Still Hardy went about the office, magnificent as ever, very well aware
of being a remarkable young fellow, who was to be made assistant buyer
at twenty-three, a man talked about, admired, and envied. He was still
proud of himself, still sure of himself, but some of the magic had gone
out of it, some of the zest. He couldn’t look forward to that trip to
Europe with unmixed joy now.
Indeed, all the joys he had at this time were so mixed with anxiety and
impatience that he could scarcely recognize them. He dreaded leaving
Edith. He imagined all sorts of misfortunes that might befall her in his
absence. Sometimes he even resented his splendid future, because it so
burdened and harassed the present. He wanted to live _now_, not to wait.
Worst of all was the humiliation he endured from their furtive and hasty
meetings. He had never before in his life been furtive, or even
cautious. He had lived boldly and rashly, in the light of day, and it
hurt and angered him to do otherwise. He wanted to love boldly and
rashly. He wanted to be proud of his love.
Well, he wasn’t proud; he was ashamed.
He couldn’t understand Edith’s viewpoint. Her life had been so
repressed, so weighted down by unjust and inordinate demands upon her,
that she was thankful for the briefest minutes of happiness. If she
could meet Hardy for ten minutes on a street corner, she was joyous for
those ten minutes--when he would let her be. He tried to let her. He
would watch her coming toward him--such a gallant little figure!--and he
would make up his mind to be tender and considerate; but when she was
with him, when he saw her ill dressed and ill nourished, and couldn’t
help her, when he saw her glance at her watch even when he was speaking,
his good resolutions only too often vanished, and he reproached her
bitterly.
She didn’t endure his reproaches meekly. He wouldn’t have loved her, if
she had. On the contrary, she replied to him vigorously, and so many,
many times they had left each other in anger, to be paid for later by
hours of remorse.
Neither of them was quarrelsome by nature, nor was there any lack of
real harmony between them. They were both generous, quick to forgive,
eager to understand, passionately loyal to each other. Every one of
their disagreements would have been quickly adjusted and forgotten, if
they had had time; but they never did have time, and neither did this
fellow of twenty-three and this girl of twenty have any greater amount
of patience and ripe wisdom than others of their age.
Sometimes a sort of panic seized them, and they felt it necessary to
“explain.” They had fallen into the habit of taking a little more than
the allotted hour for lunch. Though Edith had been solemnly warned by
her superior, she found it impossible to leave Joe in the middle of a
speech. He was so unreasonable about her always being in a hurry.
So there was lunch almost every day, and the walk to the Subway, and
that hour stolen from the French class once a week, all through October
and November, until the trip to Europe was only a few weeks ahead of
them. Mr. Plummer hadn’t actually told Hardy he was to go, but the thing
was understood. Mr. Loomis, the buyer, was taking pains to train him,
and had once or twice said such things as:
“You’ll see how that is for yourself, Hardy, when you’re in France.”
“It’ll probably be before Christmas,” said Hardy. “The idea is that I’m
not to be told until Hallock is gone, because I might slack up on my
present work. Silly, childish way to do--as if it was a treat for a good
boy!”
“Well, it will be a treat, won’t it?” said Edith. “You’ve always--”
He looked across the table at her. The cold air had brought no color
into her cheeks. She looked weary, downcast. He could see that her smile
was an effort, and in her eyes was the look that he couldn’t bear.
“No!” he said. “I wish to Heaven I wasn’t going! I mean it! If I have to
leave you like this--”
“Joe,” she began, and was silent for a minute. “I--I know it’s selfish
of me; but--oh, Joe, when I think of your going away--”
Mr. Plummer, who was also taking lunch in that restaurant, saw his
promising young man lean across the table and lay his hand on that of
Miss Patterson from the auditing department.
“Too bad!” thought Mr. Plummer. “A boy with a remarkable future before
him--and getting himself entangled before he’s begun! Too bad! Too bad!”
Fortunately, however, he could not hear what monstrous folly the boy
spoke.
“I won’t go, Edith! I’ll stay here with you. Nothing else counts with me
but you--only you. I’ll--”
“I want you to go, Joe, darling,” said she, with quivering lips; “but I
thought--only I know you wouldn’t! I--if we could just get married
before you go, and not tell any one till you come back--just so that
we’d really belong to each other--then it wouldn’t be so hard!”
And Hardy, the bold, the rash, the magnificent, who hated anything
secret and furtive, looked only once at her dear face, and agreed.
V
“You’re late again, Miss Patterson,” said Mr. Dunne.
“I’m awfully sorry,” said Edith. “I’ll really try not to again.”
But she didn’t look sorry. She sat down at her desk, flushed and a
little out of breath, and, to Mr. Dunne’s great displeasure, there was a
smile hovering about her lips.
