THE LETTER
The City Hall clock struck twelve, and Polly Dudley was still awake.
The circumstances of the afternoon were passing before her. What David
had said and what she had said, when he had laughed and when he had
been silent, what they had seen on the way--it was all there in the
procession that had no end. Just now they were at the corner of Webster
Street, where it joined Clayton Avenue. An Italian boy with a push-cart
was on the cross-walk, and Polly and David waited to let him pass. A
young man was coming towards them, a handsome young man in a shining
car. Now he was lifting his hat with his usual splendid smile, the
smile that showed his gleaming, perfect teeth--
“Oh!” Polly breathed suddenly, “that was it! Now I know! How could he
be so silly! But it was! It is always some such little thing.”
At last she had discovered the direct cause of her lover’s changed
mood. She remembered how brilliantly Russell Ely had smiled to her as
he passed, and then until this moment she had forgotten him altogether.
Didn’t David want her even to bow to any one! But Russell was a member
of the College Club! This explained everything. It seemed hours before
sleep came to halt the wearying thoughts.
Polly was called from breakfast to greet David.
“We are not going to start as early as I expected,” he said, “not
before nine. So I thought I would--just run up and say good-morning.”
He smiled in almost his own cordial way.
The girl beamed up at him. She never harbored a pique, and now she
began to chat as gayly as usual, in seeming forgetfulness of yesterday.
David, however, could not so lightly throw off the past. Recollections
lingered to hamper his actions and retard his tongue. But he let
his eyes rest upon Polly in gratification, laughing at her little
pleasantries, and finally enjoying the present quite as if nothing
in past or future could have any evil power for him. The parting was
vastly different from that of the day before.
After he had gone Polly ran upstairs humming a song. How glad she was
that he had come!
The days seemed long without David. Since they returned from college
they had been much together, and now she missed him. The Randolphs
were away, and Patricia and the rest could not quite fill the gap.
The ladies of June Holiday Home always welcomed her with delight, and
she called there occasionally; but their increased freedom of action
carried them out-of-doors more than formerly, and she was apt not to
find those at home whom she most wished to see. Then, too, the place
had never seemed just the same since her beloved “Nita” had left it
forever.
She was returning, one afternoon, from a shopping excursion with
Leonora, when she was overtaken by Russell Ely. He drove up to the
curb, and threw open the door of his car.
“Will you ride up the hill?” he asked.
In a moment she was whirling along the shady avenue, arranging her
bundles comfortably in her lap and listening to her companion’s bright
talk.
“This is a pleasant lift for me,” she said. “I have been round in the
shops ever since luncheon, and I am tired.”
“I shouldn’t have dared to ask you if that guardsman of yours were in
town; but since the length of New England is between us I thought I
might venture.”
Polly laughed, and they talked on and on, until she noticed that they
had not turned at the corner nearest home.
“You don’t mind going a little farther, do you?” he asked. “I seldom
get a glimpse of you nowadays. What do you say to running up to
Castleboro Inn for some toast and tea? The air is just right for a
drive.”
But Polly refused, although the invitation became urgent; so the young
man reluctantly left her at the hospital entrance.
“What would David say?” raced through her head and would not stop.
“What would David say? What would David say?”
“He won’t know it!” Polly retorted. “And it’s all right if he should.”
“What would David say? What would David say?”
Polly went indoors and made herself ready for dinner.
“What would David say? What would David say?” accompanied her upstairs
and down, and even to the dining-room door. Once at the table in the
presence of her father and mother, the teasing voice vanished. Yet it
returned the minute she was alone, and kept up the vexing question
until it was finally lost in sleep.
Every morning came a letter from David, and Polly was invariably at the
door to take it from the carrier. Sometimes it was little more than a
note; but oftener it spread itself over page after page in familiar,
affectionate talk.
Two days after Russell Ely had brought her up the hill, an envelope
with David’s well-known superscription was put into Polly’s hand. At
first it seemed no more than the envelope itself, so thin it was. Then
Polly saw that a single sheet was inside.
“Guess he was in a hurry,” she told herself, as she hastened up to her
room.
She sat down by the broad window and noted the slight unevenness of the
address. David’s chirography was a continual wonder to Polly, every
line, every curve, according to rule. To-day, however, the “P” was a
wee bit out of proportion, the “D” was slightly out of alignment, while
the name showed a trifling tendency to run downhill.
“Well!” she exclaimed under her breath, “what’s going to happen?” She
dwelt upon it with a smile. Then she took up her paper-cutter and ran
it under the flap.
Her fingers were growing eager, and with a happy flutter of heart she
pulled out the sheet.
As she started to read, her face held a smile, but instantly a stare
swept it away. Her eyes seemed to pierce the paper. They blazed with
something like anger.
“‘Appeal’!” she muttered scornfully, “‘appeal,’ indeed!”
The letter fluttered to the floor, her hands went up to her face, and
she began to cry.
“Oh, David! David!” she whispered, “how could you! It isn’t true! You
know it isn’t true!”
She sat there a long time. Then she picked up the sheet and read it
again. Her face grew hard and resentful.
“‘Smile of understanding’! He won’t want me to smile at all pretty
soon.” She sighed. “By next week he’ll be ‘appealing’ to me. He’ll be
sure to come back, if I keep still. He always does. I know David! I’ve
half a mind not to answer him when he does ‘appeal.’ Let him have a
taste of his own porridge.”
She went over the letter again, slowly, sentence by sentence.
MISS POLLY: Since it is plainly evident that you desire your
freedom from the slender bonds that bind us together, I wish to
assure you that from this moment they are broken, and you are
free as if they had never been. To continue the relations which
have existed between us for the few years past would only pile
up wretchedness for us both, and it is best to annul them. Many
times I have foreseen this. On the day we took that walk to
Chimney Hill and I noted the smile of understanding which passed
between you and that darned Ely, I knew that sooner or later this
would come. Yesterday when I heard of your intimacy with the same
unbearable puppy, your rides alone with him as soon as I was out
of the way, convinced me that the time for the break has arrived.
You need not attempt any explanation or appeal. My mind is made
up forever. Nothing can change my decision.
Very truly yours
DAVID GRESHAM COLLINS
“‘Slender bonds’!” she muttered. “I didn’t know that I was bound at
all, though I act as if I were. Of course, I’m ‘free,’ and I will be
free, too, David Collins! As if you must tell me so! I wish I’d gone
over to the Inn with Russell--I will next time he asks me. I won’t be
under David’s thumb any longer! To think of his making such a fuss
because I rode up with Russell--just rode up the hill with him!
“But how did he hear of my being with him?” Polly questioned. “We
didn’t meet anybody--yes, Doris Gaylord was out on the veranda. She
may have seen me. I didn’t think so. Anything she knew, Marietta’d
know--that is sure. And by this time Marietta may be up there herself.”
She pondered the matter for some minutes, while alternately her face
flushed and paled.
“Could Marietta--?” She shut her lips with a contemptuous little
breath. “Let her!” she scorned. “I won’t follow David Collins’s lead.”