|SLOWLY the crowd in the gallery moved out and down the twisting flights
of stairs. Sue slipped her arm through the Worm's and silently clung to
him. They were very close in spirit. Down at the street entrance, she
said, “I don't want to see anybody, Henry.” So he hurried her across the
street through a lane in the after-theater traffic and around the corner
into Seventh Avenue, heading south.
“We'll have a bite somewhere, Sue,” said he then, Her head inclined in
assent.
“Somewhere up around here and not on Broadway. Where we won't see a
Soul.” Her arm was still in his. She felt him draw a sudden deep breath.
“Oh, Sue--if only I could take you down to the old rooms--make a cup of
coffee--sit and look at you curled up in your own big chair--” He broke
OFF. Sue, still half in a dream, considered this.
“Why, I don't know, Henry--If you--”
His arm now pressed hers so tightly against his side that it hurt her a
little.
“No!” he said in a low rough voice. “No!”
She was silent.
“Can't you see what's the matter, girl? I couldn't do it. I'd never let
you go--never! I'm insane with love for you. I'm full of you--throbbing,
singing, thrilling with you!”
Again he stopped short They walked on slowly, arm in arm. She glanced up
at his face. It was twisted, as with pain.
She tried to think. Every way lay confusion. Suddenly she freed her arm.
“Henry--” she began; then walked on a dozen steps before she could
continue. “You have a timetable, Henry?”
“Oh--Sue!”
“Please, Henry! I can't miss that late train. I have no key, as it is,
It will be difficult enough.” They walked another block, moving steadily
toward the Pennsylvania-Station-Herald-Square region whence all roads
lead out into Long Island and New Jersey. She did not know what he would
say or do. It was a relief when finally he found the time-table in his
pocket and handed it to her.
She stood under a street light to puzzle out the cabalistic tangle of
fine print.
“What time is it now, Henry?”
He held out his watch for her to see.
“Yes, I can make it. I hate the tube, but there isn't time now for the
ferry. Come as far as Herald Square with me, Henry.”
There at the stairway under the elevated road she gripped his hand for
an instant, then ran lightly down into the underground station. And not
until the smoky local train, over in Jersey, was half-way out to the
village that she now called home did it come to her that he had spoken
not one word after the little episode of the time-table. She could see
his face, too, with that look of pain on it.
She rang and rang at the door. Finally she knocked. Aunt Matilda came
then, silent, grim, and let her in.
Her room was as she had left it when she rushed out in the afternoon.
The dancing clothes lay on the bed. Rather feverishly she threw them on
a chair. The Russian costume fell to the floor. She let it lie there.
She slept little; but, wide-eyed, all tight nerves, lay late. She heard
them go off to Sunday-school, at quarter past nine. The children would
be back at eleven; but Mrs. Wilde and Aunt Matilda, if they followed
their custom, would stay on to church. That is, unless Mrs. Wilde should
have one of her nervous headaches. Sue hoped they would stay. It seemed
to her that by noon she should be able to get herself in hand.
She lay a while longer. Then went down-stairs in her kimono and warmed
up the coffee Aunt Matilda had left on the stove. She tried to eat
a little bread, but had to give it up. She began to wonder, a thought
frightened now, if she could get herself in hand by noon. Aunt Matilda's
appearance, when she came in, had been forbidding. This morning no one
had come near her, not even the children.
Slowly she mounted the stairs. Aimlessly she began dressing.
The Russian costume on the floor held her eye. She picked it up,
lingered it. Then she put it on. One of the red boots was on the chair,
the other under the bed. She found this and drew them both on. Next she
got the gay cap from the closet.
She stood before the mirror. It seemed to her that her color was slowly
returning. She slapped her cheeks to hasten it. Her thoughts were in a
strange confusion. Just as she had been doing all night, she tried again
to visualize her memories of those hard busy days of working out the
Nature film, tried to build out of what she could faintly, brokenly
piece together the picture as she had now seen it, a complete created
thing. But it was a jumble; it always went back to a bit of this
experience and a bit of that. She tried to believe that the stirring,
confident, splendid young creature on the screen was herself.... She
pressed her palms against her temples. She could have cried out.
It was a relief to fall into one, then another of the old exercises
preliminary to the dance. She went at these hard, until she could feel
the warm blood tingling in her finger tips. Then she tried out that
difficult Russian step. It did not come easily. There was effort in it.
And her balance was not good. Then, too, the room was too small.
After a moment's hesitation she ran down-stairs, shut herself into the
parlor, moved the furniture back against the walls, went methodically to
work.
Outside, a little later, the human materials for a romantic comedy were
swiftly converging on her She did not know it. She did not once glance
out the window. She heard nothing but the patter of her own light steps,
the rustle of her silken costume, the clinking of the metals in the
heels of the red boots that was meant to suggest the jingle of spurs.
[Illustration: 0429]
Mrs. Wilde did have one of her headaches. She came home from
Sunday-school with the children, leaving Aunt Matilda to uphold the good
name of the household by remaining alone for church.
When the tall woman and the two little girls--the girls demure, the
woman gloomy in her depth of sorrow--turned in at the front walk, a tall
young man, in a baggy old gray suit, with a trick of throwing his right
leg out and around as he walked and toeing in with the right foot, was
rounding the corner, rushing along with great strides. His brow was
knit, his manner distrait but determined.
The parlor door opened. Mrs. Wilde stood there, speechless. The girls
crowded forward, incredulous, eager, their eyes alight. Becky jumped up
and down and clapped her small hands. Mrs. Wilde suppressed her with a
slap. The child began to whimper.
Sue stood in the middle of the room, flushed, excited, a glowing picture
from a Bakst album.
Mrs. Wilde, bewildered, struggling for speech, gazed at the outraged
furniture.
Sue, catching a new sound, stared past her at a lanky figure of a man
who stood at the screen door. Then with a sudden little cry, she rushed
out to him. He opened the door and stepped within. Her arms flew around
his neck. His arms held her close. He lifted her chin with a reverent
hand, and kissed her lips. He did not know there was another person in
the world.
Mrs. Wilde swept the children into a corner where they might not see.
“Sue,” she cried. “Are you crazy? Have you no sense--no shame?”
Sue threw hack her head, choked down a sound that might have been a
laugh or a sob. Her eyes were radiant. “Thank God,” she cried--“None!”