“Whew!” said Edward to himself, wiping his moist brow with a still
moister handkerchief. “Whew!”
Arthur had been found in the American House, and he had been difficult
to handle. If Edward had not had such a thorough training in his
business, he could never have handled the situation in so masterly a
fashion. Arthur was a rich young man, and accustomed to being kotowed
to. Edward, however, was accustomed to rich people who were accustomed
to being kotowed to. Many times he had explained to wealthy and
indignant customers facts which they had not cared to consider--that,
for instance, the mere possession of enough money to pay one’s bills did
not suffice for a credit department; that there must be a certain
willingness to use the money for that purpose.
Edward had not kotowed to Arthur. He had been mighty firm with him,
though kind, for he had felt sorry for the man. It had been a bad night
for Arthur. He had been desperately worried about his wife. Patiently,
inexorably, Edward had made him listen to reason, and in the end there
was a touching and beautiful reconciliation. Arthur’s wife, with truly
admirable unselfishness, had said that it did not matter who was right
about the penny. Both of them had declared that they owed everything to
Edward and would be his lifelong friends.
He was now at liberty to attend to his own little affair. Having no
money to pay for a taxi, he set off on foot in the direction of his
home. It was still raining, and as black as the pit, yet he fancied he
could feel dawn in the air. Taking out his watch, he saw that it was
half past four. He had been away all night. He remembered his last words
to Mildred:
“If things happened as they should--”
She had said that they never did, but they had. He was strangely
justified, yet he felt no triumph. The rain fell cold upon his uncovered
head, and his spirit was cold within him.
“She must have been worrying,” thought Edward.
Indeed, that was an inadequate word for what he knew she must have felt.
He thought about Mildred, not in her outrageous moments, but as she was
at other times, when she was her unique and incomparable self. He
thought about marriage, in a large, general way. He also thought about
his own marriage, and what he had intended it to be.
At last he thought about himself. Soaked through to the skin, cold and
weary, Edward groped after justice. It was a creditable performance--the
more so because he was unaware of it. He groped, and he found a new and
startling piece of wisdom.
He quickened his pace. The wind had died down and the rain had stopped,
but he did not know that, for the drops still pattered thickly from the
trees. As he turned the corner of his own street, he saw in the sky the
first streak of dawn--a pale gray creeping up into the black.
His reasonable mind told him that there was no cause here for wonder,
yet he did wonder. He stopped for a moment and watched the marvelous
dawn--watched it make a fresh and utterly new day and a new world. His
own house seemed to grow before his eyes, turning from a shadowy mass
into something familiar and yet strange. He had come home--after what
extraordinary wanderings!
He advanced, walking on the sodden grass, so that his steps should be
noiseless. He entered his neighbor’s garden, thankful that they kept no
dog. He took a ladder from the unlocked tool shed, and, carrying it with
some difficulty, set it up against a certain tree on his own front lawn.
Then, still noiselessly, he stole up on the veranda, and, stooping,
examined the doormat and the darkest corners. Unsatisfied, he went
around to the back of the house; and there, against the kitchen door, he
found that which he sought--a cat. He wished to tell Mildred that he had
brought her cat down from the tree, and he would not lie. It should be
true.
The cat was mutinous. She struggled as he held her under his arm, and it
was difficult to ascend the ladder. However, he did so. He put the cat
on a branch, and let go of her for an instant, in order to get a better
hold on her for the descent. She began climbing higher up. He clutched
at her, but she eluded him. She was a heavy cat, but she went up a
slender branch, which bent perilously beneath her.
“Kitty! Kitty!” whispered Edward. “Oh, you fool!”
Her hind legs had slipped off, and for an instant they were kicking
desperately in the air, reminding him of a Zouave in white gaiters.
“Come, kitty!” murmured Edward. “Come on, kitty!”
The creature clawed and clutched desperately, swung under the bending
branch, came up on the other side, and began to come down, facing him
with wild yellow eyes. He caught her as she came within reach. He
thought the touch of a firm human hand would reassure the terrified
animal, but it was not so. She appeared to be suspicious and resentful.
As the cat’s claws pierced his shoulder, Edward recoiled, and very
nearly fell from the ladder. Probably he uttered some sort of
exclamation, as almost anybody would. Anyhow, Mildred’s head appeared at
an upper window.
“I’m getting your cat down,” Edward explained.
By the time he had reached the foot of the ladder, with the cat, Mildred
had opened the front door. She was carrying something in her arms, which
she set down in the shadow of the veranda. She gave it a gentle push
with her foot, and it ran off, unseen by Edward.
Edward set down his cat, and she also ran off.
“There you are!” he said.
Mildred came down the steps.
“Oh, Eddie!” she cried.
It was quite light now in the open. He could see her face, and it seemed
to him rather wonderful.
“Eddie!” she said. “You’re soaking wet! Oh, Eddie, it was all my fault!”
“I don’t know that it was,” replied Edward meditatively. “Some of it was
my fault, I think.”
She came nearer to him.
“Oh, Eddie!” she cried. “It really doesn’t matter one bit whose fault
things are, does it?”
He was startled, for that was his own particular bit of wisdom,
painfully arrived at. Mildred _was_ a remarkable girl!
MUNSEY’S
MAGAZINE
JULY, 1925
Vol. LXXXV NUMBER 2