Chapter I

When her mother knocked on her door, at half-past seven, as she always did, Laura Morgan called a drowsy “All right, Ma, I’ll get up in a minute.” Then she lay in bed for twenty minutes, in a pleasant, half-asleep state and thought of Howard Bates. He seemed very close to her when she was not quite awake, as if she were still with him in the dream she had had. The remembrance of the dream, comforting and warm, still surrounded her, though she couldn’t remember the details. Not that it mattered. Laura didn’t “believe in dreams,” though she had once had a paper-covered dream-book, in which she could look up things like daggers and handkerchiefs and learn their significance. Half-asleep was better than dreaming. She could change the dreams to suit herself, could picture Howard more plainly, his soft tumbled hair, his sleepy hazel eyes. She and Howard walking together, dancing together, kissing, even.

There was no reason for getting up promptly, anyhow. Her mother and Maud could get breakfast for her father and Philip, her brother, just as well as if she were down. Lying in bed like this was the pleasantest part of her day.

It didn’t seem possible to Laura, now, that less than a year ago she and Howard had actually gone together. He had come to see her and they had sat in the always-rather-stuffy living room and had sung popular pieces, their heads close together at the piano, or they had gone out. Howard had taken her to Perron’s Drug Store for sodas and sometimes to the semi-monthly dances at Stattler’s Hall or to Electric Park. He had brought her pound boxes of candy, pink and white bonbons intermingled with assorted chocolates in a blue box tied with pink ribbon. They had been to nearly every episode in “Her Twenty Dangers” which had run, two reels at a time, at the Palace Moving Picture Theatre. Howard had made love to her, had held her close as he told her good-night, had kissed her. And now Howard was going with Mary Price.

Laura never knew just how it had started—Howard going with Mary. She and Howard had some sort of an argument about nothing at all. Then Howard hadn’t asked her to go to a dance at Stattler’s Hall. Not wanting to stay at home, she had gone with a travelling salesman from St. Louis, a fat fellow she didn’t like.

She had watched for Howard all evening. He had come in, alone, about ten, and had danced only once with her, spending most of his time smoking cigarettes on the fire-escape with some of the other boys or dancing with other girls. Mary Price hadn’t been there at all. Mary Price wasn’t even popular with the boys—hadn’t been until Howard started going with her.

Somehow, then, Howard had lost interest in Laura. All of her little tricks hadn’t helped. Mary’s little tricks had. He started going with Mary, instead. Laura knew Mary but not awfully well. Mary had only been living in Morristown for a couple of years. She was a silly, giggly, clinging little thing.

Laura hated Mary. She knew Mary hated her, too. Hated and felt superior because she was “cutting her out.” They pretended a great friendliness, with the over-cordiality of girls who are a little afraid or jealous. But, lately, there had been a peculiarly unpleasant smile on Mary’s round face, a mixture of triumph and indifference, when they met. For, now, Howard took Mary to all of the places he had taken Laura a year before. It was just as natural in the set of which Laura was a part to say “Mary and Howard” as it had been to say “Laura and Howard” last year.

Of course Laura pretended not to care for Howard nor to care whom he went with. She felt she succeeded for no one ever teased her about him. Laura went with other men now, travelling salesmen, Morristown boys, too. She went with Joe Austin most of all because he spent money on her and took her places. But they all seemed alike, stupidly uninteresting, with little, annoying mannerisms. Even the nicest of them was nice only because of faint echoings of Howard’s manner. Mostly, they were just a little better than no one at all. They showed that she could get men to be nice to her.

Not that Howard was at all remarkable. Laura knew he wasn’t, knew that other girls in Morristown, outside of Mary Price, didn’t seem to think much of him. But to Laura he seemed very precious. He had rather a deep, slow voice, a way of drawling the last words in sentences, a way of caressing words, even, of putting meanings into them that weren’t there at all. Little things he had said were always coming back to Laura with a new poignancy, now that she didn’t go with him any more.

Why had she let him go? How had she lost him? She hadn’t appreciated him. It seemed impossible now—he was so very dear—and yet, a year ago he had been nice to her, telephoned her, come to see her, liked her a lot, really, didn’t go with other girls at all.

There was no one else for her. The travelling men and the Morristown boys were distressingly alike. Joe Austin was her favourite only because other girls thought he was a good catch. Laura knew that she would probably never get away from Morristown. She had no special ambition or ability. The family had just enough money to get along, without the girls doing anything useful. No one would ever come to Morristown who counted. She was twenty-four and not awfully young looking, a thinnish girl with light hair who was already getting lines around her mouth and chin.

There were several boys who liked Laura, Fred Ellison and Morgan French and Joe. Joe was in love with her, actually. It always surprised Laura when she thought of it. For she never did anything to appeal to Joe. Of course when he took her places, dances or movies, she was nice to him, a sort of reward for his company. Lately, too, she even went through the pretence of coquetting with him if Mary or Howard were present, just to show them that she was having a good time. She had invented a sort of mask of gaiety for them, a rather tremulous, shrill gaiety. She wanted them to see that she was always having a good time, that she was popular, the centre of things. It was hard, keeping up, when Howard wasn’t there. Why did she like Howard? It seemed so silly. Howard! His mouth was rather soft and full and he had a way of raising one eyebrow with a doubting half-smile ... his hands were the sort you want to reach out and touch, if they were near. Howard....

