I
An afternoon of unparalleled gloominess. It had been dark all the day
long, and now toward evening a savage rain had come on, driven by a cold
March wind. In his rain-coat and waterproofed boots he could in a way
defy the storm, but it affected him nevertheless; it depressed him
horribly.
He had been on his way home, a bit earlier than usual, sitting in the
Elevated train and staring morosely out of the window at the drenched
city, finding it uglier, colder, more sordid than ever before. When that
curious impulse seized him, that longing he knew so well; it was a sort
of spiritual thirst, an intangible desire to be assuaged by an
intangible satisfaction. He got out of the train at Thirty-Eighth
Street, instead of at Seventy-Second, where he belonged, and hurried
east.
His destination was a little restaurant on Fourth Avenue, a compromise
between the severe, white tiled cafeterias and Dairy Lunches, and the
more luxurious sort. It had separate tables and table cloths, curtains
across the windows and a carpet on the floor. But was, nevertheless,
very cheap, and, it must be admitted, somewhat nasty. Not the place one
would have picked out for a man as prosperous, as fastidious as this
one.
It was very early, and the place was empty. He opened the glass door and
entered, went at once to a table in a corner and took off his dripping
hat and his overcoat and hung them on a brass hat-rack beside which
stood a great Japanese jar for umbrellas. A man of thirty-five or so,
with a neat black moustache and a dark and saturnine face, well-dressed,
in a conservative sort of way.
He didn’t sit down when he had taken off his coat; he remained standing,
looking about him. And in a moment a waitress came hurrying over to him,
a hollow-cheeked, brown haired young woman of thirty, her fragile grace
encased in a stiffly-starched white apron.
“Hello!” she said, with a serious smile.
“Hello!” he answered. “I felt I had to see you.... How _are_ you?”
“All right, thank you! What will you have?”
“Sit down for a while!” he said. “It’s too early to eat. Anyway I’ll
have to go home for dinner.”
“You must take something!” she said. “They won’t like it if you just
sit here without ordering.”
He picked up the menu, but after a frowning scrutiny, threw it down.
“Anything that’s not too poisonous,” he said. “And hurry back, Rosaleen,
before the place begins to fill up.”
She returned presently with her tray, set his dishes before him, and sat
down opposite him, leaning her elbows on the table and her chin in her
hands.
“You must have known I wanted to see you to-day!” she said.
“Don’t you always?”
“Yes, of course. But specially to-day. Because little Petey’s sick, and
I wanted to talk to you about it.”
“Have you had a doctor?”
“Yes; but I don’t like him. I don’t think he’s much good. I want a
better one.”
“I’ll see you get one.... What’s the trouble?”
“Fever,” she said. “And headache, and he’s sick all the time.... Poor
little fellow!”
She stared ahead of her with troubled eyes.
“I can’t help being worried,” she went on. “The doctor says it’s just a
bilious attack, but he’s been sick for four days, and he seems to be
growing worse. Katie’s dreadfully upset.... I did wish I could speak to
_you_.”
“Why didn’t you telephone or write?”
She shook her head.
“I wouldn’t like to do that!” she said. “But I did hope you’d come
soon.”
It was curious that they practically never looked at each other, these
two. The proprietress, who had witnessed this friendship for the past
five years, and with favor, because of the trade it brought, had often
observed that. She had so often seen them sitting thus, at a table,
looking past each other, and not speaking very much. It was her theory
that they met outside, and that the man was a millionaire with a jealous
wife, and that he adored her waitress. A romantic and delightful theory;
she was not above recounting it as a true tale to certain friends. And
it was especially nice because this most flattering attention didn’t at
all unsettle Rosaleen; she was invariably prompt, careful and
good-tempered, a little aloof, but that was no fault.
He didn’t touch his dinner to-night. He got up and thrust his arms into
his overcoat again.
“Telephone to Doctor Denz as soon as you go out,” he said. “I’ll stop on
my way home and arrange with him.... Try not to worry, old girl.... And
you could telephone me at the office to-morrow, if you wanted.”
“Thank you, Mr. Landry!” she answered.
As he always did, he put the money for his meal and the tip under his
plate in a guilty way, and went off. But at the door he turned again,
and raised his hat. And Rosaleen returned a slight wave of the hand.