VI

Drops fell shining from the trees about him into the trodden yellow

slush of the path at his feet. In the air shuddering with the foretaste

of spring of the thaw were constant rainbow glints of water. Wenny's

knees and shoulders ached. His feet were swollen from frostbite. The

bristles on his chin rasped against the upturned collar of his coat.

Well, it would be spring soon, he was saying to himself, and this

spring... Fanshaw's grey raincoat and long meditative stride and his

rubbers flashed past among the Saturday afternoon crowd. Without

thinking Wenny ran after him.

"Hello, Fanshaw."

"O, Wenny," Fanshaw thrust out both hands; "I've been almost worried

sick about you. Where have you been? My dear boy, you look a wreck."

"I don't see why?"

"Here it is, three days you've vanished from the face of the earth."

"I haven't been anywhere else that I know of."

"Nan's been fearfully uneasy."

"That's funny."

"That's quite all right. She told me all about it. I told her it was

just nerves, that morning. She thought it was, too. You must take better

care of yourself. But Wenny, where have you been?"

"Looking for a job."

"You poor child! Look, I've got to go to the Touraine. We can wash up

and go up to Nan's. She said she'd be in at teatime."

"No, I'd rather not."

"You must come, Wenny. O, when will you grow up? Let's walk along,

we're obstructing traffic."

"First, you must lend me fifty cents," said Wenny with a dry little

laugh. "I'm most split with hunger."

"Can't you wait till we get out to Nan's? She'll have tea for us."

"No, I can't, Fanshaw, you old fool. I haven't eaten since yesterday

morning, or maybe it was the day before that."

"Good God! There's Dupont's opposite. Let's go up there, a horrid place,

but you won't mind eating something there, will you? But Wenny, why

didn't you tell me you were all out of money?"

As they climbed the stair a smell of food and baking powder filled

Wenny's nostrils. He inhaled it eagerly. In the restaurant it was very

stuffy, a couple of waitresses in starched aprons were sitting at

tables. A grimy man in his shirtsleeves carried in a tray of freshwashed

glasses in through a green baize door. As Wenny pulled off his overcoat

he thought he was going to faint. Letting the coat drop to the floor he

grabbed the table and lowered himself into a chair. The expression of

consternation on Fanshaw's face as he picked up the coat made him laugh

so that his eyes filled with tears.

"Well, what will you have? Don't eat too much, it might make you sick."

"O, Fanshaw, you're such an old woman."

The waitress, a rawboned woman with dead cod's eyes, hung over the

table threateningly.

"Bring me some boiled eggs and tea and toast right away, please."

Something in Wenny exulted strangely under the hostile glare of the

waitress as she looked at his muddy shoes and unshaven chin.

"Three minutes?"

"Yes, and quickly please."

The waitress rustled starchily away.

"How funny Fanshaw, I'd been thinking of boiled eggs for hours and I

never thought about their being three minutes."

"But, where have you been, you poor child?... I've been to Cham

Mason's wedding."

"Heaps of wonderful places.... I've been finding my place in society."

"Where?"

"On the benches."

"But, why didn't you go to the Alumni Employment Bureau? They'd have

found you a job."

"I didn't want that kind of a job."

The smell of the bread the waitress set before him was overpoweringly

sweet. His fingers trembled so he spilt half the egg on the side of the

glass breaking it. He ate hurriedly without tasting anything.

"Bring me two more eggs, please.... Lord, but tea is wonderful stuff."

The warm savor of tea filled his head. All of a sudden he felt very

talkative. "I tried to ship as a seaman. You stand in a large room full

of pipesmoke and a man chalks up the names of ships on a blackboard....

The finest names of ships: there's been the Arethusa and the Adolphus Q.

Bangs and the Heart's Desire and the Muskokacola or something like

that.... But, I always seemed to get down to the office too late or I

didn't have five dollars to give the mate or something. Didn't have much

luck with bussboy either. It's amazing, Fanshaw, how many people are

just crazy to wash dishes."

Wenny laughed and choked over a gulp of tea.

"Don't eat so fast," said Fanshaw in a strange hoarse voice.

"Why not?"

"You'll choke, that's why."

"God, I wish I would... Have you ever ... felt so's you didn't care if

you choked or not? D'you know I met a fine kid named Whitey. He could go

without eating three days an' never notice it. I could never do that. I

don't guess there's much of any thing I could do."

Fanshaw was looking at his watch.

"Really, we should be going.... I've got to go out to dinner, Wenny, I

wish there were something I could do to help."

"You can pay for my eggs, you old put you."

Fanshaw paid the cheque; then he said rather solemnly:

"Look, you must let me lend you some money."

"All right, give me five bucks."

At the door, Wenny waited a moment for Fanshaw to come from the

washroom. His head was singing dizzily. It's all up now, he was saying

to himself. He thought of his room and his bed; delicious it will be to

stretch out between the clean smooth sheets and sleep.

