It all started by having too much Mrs. Winters at a time, Nancy
decided later. Mrs. Winters went down with comparative painlessness in
homeopathic doses but Mrs. Winters day in and day out was too much like
being forcibly fed with thick raspberry syrup. And then there had been
walking up the Avenue from the Library alone the evening before--and
remembering walks with Oliver--and coming across that copy of the
“Shropshire Lad” in Mrs. Winters' bookcase and thinking just how
Oliver's voice had sounded when he read it aloud to her--a process of
some difficulty, she recalled, because he had tried to read with an arm
around her. And then all the next day as she tried to work nothing but
Oliver, Oliver, running through her mind softshoed like a light and
tireless runner, crumbling all proper dignity and good resolutions away
from her, little hard pebble by little hard pebble, till she had finally
given up altogether, called up Vanamee and Company on the telephone and
asked, with her heart in her mouth, if Mr. Oliver Crowe were there. The
reply that came seemed unreal somehow--she had been so sure he would be
and every nerve in her body had been so strung to wonder at what she was
going to say or do when he finally answered, that the news that he had
left three weeks before brought her down to earth as suddenly as if she
had been tripped. All she could think of was that it must be because of
her that Oliver had left the company--and illogically picture a starving
Oliver painfully wandering the streets of New York and gazing at the
food displayed in restaurant windows with lost and hopeless eyes.
Then she shook herself--what nonsense--he must be at Melgrove. She
couldn't call him up at Melgrove, though, he mightn't be there when she
'phoned and then his family would answer and what his family must think
of her now, when they'd been so perfectly lovely when she and Oliver
were first engaged--she shivered a little--no, that wouldn't do. And
letters never really said things--it mustn't be letters--besides, she
thought, humbly, it would be so awful to have Oliver send letters back
unopened. Two weeks of pure Mrs. Winters had chastened Nancy to an
unusual degree.
For all that though, it was not until Mrs. Winters had left her alone
for the evening after offering her an invitation to attend a little
discussion group that met Wednesday evenings and read literary papers at
each other, an invitation which Nancy somewhat stubbornly declined, that
she finally made up her mind. Then she sighed and went to the telephone
again.
“Mr. Oliver Crowe? He is away on a visit just at present but we expect
him back tomorrow afternoon.” Margaret is pretending for her own
satisfaction over the wire that the Crowes have a maid. “Who is calling,
please?”
Rather shakily, “A f-friend.”
Briskly. “I understand. Well, he will be back tomorrow. Is that all that
you wished to inquire? No message?”
“Good-by then,” and again Nancy thinks that things simply will not be
dramatic no matter how hard she tries.
She decides to take a small walk however--small because she simply must
get to bed before Mrs. Winters comes back and starts talking at
her improvingly. The walk seems to take her directly to the nearest
Subway--and so to the Pennsylvania Station, where, after she has
acquired a timetable of trains to Melgrove, she seems to be a good deal
happier than she has been for some time. At least as she is going up the
cake-colored stairs to the Arcade again she cannot help taking the last
one with an irrepressible skip.