About which time Nancy had finished crying--raging at herself all the
time, she hated to cry so--and was sitting up straight on the couch
looking at the door which Oliver had shut as if by looking it very hard
indeed she could make it turn into Oliver.
It _couldn't_ end this way. If it did it just meant that all the
last year wasn't real--hadn't any more part in reality than charity
theatricals. And they'd both of them been so sure that it was the chief
reality that they had ever known.
He wasn't _reasonable_. She hadn't wanted the darned old job, she'd
wanted to marry him, but as long as they hadn't seemed to get very far
in the last eight months when he'd been trying to work it--why couldn't
_she_ try----
Then 'Oh Nancy, be honest!' to herself. No, that wasn't true.
She'd wanted the job, wanted to get it, hadn't thought about Oliver
particularly when she'd tried for it except to be a little impatient
with him for not using more judgment when he picked out his job. Did
that mean that she didn't love him? Oh Lord, it was all so mixed up.
Starting out so clearly at first and everything being so perfect--and
then the last four months and both getting tireder and tireder and all
the useless little misunderstandings that made you wonder how could you
if you really cared. And now this.
For an instant of mere relief from strain Nancy saw herself in Paris,
studying as she had always wanted to study, doing some real work, all
Paris hers to play with like a big gray stone toy, never having to worry
about loving, about being loved, about people you loved. Being free.
Like taking off your hot, hot clothes and lying in water when you were
too hot and tired even to think of sleeping. Oliver too--she'd leave him
free--he'd really work better without her--without having her to take
care of and make money for and worry about always----
The mind turned the other way. But what would doing anything be like
with Oliver out of it when doing things together had been all that
mattered all the last year?
They couldn't decide things like this on a prickly hot August night when
both of them were nearly dead with fatigue. It wasn't _real_. Even after
Oliver had shut the door she'd been sure he'd come back, though she
hoped he wouldn't just while she was crying; she never had been,
she thought viciously, one of those happy people who look like
rain-goddesses when they cry.
He must come back. She shut her eyes and told him to as hard as she
could. But he didn't.
All very well to be proud and dignified when both of you lived near each
other. But Oliver was going back to New York tomorrow--and if he went
back while they were still like this--She knew his train--the ten seven.
She tried being proud in a dozen different expressive attitudes for ten
minutes or so: Then she suddenly relaxed and went over to the telephone,
smiling rather ashamedly at herself.
“Hotel Rosario?”
“Yes.”
“Can I speak to Mr. Oliver Crowe? He is staying there isn't he?”
A pause full of little jingling sounds.
“Yes, he's staying here but he hasn't come in yet this evening. Do you
wish to leave a message?”
Nancy hesitates.
“N-no.” That would be just a little too humble.
“Or the name of the party calling?” He will know, of course. Still,
had she better say? Then she remembers the need of punishing him just
a little. After all--it is hardly fair she should go all the way toward
making up when he hasn't even started.
“No--no name. But tell him somebody called, please.”
“Very well.”
And Nancy goes back to wonder if the reason Oliver hasn't gone back
to the hotel is that he is returning here in an appropriate suit of
sackcloth. She hopes he _will_ come before mother and father get back.
But even while she is hoping it, the large blue policeman is saying
something about “'Sturbance of the peace” to the desk-sergeant, and
Oliver is going down on the blotter as Donald Richardson.