, lulled into numbness by the premonition of disaster. The clock would tick on, past eleven, past twelve, and then Mrs. Cary would call down gently over the banister—beyond that he saw only to-morrow and despair.
III
In the heat of the next day the breaking-point came. They had each guessed the truth about the other, but of the two she was the more ready to admit the situation.
«There’s no use going on,» she said miserably, «you know you hate the insurance business, and you’ll never do well in it.»
«That’s not it,» he insisted stubbornly; «I hate going on alone. If you’ll marry me and come with me and take a chance with me, I can make good at anything, but not while I’m worrying about you down here.»
She was silent a long time before she answered, not thinking—for she had seen the end—but only waiting, because she knew that every word would seem more cruel than the last. Finally she spoke:
«George, I love you with all my heart, and I don’t see how I can ever love any one else but you. If you’d been ready for me two months ago I’d have married you—now I can’t because it doesn’t seem to be the sensible thing.»
He made wild accusations—there was some one else—she was keeping something from him!
«No, there’s no one else.»
This was true. But reacting from the strain of this affair she had found relief in the company of young boys like Jerry Holt, who had the merit of meaning absolutely nothing in her life.
George didn’t take the situation well, at all. He seized her in his arms and tried literally to kiss her into marrying him at once. When this failed, he broke into a long monologue of self-pity, and ceased only when he saw that he was making himself despicable in her sight. He threatened to leave when he had no intention of leaving, and refused to go when she told him that, after all, it was best that he should.
For a while she was sorry, then for another while she was merely kind.
«You’d better go now,» she cried at last, so loud that Mrs. Cary came down-stairs in alarm.
«Is something the matter?»
«I’m going away, Mrs. Cary,» said George brokenly. Jonquil had left the room.
«Don’t feel so badly, George.» Mrs. Cary blinked at him in helpless sympathy—sorry and, in the same breath, glad that the little tragedy was almost done. «If I were you I’d go home to your mother for a week or so. Perhaps after all this is the sensible thing——»
«Please don’t talk,» he cried. «Please don’t say anything to me now!»
Jonquil came into the room again, her sorrow and her nervousness alike tucked under powder and rouge and hat.
«I’ve ordered a taxicab,» she said impersonally. «We can drive around until your train leaves.»
She walked out on the front porch. George put on his coat and hat and stood for a minute exhausted in the hall—he had eaten scarcely a bite since he had left New York. Mrs. Cary came over, drew his head down and kissed him on the cheek, and he felt very ridiculous and weak in his knowledge that the scene had been ridiculous and weak at the end. If he had only gone the night before—left her for the last time with a decent pride.
The taxi had come, and for an hour these two that had been lovers rode along the less-frequented streets. He held her hand and grew calmer in the sunshine, seeing too late that there had been nothing all along to do or say.
«I’ll come back,» he told her.
«I know you will,» she answered, trying to put a cheery faith into her voice. «And we’ll write each other—sometimes.»
«No,» he said, «we won’t write. I couldn’t stand that. Some day I’ll come back.»
«I’ll never forget you, George.»
They reached the station, and she went with him while he bought his ticket….
«Why, George O’Kelly and Jonquil Cary!»
It was a man and a girl whom George had known when he had worked in town, and Jonquil seemed to greet their presence with relief. For an interminable five minutes they all stood there talking; then the train roared into the station, and with ill-concealed agony in his face George held out his arms toward Jonquil. She took an uncertain step toward him, faltered, and then pressed his hand quickly as if she were taking leave of a chance friend.
«Good-by, George,» she was saying, «I hope you have a pleasant trip.
«Good-by, George. Come back and see us all again.»
Dumb, almost blind with pain, he seized his suitcase, and in some dazed way got himself aboard the train.
Past clanging street-crossings, gathering speed through wide suburban spaces toward the sunset. Perhaps she too would see the sunset and pause for a moment, turning, remembering, before he faded with her sleep into the past. This night’s dusk would cover up forever the sun and the trees and the flowers and laughter of his young world.
IV
On a damp afternoon in September of the following year a young man with his face burned to a deep copper glow got off a train at a city in Tennessee. He looked around anxiously, and seemed relieved when he found that there was no one in the station to meet him. He taxied to the best hotel in the city where he registered with some satisfaction as George O’Kelly, Cuzco, Peru.
Up in his room he sat for a few minutes at the window looking down into the familiar street below. Then with his hand trembling faintly he took off the telephone receiver and called a number.
«Is Miss Jonquil in?»
«This is she.»
«Oh—» His voice after overcoming a faint tendency to waver went on with friendly formality.
«This is George Rollins. Did you get my letter?»
«Yes. I thought you’d be in to-day.»
Her voice, cool and unmoved, disturbed him, but not as he had expected. This was the voice of a stranger, unexcited, pleasantly glad to see him—that was all. He wanted to put down the telephone and catch his breath.
«I haven’t seen you for—a long time.» He succeeded in making this sound offhand. «Over a year.»
He knew how long it had been—to the day.
«It’ll be awfully nice to talk to
