The carpet on the stairs had big roses on green; it was frayed and torn.
The stairs creaked. The house smelt mustily of rotting wallpaper, of
ratnests.
"Here we are, deary... Aint bad, is it. Wait a sec, I'll light up."
Nan, you are beaten, dead. Must not is dead too. Wenny's legs were
trembling. His tongue moved about in his mouth like a thirsty dog's. He
dropped into a chair by the door. Nan, God, how I love you, Nan.
"Tired are you, deary? D'you know you look powerful like a guy I had a
crush on wonct. Near croaked of it, honest... You see, for all I could
do he wouldn't give it to me... Kerist, I'm glad that's over. Worse than
a spell of sickness..."
To be free of this sickness of desire. I must break down my fear. Of
what, of what? The social evil, prostitutions of the Caananites,
venereal disease, what every young man should know, convention, duty,
God. What rot.
"You get into bed, deary... I must fix my hair. Sheets are nice and
clean, see. I always have clean sheets on my bed... Maybe you'll come to
see me often now. Safer, I'm tellin' ye to go to one girl steady. You
know what you're gettin' then... Pretty, ain't it, this chimmy? Got it
at Filene's in the bargain basement..."
He was standing against the door crumpling his felt hat in his hands. He
tried to speak; no words came.
She was naked sitting on the edge of the bed under the gas jet, eyes
wide and mocking; her breasts hung free as she leaned towards him. In
his head was a ghastly sniggering. He was out the door.
She grabbed him by the wrist.
"No, you don't. I've had them kind before ... just want to peek an' run.
Gimme somethin' or I'll raise the roof, you low-down sonofabitch of a
cheap skate you."
"Here, take that, it's all I've got."
He piled crumpled greenbacks in her hands. A half-dollar fell to the
floor. She stooped, naked, groping for it.
He rushed down the stairs, slammed the door, out into the icy glare of
the arclight in the street. Coward, the word was like a pack of hounds
screaming about his ears, yelping, tearing. This is what you've done to
me, Nan. Tomorrow was colonnades of stage scenery tumbling about his
ears. Through it he was fainting with desire for the woman's body naked
on the bed under the gas jet. Nan's eyes, sea-grey, drowning him, the
smell of her hair. He leaned against a lamp post and stared with
stinging eyes down the empty darkness of the street.
V
On Fanshaw's desk was a large white envelope and within that envelope
another envelope which contained engraved cards faced with tissuepaper.
Fanshaw pulled off the tissuepaper and ran the nail of his little finger
lightly across the lettering.
Mr. and Mrs. Heaton W. Harrenden
Announce the Marriage of their Daughter
Alice
to Mr. Chamberlain C. Mason
at Twelve O'clock, Noon,
February Fifteenth, Nineteen Hundred and Twelve
at Harrenden Manor, Durham, Massachusetts.