'Yes, we're engaged.'
'What was that, Henry?'
'I said, “Yes, we're engaged.”'
'O--o--oh, Henry, I'm so glad!'
'Don't say anything about it, Martha.'
'Oh, of _course_ not!... You've no idea how nice people are being to me.
They're giving me a party to-night, down on the South Side. We're coming
back to-morrow.'
Mr Merchant met her in the Chicago depot. Henry had excused himself
before Mrs Ames and Mary got up. He would have hurried off into the
grimy city, but the crowd held him back. Martha saw him and dragged the
rich and important man of her choice toward him.
Henry thought him very old, and not particularly goodlooking. He was a
stocky, sandy-complexioned man; dressed now, as always, in brown, even
to a brown hat. He looked strong enough--Henry knew that he played polo,
and that sort of thing--but gossip put him at thirty-eight. He certainly
couldn't be under thirty-five. Henry wondered how Martha could...
Then he found himself taking the man's hand and listening to more of the
familiar praise. But on this occasion it had, he felt, a condescension,
a touch of patronage, that irritated him.
'I'd like to talk with you, Calverly. There's a chance that--I'll tell
you! I may be able to arrange it this evening. They're not letting me
come to the party. Got to do something. I'll try it. Come around to my
place between eight and half-past, and I'll explain more fully. There's
a classmate of mine in town that can help us, maybe. You'll do that?
Good! I'll expect you.'
He was gone.
Slowly, moodily, Henry wandered through the station and up the long
stairway to the street.
He felt deeply uncomfortable. It wasn't this Mr Merchant, though he
wished he had known how to show his resentment of the man's offhand
manner. But he hadn't known; he wouldn't again; before age and
experience he was helpless. No, his trouble lay deeper. He shouldn't
have told Martha that he was engaged. Why had he done such a thing? What
on earth had he meant by it? It was a rather dreadful break.
He paused on the Wells Street bridge; hung over the dirty wooden
railing; watched a tug come through the opaque, sluggish water, pouring
out its inevitable black smoke, a great rolling cloud of it, that set
him coughing. He perversely welcomed it.
Cicely expected him in the evening. He would have to drop in on his way
to Mr Merchant's. Could he tell her what he had done? Dared he tell her?
Martha and the Ameses would be gone overnight. That was something. And
people didn't get up early after parties. At least, girls didn't.
It would be afternoon before they would reappear in Sunbury. Say
twenty-four hours. But immediately after that, certainly by evening, all
Sunbury would have the news that the popular Cicely Hamlin was engaged.
To young Henry Calverly. The telephone would ring. Congratulations would
be pouring in.
He stared fixedly at the water. He wondered what made him do these
things, lose control of his tongue. It wasn't his first offence; nor,
surely, his last. An unnerving suggestion, that last! He asked himself
how bad a man had to feel before jumping down there and ending it all.
It happened often enough. You saw it in the papers.
3
Welding's jewellery store occupied the best corner on the proper side of
State Street. In its long series of show window's, resting on velvet of
appropriate colours, backed by mirrors, were bracelets, lockets, rings,
necklaces, 'dog-collars' of matched pearls, diamond tiaras, watches,
chests of silverware, silver bowls, cups and ornaments, articles in
cut glass, statuettes of ebony, bronze and jade, and here and there,
in careless little heaps, scattered handfuls of unmounted gems--rubies,
emeralds, yellow, white and blue diamonds, and rich-coloured
semi-precious stones.
But all this without over-emphasis. There were no built-up, glittering
pyramids, no placards, no price-tags even. There was instead, despite
the luxury of the display, a restraint; as if it were more a concession
to the traditions of sound shop-keeping than an appeal for custom. For
Welding's was known, had been known through a long generation, from
Pittsburg to Omaha. Welding's, like the Art Institute, Hooley's Theatre,
Devoe's candy store, Field's buses, Central Music Hall, was a Chicago
institution, playing its inevitable part at every well-arranged wedding
as in every properly equipped dining-room. You couldn't give any one you
really cared about a present of jewellery in other than a Welding box.
Not if you were doing the thing right! Oh, you _could_, perhaps....
And Welding's, from the top-booted, top-hatted doorman (such were not
common in Chicago then) to the least of the immaculately clad salesmen,
was profoundly, calmly, overpoweringly aware of its position.
Before the section of the window that was devoted to rings stood Henry.
About him pressed the throng of early-afternoon shoppers--sharp-faced
women, brisk business men, pretty girls in pretty clothes, messenger
boys, loiterers and the considerable element of foreign-appearing,
rather shabby men and women, boys and girls that were always an item in
the Chicago scene. Out in the wide street the traffic, a tangle of it
(this was before the days of intelligent traffic regulation anywhere in
America) rolled and rattled and thundered by--carriages, hacks, delivery
wagons, two-horse and three-horse trucks, and trains of cable-cars, each
with its flat wheel or two that pounded rhythmically as it rolled.
And out of the traffic--out of the huge, hive-like stores and
office-buildings, out of the very air as breezes blew over from other,
equally busy streets, came a noise that was a blend of noises, a steady
roar, the nervous hum of the city.
But of all this Henry saw, heard, nothing; merely pulled at his
moustache and tapped his cane against his knee.
A wanly pretty girl, with short yellow hair curled kinkily against her
head under a sombrero hat, loitered toward him, close to the window;
paused at his side, brushing his elbow; glanced furtively up under her
hat brim; smiled mechanically, showing gold teeth; moved around him and
lingered on the other side; spoke in a low tone; finally, with a glance
toward the fat policeman who stood, in faded blue, out in the thick of
things by the car tracks, drifted on and away.
Henry had neither seen nor heard her.
Brows knit, lips compressed, eyes nervously intent, he marched
resolutely into Welding's.
'Look at some rings!' he said, to a distrait salesman.
He indicated, sternly, a solitaire that looked, he thought, about like
Martha's.
'How much is that?'
'That? Not a bad stone. Let me see... Oh, three hundred dollars.'