Chapter XVI

They met at the Marlowe garage. When Mary Louise saw Claybrook and Joe Hooper standing together in absorbed conversation, leaning each with one foot propped on the running board of a big shiny new car in the display room, she suddenly knew she had no business there. She saw them through the big plate-glass window as she came along. It would be hard to make her arrival seem casual. And when Joe Hooper raised his head as she entered the doorway--he was wearing that gaudy suit--she was confused.

But he did not seem to notice and greeted her cordially. He was looking a bit thin, with a high colour and a restless snap in his eyes. There was an alertness about him that was new to her and a something in his manner that was quite different. She stole a look at him while he and Claybrook were discussing lubrication and wondered in what way he had changed. A sureness? A steadiness? A bit of reserve that sat well upon him? All of these, surely. She had never seen him show to better advantage. Once he turned to her and asked her opinion about the leather. There was an air of quiet deference in the way he put the question. It was a trivial question and she was thinking of the impersonal note in his tone, just as though she might have been a total stranger to whom he owed courtesy, and she was wishing he had asked her something about herself. Her uneasiness about the unconventionality of her being there vanished, so completely were the two men absorbed in technical discussion. She noted the contrast: Claybrook rather beefy and a bit too red of face; Joe, on the other hand, quite slim and taut. His new clothes fitted him better; he had lost that raw-boned look.

Joe asked her if she would not like to go for a ride.

She looked up into his eyes from the chair which he had got for her and felt a childish pleasure, just as though he had shown her a personal attention.

"I'd love to," she said.

They waited at the curb for the demonstrating car to be brought around and she had a chance to ask him how things were at home.

"I haven't been back this summer," he replied, and looked away.

Once, when she and Claybrook were standing a little apart, she caught Joe looking at them, she imagined, under lowered brows, and she had an impulse to go to him and tell him that she was bringing him this business, putting in a word for him. She did not hear what Claybrook was saying to her at all. And then the car came rolling up and stopped, and her chance was gone.

She and Claybrook sat down in the back seat together, while Joe took the wheel. In about thirty minutes they were climbing a steep hill that lead out of Fenimore Park to one of the back lanes.

"Takes the grade all right," commented Claybrook to her, and she wished that he would not continue to include her in the discussion. She strove to counteract the impression that might be formed by calling attention to the clouds that were gathering in the southwest. Dark and sombre they came rolling, like great billows of smoke, although the green of the park meadows was flooded with golden sunlight. At the crest of the hill Joe partly turned in his seat and with one arm thrown along the back of it pointed to the outline of a massive stone bridge that was being built across the creek far below them. The greenish brown blended subtly with the golden-green shadows of the trees and the dark pools of water beneath.

"New bridge," he said. "Man that's buildin' it knows a thing or two about colour tones."

Mary Louise bent eagerly forward to look. It seemed as though he were speaking directly to her. Claybrook remained leaning back in the corner. They turned a curve and the bridge passed out of view below.

They gained the macadam of the lane that led out from the park gate into the country. Claybrook turned and asked her how she liked the car. His low, direct tone and intent gaze made her uncomfortable, made her nerves ruffle up in a most irritating manner. But she controlled herself and answered lightly, "Oh, ever so much."

He looked as though he might say something more, but changed his mind and sank back against the cushions. For a time they rode on in silence. Claybrook had been strangely quiet ever since they had left the garage. She could feel him watching her and she tried not to notice it. So absorbed was she in trying to appear unconcerned that she did not see the approach of the storm; in fact, there was a supercharge of restraint on all three of them, and it startlingly broke upon them in a clap of thunder that sounded as if it had smashed a tree not fifty feet away.

Joe stopped the car and scrambled back into the tonneau to adjust the side curtains. He murmured an apology as he brushed against her--just like a stranger. Quite sharply she felt the change that had come over their relations. When everything had been adjusted he resumed his seat and called over his shoulder, "Guess we had better go back, hadn't we? I'm sorry this rain had to come and spoil things."

