"Yes," placidly. "That's what's so nice about it. No messing around in a
miserable little kitchenette. You can have your meals sent up. Or you
can go down to the dining room. Lil says it's wonderful. And if you
order for one up in your room the portions are big enough for two. It's
really economy, in the end."
"Nix," said Ray. "No hotel in mine. A little house of our own. That's
the right idea. Build."
"But nobody's building now. Materials are so high. It'll cost you ten
times as much as it would if you waited a few--a little while. And no
help. No maids coming over, hardly. I think you might consider me a
little. We could live at the Shoreham a while, anyway. By that time
things will be better, and we'd have money saved up and then we might
talk of building. Goodness knows I love my home as well as any
woman----"
They looked at the Shoreham rooms on the afternoon of their anniversary.
They were having the Crowd to dinner, downtown, that evening. Cora
thought the Shoreham rooms beautiful, though she took care not to let
the room-clerk know she thought so. Ray, always a silent, inarticulate
man, was so wordless that Cora took him to task for it in a sibilant
aside.
"Ray, for heaven's, sake say something. You stand there! I don't know
what the man'll think."
"A hell of a lot I care what he thinks." Ray was looking about the
garish room--plush chairs, heavy carpets, brocade hangings, shining
table-top, silly desk.
"Two hundred and seventy-five a month," the clerk was saying. "With the
yearly lease, of course. Otherwise it's three twenty-five." He seemed
quite indifferent.
Ray said nothing. "We'll let you know," said Cora.
The man walked to the door. "I can't hold it for you, you know. Our
apartments are practically gone. I've a party who practically has closed
for this suite already. I'd have to know."
Cora looked at Ray. He said nothing. He seemed not to have heard. His
face was gaunt and haggard. "We'll let you know--to-morrow," Cora said.
Her full under lip made a straight thin line.
When they came out it was snowing. A sudden flurry. It was already dark.
"Oh, dear," said Cora. "My hat!" Ray summoned one of the hotel taxis. He
helped Cora into it. He put money into the driver's hand.
"You go on, Cora. I'm going to walk."
"Walk! Why! But it's snowing. And you'll have to dress for dinner."
"I've got a little headache. I thought I'd walk. I'll be home. I'll be
home."
He slammed the door then, and turned away. He began to walk in the
opposite direction from that which led toward the apartment house. The
snow felt cool and grateful on his face. It stung his cheeks. Hard and
swift and white it came, blinding him. A blizzard off the lake. He
plunged through it, head down, hands jammed into his pockets.
So. A home girl. Home girl. God, it was funny. She was a selfish, idle,
silly, vicious woman. She was nothing. Nothing. It came over him in a
sudden blinding crashing blaze of light. The woman in 618 who wasn't
married to her man, and who cooked and planned to make him comfortable;
the woman in 620 who blindly left her home and her child every day in
order to give that child the thing she called advantages--either of
these was better than his woman. Honester. Helping someone. Trying to,
anyway. Doing a better job than she was.
He plunged across the street, blindly, choking a little with the
bitterness that had him by the throat.
Hey! Watcha!----A shout rising to a scream.
A bump. Numbness. Silence. Nothingness.
* * * * *
"Well, anyway, Cora," said the girls in the Crowd, "you certainly were a
wonderful wife to him. You can always comfort yourself with that
thought. My! the way you always ran home so's to be there before he got
in."
"I know it," said Cora, mournfully. "I always was a home girl. Why, we
always had planned we should have a little home of our own some day. He
always said that was the right idear--idea."
Lil wiped her eyes. "What are you going to do about your new mink coat,
Cora?"
Cora brushed her hair away from her forehead with a slow, sad gesture.
"Oh, I don't know. I've hardly thought of such trifling things. The
woman next door said she might buy it. Hoyt, her name is. Of course I
couldn't get what we paid for it, though I've hardly had it on. But
money'll count with me now. Ray never did finish that invisible rim he
was working on all those years. Wasting his time. Poor Ray.... I thought
if she took it, I'd get a caracul, with a black fox collar. After I
bought it I heard mink wasn't so good anyway, this year. Everything's
black. Of course, I'd never have said anything to Raymond about it. I'd
just have worn it. I wouldn't have hurt Ray for the world."