IT. was nearly four, when, on Thursday, Anthony stopped the car before
the inn by the elms. The woman with the yellow hair, accompanied by
a figure in a shapeless russet silk coat, were waiting for them. The
latter carried a small, patent-leather dressing case, and a large bag
reposed on the portico, which Anthony strapped to the luggage rack.
Kuhn, animated by a flow of superabundant animal spirits, bantered each
member of the party: he gave Anthony a cigar that had been slightly
broken, tipped off Hartmann's cap, and assisted the woman with profound
gallantry into the car. Hartmann discussed routes over an unfolded map
with Anthony; then, the course laid out, they moved forward.
Their way led over an old postroad, now between walls, trees, dank and
grey with age and dust, now rising steadily into a region of bluish
hills. Scraps of conversation fell upon Anthony's hearing: the woman
in the russet coat, he learned, was named Laura Dallam. Kuhn talked
incessantly, and, occasionally, she replied to his sallies in a cool,
detached voice. She differed in manner from the others, she was a little
disdainful, Anthony discovered. Once she said sharply, “Do let me enjoy
the country.”
They slipped smoothly through the afternoon to the end of day. The
sun had vanished beyond the hills when they stopped at an inn on the
outskirts of an undiscovered town. It was directly on the road, and,
built in a flimsy imitation of an Elizabethan hostelry, had benches at
either side of the entrance.
There Anthony sat later, while, from a balcony above him, fell the
tones of his employer and his companions. He could hear them clearly,
distinguish Hartmann's heavy jocularity, the yellow-haired woman's
syrupy voice, Laura Dallam's crisp utterances. Kuhn's labored wit had
drooped with the afternoon, an accent of complaint had grown upon him.
Occasionally there was a thin, clear tinkle of glasses and ice. As
the night deepened, the conversation above grew blurred, peals of
inconsequential laughter more frequent; a glass fell on the balcony, and
broke with a small, sudden explosion. Some one--it was the Dallam woman,
exclaimed, “don't!” She leaned over the railing above Anthony's head,
and said despairingly, “I can't get drunk!” Kuhn pressed to her side,
and she moved away impatiently. He became enraged, and they commenced a
low, bitter wrangling. Finally Hartmann insinuated himself between them;
the two women disappeared; and Kuhn complained aloud of the manner in
which he had been treated.
“She's all right,” Hartmann assured him; “you went at it too heavy; take
your time; she's not a flapper from the chorus.” They tramped heavily
across the balcony, whispering tensely, into the hotel.
The morning following they failed to start until past eleven: Hartmann's
countenance was pasty from the night's debauch, greenish shadows
hung beneath his colorless eyes, his mouth was a leaden line; the
yellow-haired woman was haggard, she looked older by ten years since the
day previous. Kuhn was savagely, morosely, silent. But Mrs. Dallam was
as fresh, as sparkling, as the morning itself. She nodded brightly at
Anthony as she took a seat forward, by his side. A heavy veil was draped
back from her face, and he saw that it was finely-cut; an intensely
black bang fell squarely across her low, white forehead, beneath which
eyes of a sombre, velvety blue were oddly compelling; and against the
blanched oval of her face her mouth was like a print of blood. It was a
potent, vaguely disturbing countenance; and, beneath the voluminous
silk coat, he saw narrow black slippers with carelessly tied bows that,
stinging his imagination, reminded him of wasps.
As he drove the car he was frequently aware of her exotic gaze resting
speculatively upon him. On a high, sunny reach of road there was a
shrill rush of escaping air, and he found a rear tire flat. Hartmann and
his mate explored the road, Kuhn gloomed aloof, while Mrs. Dallam seated
herself on a nearby bank, as Anthony replaced the inner tube. It was
hot, and he removed his coat, and soon his shirt was clinging to
the rippling, young muscles of his vigorous torso. Once, when he
straightened up to wipe the perspiration from his brow, Mrs. Dallam
caught his glance, and held it with a slow smile.
Their progress for the day ended at a small hotel maintained upon the
roof of a ridge of hills. As the dusk deepened the valley beyond swam
with warm, scattered lights, while above, in illimitable space, gleamed
stars near, only a few millions of miles away, and stars far, millions
upon millions of miles distant.
The ground floor of the hotel was divided by a passage, on one side the
bar, and the other a dining and lounging room, lit with kerosene lamps
swung below tin reflectors. When Anthony was ready for supper the others
had disappeared above. He was served by the proprietor, a short, rotund
man with a glistening red face and hands like swollen pincushions. He
breathed stentoriously amid his exertions, muttering objurgations
in connection with the name of an absent servitor, hopelessly drunk,
Anthony gathered, in the stable.
A bell sounded sharply from above, and he disappeared abruptly, shouting
up the stair. Then, shortly after, he reappeared in the dining room with
a tray bearing a pitcher of water, glasses, and a bottle labelled with
the name of a popular brand of whiskey. “Can you run this up to your
folks?” he demanded, in a storm of explosive breaths; “I got enough to
stall three men down here.” Anthony balanced the tray, and moved toward
the stair.
He stopped in the hallway to redispose his burden, when he heard the
changing gears of a second automobile without. He moved carefully
upward, conscious of lowered voices at his back, then the sound of
footsteps following him. He turned as he had been directed in the hall
above, and knocked upon a closed door. Kuhn's sullen voice bade him
enter. He had opened the door, when, almost upsetting the tray, a small
group at his back pushed him aside, and entered Hartmann's room.