Chapter II

Laura bathed and dressed rather rapidly, in a sort of a fever, listening all the while for the telephone to ring. It did not ring. After she had dressed and put on her neat blue coat and tan velvet hat, she made a pretence of talking with Maud. If Howard did telephone, she didn’t want to miss him. Then she had a feeling, suddenly, of wanting to be out of the house.

She hurried down-town, the business street that stretched out from the Brick Church to the railroad depot. Just off this street she stopped into a grimy little print shop and received smudged copies of the Ladies’ Aid Benefit program. That was all her errand consisted of. She had nothing else to do down-town.

She must see Howard, of course. She invented half a dozen errands that took her past Bates’ Harness and Leather Store, with its hideous imitation horse of dappled grey in one window. She did not see Howard, though she peered in, eagerly, as she passed. She must see him! Once she fancied she did see him. What a dark store it was.

She had bought everything she could think of, down-town. She had talked to half a dozen people, making the conversation last as long as possible, giggling whenever she could giggle. She had accepted an invitation to go to the movies later in the week with Mark Henry, had promised to dance with Archie Miller at the next dance, at Stattler’s Hall. She couldn’t go home without seeing Howard.

She walked past the store again. Her steps dragged. She looked inside. She did not see him. She must go in—find a pretext for going in. What could she get? She had thought of everything so many times. She must go in.

Her hand was on the door. She was inside the store.

Ray Davenport, the clerk, a sprightly young fellow, came up to her. Had she wasted this chance, coming in—and not seeing Howard?

She knew Ray and smiled at him. She couldn’t ask for Howard, now.

“Have you any—any of those new ice-scrapers?” she asked. “Not the kind you chop ice with but the kind that scrapes it, you know, with lots of teeth, into a sort of little cup.”

“I don’t think so,” Ray hesitated. “You don’t mean this kind?”

He walked back of the counter, took something from a dusty bin and held it out to her.

“Oh, no, we’ve got one like that—”

In the back of the store was an office, with partitions just high enough so you could see who was there. Inside, now, was Howard!

She hesitated. Then,

“Hello, Howard,” Laura called, prettily.

Howard Bates looked up, came out of the office toward her. As he came she grew almost dizzy, held tightly to her black leather purse. How lovely he looked—he was dearer than she had thought him. He looked tired, a trifle thin, even, and pale. His hair was dishevelled. Howard—why—he had gone with her—had been hers—hers to love, once....

She smiled nervously as he came up to her, and held out her hand. She wanted to keep his hand in her own, to run her hand over his face, to put her fingers through his hair, on his lips, as she once had done. She felt that she could have stopped loving him, quite without trouble, if his mouth had been different. Or his hair—or his eyes.

“I’m hunting for an ice-shaver,” she told him. “I’ve been making a sort of a new drink we’re all awfully fond of—folks say it’s good, but they are probably just being polite about it—and the ice has got to be shaved. The other night one of the boys nearly broke his finger with our ice pick—Jerome Farmer—it’s taken it nearly a week to heal. So I thought if I could get another kind—”

Jerome Farmer was the banker’s son—awfully popular. He had called, had hurt his finger on an ice pick. She’d let Howard see that she didn’t sit at home and wait for him, anyhow.

He was sorry. He didn’t have the ice-shaver she wanted. How was every little thing? Going to the dance, Wednesday? He’d see her, then. Before, maybe....

What could she say? She had said everything she knew how to say, weeks before.

She was out on the street. Howard hadn’t said anything she hoped he would.

She walked home slowly. She was angry, now, at herself. Why had she gone in the store at all? Wouldn’t he know that she was running after him? He hadn’t mentioned Mary, either. Maybe they weren’t engaged, after all. Hadn’t she prayed to God?

At home, she took off her serge dress and got into her kimono again. Her mother and sister were not at home. Curled up in the biggest living-room chair she read all of the stories in her favourite magazine. She stopped in between stories to think about Howard. Sometimes she read a whole page before she realized that she didn’t know a word she had read. Why had she gone to see him? Still, she wouldn’t have got to see him at all if she hadn’t gone. What did he see in Mary? A little thing like that! Why couldn’t she get him back again? She was as pretty as Mary, as clever, as nice in every way. Maybe—still—hadn’t she prayed for him?

