Oliver Crowe, at his desk in the copy-department of Vanamee and Co.'s,
has been spending most of the afternoon twiddling pencils and reading
and rereading two letters out of his pocket instead of righteously
thinking up layouts for the new United Steel Frame Pulley Campaign. He
realizes that the layouts are important--that has been brought to his
attention already by several pink memoranda from Mr. Délier, the head
of the department--but an immense distaste for all things in general and
advertising in particular has overwhelmed him all day. He looks
around the big, brightly lighted room with a stupefied sort of
loathing--advertising does not suit him--he is doing all he can at it
because of Nancy--but he simply does not seem to get the hang of the
thing even after eight months odd and he is conscious of the fact that
the Powers that be are already looking at him with distrustful eyes,
in spite of his occasional flashes of brilliance. If he could only get
_out_ of it--get into something where his particular kind of mind and
training would be useful--oh well--he grunts and turns back to his
private affairs.
The letter from Easten of Columbiac Magazines--kindly enough--but all
hope of selling the serial rights of his novel gone glimmering because
of it--Easten was the last chance, the last and the best. “If you could
see your way to making short stories out of the incidents I have named,
I should be very much interested--” but even so, two short stories
won't bring in enough to marry on, even if he can do them to Easten's
satisfaction--and the novel couldn't come out as a book now till late
spring--and Oliver has too many friends who dabble in writing to have
any more confidence in book royalties than he would have in systems for
beating the bank at roulette. Well, _that's_ over--and a year's work
with it--and all the dreams he and Nancy had of getting married at once.
Those pulley layouts have to be fixed up sometime. What can you say
about a pulley--what _can_ you say? “The United Steel Frame Pulley--Oh
Man, There's a Hog for Work!” Oliver turns the cheap phrase in his mind,
hating its shoddiness, hating the fact that such shoddiness is the only
stuff with which he can deal.
Sanely considered, he supposes he hasn't any business using up a month's
meagre savings and three small checks for poems that he has hoarded
since April in going out to St. Louis Friday. Mr. Alley wasn't too
pleased with letting him take Saturday and half Monday off to do it,
too. But then there was that telegram ten days ago. “I'd give anything
in the world if we could only see each other--” and after other letters
unsatisfactorily brief, the letter that came Monday “I have such grand
news, Ollie dear, at least it may be grand if it works out--but oh,
dear, I do want to see you about it without tangling it up in letters
that don't really explain. Can't you make it--even a few hours would be
long enough to talk it all over--and I do so want to see you and really
talk! Please wire me, if you can.”
Grand news--what kind he wondered--and dully thought that he couldn't
see her, of course, and then suddenly knew that he must. After all,
there didn't seem to be much use in saving for the sake of saving when
all the saving you could possibly do didn't bring you one real inch
nearer to what you really wanted. _Apres moi le deluge--apres ca
le deluge_--it might even come to that this time, they were both so
tired--and he viewed the prospect as a man mortally hurt might view the
gradual failing of sun and sky above him, with hopelessness complete
as a cloud in that sky, but with heart and brain too beaten now to be
surprised with either agony or fear. They must see each other--they
were neither of them quiet people who could love forever at a distance
without real hope. Great Lord, if he and Nancy could ever have one
definite basis to work on, one definite hope of money in the future no
matter how far off that was--But the present uncertainty--They couldn't
keep on like this--no two people in the world could be expected to keep
on.
Nancy. He is seeing Nancy, the way she half-lifts her head when she has
been teasing and suddenly becomes remorseful and wants him to know how
much she does love him instead.