Her mother called to her, annoyed, from downstairs,

“Breakfast is all ready, now, Laura. You’re a great help to me.”

“Coming right away, Ma.”

Laura yawned and stretched and got up, putting her bare feet into the pink hand-crocheted bedroom slippers that Julia Austin, Joe’s sister, had given her at Christmas, shapeless things, never very pretty, like Julia and all the Austins. In the bathroom she bathed her face and arms and put on a blue cotton crêpe kimono, embroidered in white butterflies, over her pink cotton gown. She inserted a couple of hairpins in her hair and went down stairs to breakfast and her family.

Her mother and Maud, who was two years younger, but more pleasantly plump, were clad in starchy blue morning dresses, with checked aprons over them. They looked agreeably capable as they placed the stewed fruit and oatmeal on the table. Her father and her brother, Philip, were already seated at the breakfast table.

Laura sat down, smiled a mechanical “good morning” and took her napkin from the plated-silver napkin ring with her initials on it. The Morgans had clean napkins twice a week.

“Isn’t she the merry little sunshine!” Philip ventured.

“Let me alone,” said Laura, and her voice trembled. “If you’d been awake half the night with a headache you’d be grumpy, too.”

Philip subsided.

Her father looked at her over his glasses.

“Been having a lot of headaches lately, it seems to me,” he said. “Running around too much to dances. If you get to bed some night before twelve, you might wake up in a better humour.”

Laura didn’t answer. She wanted to scream out, to tell them that her head didn’t ache at all but that they annoyed her and bored her terribly, that she didn’t want to talk to them, that all she wanted was Howard Bates, wanted him there, with her now, always.

She finished her breakfast. The two men left. Maud and her mother, in a pleasant buzz of conversation, cleared off the table, began pottering around the dining-room, putting it in order.

“I’ll dust the living-room,” Laura volunteered. She had to do something, she knew. She could be alone, there.

It couldn’t be true—and yet last night at a dance at Miller’s Hall there were rumours that Mary and Howard were engaged.

Engaged! If Mary once got him—If the engagement were announced—she had lost him, then. She had lost him anyhow. Of course. Lost him. It didn’t seem possible. Howard!

In the living-room she threw herself down on the couch, buried her head in a cushion. There, on that couch, Howard had first kissed her. She stretched out her hand along the back of it. How many times she had found his hand there. And Howard was going to marry Mary Price. She wanted to scream out, to stop things, some way. She didn’t know what to do.

She got up and dusted the living-room. On the upright piano was a pile of popular songs with garish covers, torn. Some of those songs Howard had sung to her—had brought to her. Howard didn’t have a very good voice, just deep and pleasant. She had liked hearing him sing because it was him singing. His hair, soft and always mussed looking ... his hand.... And now he was going to marry Mary. She had tried hard enough ... everything she knew.

She didn’t believe much in prayers—nor in God—since she was grown up. She had often shocked her family and her friends by declaring her unbelief in any God at all. Yet, now, suddenly, she threw herself on her knees, in front of the couch, and buried her head in the seat cushion.

“Oh, God,” she groaned, “send Howard back to me. Make him love me! I—I haven’t asked for much. I haven’t got much. He is all I want. I don’t care ... I want him—please, God.”

She got to her feet feeling a little better. Maybe it was just a rumour, after all. How would Nettie Sayer know? It was Nettie who had told her. Why, even now, Howard might be thinking of her, deciding that he loved her and not Mary, after all. How could he love Mary, after all the good times they had had together, little things, jokes, his kisses?

Laura finished dusting the living-room with a little flourish, even. Why, anything might happen.

Her mother and Maud were in the kitchen. She joined them there, listening for half an hour to their conversation, joining in, finally. Wasn’t Maud silly? If only there were some one she could talk to about things. But Maud—her mother—they didn’t know, couldn’t feel things the way she did. Howard!

He might be going to ring her up. Why, yes, maybe he would telephone her. For an instant she forgot that she had thought that same thing for a long time, months, now. This was different. She had heard of the engagement. She had prayed. Things couldn’t go on. Howard worked in his father’s store. It was a musty store that dealt mostly in leather and saddles but included some hardware. Laura didn’t like it. It was a hard store to find excuses for going into. But he could telephone her from there, any time. Why, she used to telephone him there, lots of times. He got down-town about nine. It was ten, now. He’d been there an hour, more than likely.

“I think I’ll go up and dress,” she said. “I promised Myrtle Turner I’d attend to those programs for the Ladies’ Aid Benefit and get a proof for the meeting to-morrow.”

Her mother and Maud nodded mechanically. What difference did anything make to them?