She read, listening for the telephone.

At five o’clock the telephone rang. A masculine voice asked for her. She trembled, though she knew it was not Howard. It was Joe Austin. She had an engagement with him for that evening. He telephoned to ask if she would prefer going to a vaudeville show to staying at home.

“Let’s stay at home for a change,” she said, and wondered why she said it. Usually, she wanted to be going places every minute. “I’ve been out late every night for a week. I’ve got to get some sleep. I’ll be awfully glad to see you, though, Joe. Around eight.”

Half an hour later her mother came home and then Maud. There were meat cakes for dinner and she did not like them. She had not had any lunch. She went without lunch frequently.

Dinner was the usual meal. The family laughed over the day’s events. She laughed, too, even permitted Phillip to tease her when she said that Joe Austin was coming to call.

“Why doesn’t he take the spare room?” Philip cried. “He’s here enough. Though he isn’t here much for dinner. You got to hand it to Joe. He takes you places. He isn’t one of these home comforts and mealers like Howard Bates used to be, coming in just before we sat down at the table.”

“Is that so?” asked Laura.

Yet she was not angry. She was really happy when, under any circumstances, Howard’s name was brought into the conversation.

After dinner she dressed again putting on a cheap pink frock that had done duty as a dance dress before it lost its freshness. She did her hair over, puffing it out around her ears. Her face was getting thin. She must stop worrying about things. Why, she really looked more than her age. Little fat things like Mary Price always looked younger than they really were—fooled men. She added an extra bit of rouge and powder. What did it matter? She wouldn’t see Howard.

At eight, Joe Austin came. Maud was spending the evening with some girl friends. The rest of the family always stayed in the dining-room when the girls had company so, as usual, Laura had the living-room for her young man and herself. He came laden with a large box of candy, the chocolate creams already hardened by age. Laura greeted it with extravagant praise and made a pretence of feeding him the first piece.

What a tiresome fellow Joe was! She looked at him critically. Stupid. He had light hair that was rather uneven, the sort that can’t be brushed quite smooth, but it lacked the softness of Howard’s. Already it was starting to recede. Worse than that, there was a thin place on the back of his head. Yet Joe wasn’t more than twenty-six or so, about Howard’s age. He was much richer than Howard. His father owned the Austin House, the second best hotel in town, the one frequented by commercial travellers and theatrical companies, people like that.

Joe was a sort of manager and clerk, and no doubt would take over the hotel when his father died. He was more citified than Howard. He went up to Chicago two or three times a year. He wore better fitting clothes, with little fancy touches to them in lapels and pockets. Howard wore awfully plain things, always in need of pressing, always smelling slightly of tobacco—lovely things—

Joe was rather dapper, even. “Good company,” most people called him. He knew a lot of vaudeville jokes, and, in a crowd, could always say something to get applause. Howard wasn’t much fun in a crowd. Howard!

Joe was telling a long anecdote, now. As Laura looked at him, she wondered why she allowed him to call, why he liked her, anyhow. His nose was a trifle too short, turned up just a little. His face was a little too thin. There were slight lines in his cheeks. Howard was thin too,—a different thinness. Joe was so stupid and talky and useless. Why, if he died that minute it wouldn’t matter. He had no force, no personality. Yet he was more popular, more of a catch than Howard. She knew that. Perhaps that, really, was the reason she kept on going with him. What a bore he was! Should she keep on letting him call, talking to him?

The telephone rang. Almost rudely Laura rushed from the room to answer it. The telephone stood on a little table in the hall. She had hoped.... The voice was Rosalie Breen’s.

“Have you heard the news?” she wanted to know. After the usual hesitation she went on, “I thought maybe you had. You are one of the people she was going to call up. Mary Price and Howard Bates. What do you think of that? She just ’phoned me. I guess she’ll ’phone you right away, too. She’s having us all in to-morrow night, a little party. I heard it last night at the dance. Did you? Howard was one of your old flames, once, wasn’t he, Laura?”

“Oh, I didn’t mind him hanging around before I—I—had some one else,” Laura managed to say. She managed a giggle, too.