“Miss Patterson,” said he, “I’m afraid this is once too often.”
Edith looked up in alarm.
“But, you see--” she began, and stopped.
She couldn’t explain to Mr. Dunne that this was a most pardonable
lateness, and not at all likely to happen again. Going to the City Hall
for a marriage license wouldn’t occupy much of her time in the future.
Thinking of this, she smiled again--and lost her job. Mr. Dunne didn’t
like people who smiled when they were late.
So it happened that just when she badly needed a smile she hadn’t one.
The wretched little imitation she gave to Hardy, an hour later, didn’t
deceive him for an instant. He stopped beside her desk--a thing he had
never done before.
“What’s the matter?” he demanded, and would not be put off.
No use to tell him that he shouldn’t stand there and talk to her! He
knew that very well, and he didn’t care. A mighty rage filled him.
Edith, his Edith, his own girl, to be discharged and humiliated like
this!
“Get on your hat and jacket,” he commanded, “and come on!”
“Joe! You mustn’t--”
“Look here!” said he. “I won’t have you here like this. If Dunne told
you to go, then go now. Good Lord! Haven’t you any pride?”
She was too wretched to be angry at him. She did get on her hat and
jacket, and, in full view of every one. Hardy walked out of the office
with her at three o’clock on a busy afternoon.
“We’ll go to the flat,” he said, “and talk it over.”
They had a flat of their own. Hardy had insisted upon this.
“We’ll take it now,” he had said: “and whenever we see anything
especially good in the way of furniture, we’ll buy it. Then, when I come
back, we’ll have a place of our own all ready for us.”
It wasn’t quite what they wanted, but Hardy had very little money just
then, and their only time for house hunting was what they had been able
to pilfer from their lunch hour; so they had taken the first one that
seemed at all suitable. It consisted of three tiny rooms in a remodeled
house west of Central Park.
They had already become inordinately fond of this future home. To be
sure, there was nothing in it except a barrel containing a Limoges
dinner set, which Hardy had bought from a shipment received at the
office; but Edith had made a flying visit and measured the windows for
curtains, and after that she could look upon the place as her own.
This afternoon, when Hardy opened the door with his latchkey, the place
was obviously a _future_ home. It was bare, bleak, and dusty, with
slanting sun rays falling across the ill laid board floor of what was
going to be the sitting room.
The door closed behind them, and there they were, alone, with plenty of
time for talking now, and neither of them said one word. Hardy began
walking about. His footsteps made a loud and somehow a melancholy sound.
His voice in the empty little rooms was not at all his confident office
voice, but boyish, and, to Edith, terribly touching.
She sat down on the barrel, struggling against her despair and misery,
while he moved about in the kitchen, mocked by a gas stove with no gas
in it, and water taps that gave forth no water. She knew how he felt;
she knew what he would say.
“But I won’t!” she thought. “I’ll get another job. I won’t let him take
care of Aunt Bessie now. I won’t! I won’t! Not now, when he’s just
beginning.”
If she were making resolves in the sitting room, so was Hardy in the
kitchen. He hadn’t been singled out by Mr. Plummer because of his
gentleness and consideration. He had a remarkable future because he was
remarkably persistent and clear-sighted about getting his own way, and
Edith was no match for him.
“No!” said he. “No more jobs! We’ll tell your aunt _now_, and we’ll get
married to-morrow, as we planned, and we’ll move in here.”
“We can’t, Joe. We haven’t any furniture, you know--”
“Then we’ll get it.”
“And Aunt Bessie--”
“We’ll see Aunt Bessie now. Look here, little Edith! It’s got to be this
way. I couldn’t have my wife running about looking for a job. I couldn’t
go away and leave you working in a strange office. It was bad enough in
the old place. Look here, Edith, don’t you think you can be happy with
me? Don’t you love me enough?”
“I love you too much, Joe! It’s not fair to you. You’ll--oh, Joe, you’ll
have to sell your stock, and Mr. Plummer--”
“Edith,” he said, “I’ve been thinking lately--I don’t know how to put it
very well--but it seems to me that maybe it’s a mistake to live so much
in the future. Suppose there wasn’t any future--for us? Suppose
something happened to one of us? Edith, I can’t stand thinking of that!
Look here! Let’s just live now, and not be afraid of what’s going to
happen. Let’s start this thing”--he stopped for a moment--“with courage
and confidence,” he finished.
She put her hand on his cheek and turned his head so that she could look
into his honest, steady eyes.
“Let’s!” she said, with a very unsteady little smile. “I feel that way,
too, Joe. We’ll begin this minute, and unpack the china, just so that
we’ll--we’ll feel at home!”