Going up on the car he felt a haze of contentment stealing over him. All

about people nodded to the joggle, hatchetfaced women and flabby jowled

men. Fanshaw's talk and his own answers droned beyond a great drowsy

curtain in which the phrase Par delicatesse j'ai perdu la vie, wove in

and out endlessly. Outside autos slushed through streets running with

the thaw. Fanshaw was saying something about the deceitful warmth of the

day, spring-like.

In front of them, four seats ahead in a blue hat with cherries on it,

was Ellen. Wenny clenched his teeth, why would his damn pulse speed up

so? She turned and stared at him with a comical little expression about

her mouth. He drew his eyes away quickly, felt himself hideously

flushing.--You skunk afraid to recognize her because she's a whore, are

you? Don't want Fanshaw to know, do you? snarled an angry voice in his

head. Her lips were pale today. He remembered the sweetish fatty smell

of the rouge on her lips that night. And only four nights ago; how long.

He didn't dare look at her again.

The car stopped.

"Come on, Wenny," came Fanshaw's voice briskly.

They were splashing along towards the purple lacework of twigs of the

Fenway trees. Fanshaw was talking unconcernedly about a Caravaggio the

museum had bought that had turned out to be spurious. And there were the

worn gold letters The Swansea sliding down the glass door and the oil

smell of the elevator. O I must go away from here. Then Nan's oval face,

her voice strangely caressing. Brainstorm, the comfortable word. Teacups

clinking and the steam of the teapot and dusk very misty over the

Fenway.

Why hadn't he gone away with Ellen, spoken to her, kissed her in front

of Fanshaw. If she'd fallen in love with him it would have been up to

the ears, the whole hog; those women were like that.

"You just missed Fitzie," Nan was saying. She had just poured herself

out a cup of tea into which she shook meditatively a few drops of cream

from the empty pitcher. "O she's such a scream... I don't know what I'd

do without her. Now I know all the gossip and about the Summer Street

murder case and everything... And do you remember the girl in the

Fadettes we thought was the violinist at the Venice? Well, that wasn't

the girl at all. Fitzie told me all about her... It seems she came back

to try to get her job again and Mrs. Thing who runs it said of course it

would be impossible. I don't see what her morals have to do with her

playing, do you? And the poor girl's going to have a baby... Fitzie was

so funny about it, said she thought it was terrible things like that

should happen so soon... O what would I do without Fitzie?"

"But the fellow she went off with must be a scoundrel," said Fanshaw.

"A man like that ought to be shot."

"She ought to have thought twice before she did it, that's all. It's

not his fault particularly."

"And dry-rotted scraping out Light Cavalry for the Fadettes...." Wenny

caught himself. No, he wasn't going to talk. Nan looked him full in the

face for an instant. Her eyes were dark, dilated; he thought she was

going to burst into tears.

"Such droll things have been going on at the Conservatoire." Nan, her

face flushing, threw herself into a stream of talk. "Poor Isolda Jones

is madly in love with Salinski and had hysterics during her violin

lesson and there's a dreadful scandal about the last Symphony concert.

It seems that..." She stopped talking. No one spoke. Fanshaw moved his

spoon uneasily about in his saucer. "Wenny, have some more to eat," she

said sharply and got to her feet and went to the window.

Wenny sat without moving, staring at her back dark and slender against

the dusk.

"You must be dreadfully exhausted, Wenny," said Fanshaw in a low voice.

"The evening star's red tonight," said Nan from the window. "Is it on

account of the mist, or is it Mars, I wonder?"

"We could look it up in the almanac," said Fanshaw vaguely.

Wenny stood for a moment in the window beside Nan. His blood throbbed

with other remembered stars, blooming green in the amethyst sky above

the Fenway, gulped suddenly by the stupid cubes of the further apartment

houses. The green of them somehow shone in the lamps down brick streets

where he and Nan had gone arm in arm in a forgotten dream of walking

with her through a port town and seeing at the end of the street masts

and tackle and bellying sails and white steam puffs from the sirens of

steamers, and going off together alone some sunset. She's in love with

me. If I had the courage....

"Well, I must be off to the Hargroves' for dinner," said Fanshaw

cheerfully. "O it is a relief to know you are all right, Wenny. We were

worried sick about you."

"I'm tired. I must go home," said Wenny firmly and turned away from

Nan.

He went away without looking at her again.

* * * *

My dear son:

It has pleased me more than I can say to hear of your sensible and manly

course in taking a job. I am sure that earning your own living you will

find inspiring and helpful, and that you will come to regret your past

callousness and restlessness. Indeed, this great trial may be a

disguised blessing. We all have to learn by experience. I myself went

through moments in my youth inexpressibly painful for me to recall,

bitter moments of profligacy and despair, and that I came through them

with my soul alive was only by the merciful Help of the Allknowing and

Allforgiving Creator in Whom I have never lost faith, nay not for one

instant.

You, my dear boy, I trust and pray will follow the same course. I cannot

but think that had I not let my poor sister Elizabeth take you from us,

from your real Christian home, your battle might have been less hard.

Your mother joins me in love and in the earnest hope that you will

come back to us.

Your loving father,