They turned slowly around in the narrow road and when they again faced the west, the rain came beating furiously down against the wind-shield so that the road ahead was barely visible. Never had she seen such blinding sheets of water. It tore at the roof, it whipped about the curtains, it threatened to engulf them all in a torrential flood. The car was moving slowly forward--she could see Joe's outline bent slightly over the wheel--and in spite of his care the rear wheels would slew gently from side to side. As she peered ahead she could see a yellow flood of water rushing down the road before them so that it did not look like a road at all but like an angry, muddy stream upon which they were floating. Once Claybrook leaned forward, his eyes narrowing. He had been as silent as a mummy.

"Got any chains?" he asked suddenly.

"Think I have," replied Joe. "Under the seat."

"Better put 'em on, don't you think?"

Mary Louise started. "Oh, John! In this rain?"

"Guess I had at that," interposed Joe quickly.

He stopped the car and lifted the cushion on which he was sitting. Directly he pulled forth a long, tangled confusion of links, opened the door, and stepped forth. As he thrust out his head Mary Louise called:

"Haven't you any coat?" and his answer came back cheerily from the outside, "Never mind me. It'll all come out in the wash."

She looked at Claybrook reproachfully. He sat stolidly in the corner but there was a look of discomfort in his face.

"Don't want us to slide off one of these hills into the creek, do you?"

And she felt there was nothing more she could say.

They sat in awkward silence, listening to the downpour and the wind. The thunder crashed incessantly and the air was alive with the lightning playing about them in livid flares. They could feel one side of the car lift slightly as Joe adjusted the chain, and then the other side; could dimly hear him struggling with the wheel jack. It seemed criminal to be exposed to such a rain. A wave of cold resentment against Claybrook came over her and she sat staring straight in front of her, lips tightly compressed, waiting.

It seemed an interminable time; in reality, in about ten minutes Joe's head appeared at the door of the car and he climbed stiffly in. Drenched he was from top to toe. The water streaked down his checks in little streams; his clothes flapped and clung to him as though he had been flung into the river; his cap was a sodden, pulpy mass. But he chuckled as he slid over in behind the wheel.

"Guess I'll remember to bring my coat along next time."

She wanted to put her hand on his shoulder but she sat in stony silence. And she noticed that he no longer drove with the same care as before. She saw that he was giving little involuntary shivers, watched the water drip with silent monotony from his cap on to the back of the seat, making a slick, shiny spot there.

And then Claybrook broke the silence. "How will you split commission with me if I take one of these cars?" He spoke heartily, as though he wished to be friendly and cheerful.

Joe made no reply for a moment and when he did, his voice trembled just a little. "We're not allowed to make that kind of a deal."

"Oh, I know that, and all that sort of thing. But they all _do_, just the same." He reached over and gave Mary Louise a little shove on the elbow, from which she recoiled.

Joe made no further reply; they waited for what he might say. And directly Claybrook tried again:

"And how about my old car? Take that in, I suppose?"

"We'll take it and do the best we can to sell it for you," said Joe, without looking back. The water still dripped from his cap on to the cushion.

"Hum," muttered Claybrook, "Independent." And louder: "Two or three other concerns will allow me good money on my car."

Joe made no reply.

When they arrived at the garage again, the rain had about stopped and they drove in at the main entrance back into the general storage room. Joe stood holding the tonneau door open for them, a ludicrous object in his bedraggled clothes. He made no effort to assist Mary Louise but stood there holding the door with an abstracted look on his face. All the dash, all the sleekness was out of him. They both thanked him and then Claybrook led the way to his own car which someone had brought in out of the rain.

He turned to Joe once more--"I'll see you later"--thanked him again, and started his motor.

Mary Louise satisfied herself with waving her hand to him as they started. His aloofness forbade her to do anything more, though she would have liked to go to him and tell him how sorry she was and to be sure and hurry and put on some dry clothes. But she didn't and she saw him standing in the centre of the passage, a forlorn figure. It struck her as they rolled out on to the street that he had made no effort whatever to sell the car.

"Cold-blooded crowd," broke out Claybrook at length as they hurried on.

"I do hope he won't be sick," she replied.

He grunted. "In the army, wasn't he? Guess he can stand a little water. Used to worse than that."

And after apparently waiting for her to break the silence, he again ventured,

"I like the car. Think I'll have to see if I can't make some sort of deal with them. They'll probably come down a little off their perch." His tone seemed to invite her opinion, but she offered none.

They came into the stiff little parlour lobby of Mary Louise's apartment. It was quite dark as they got out of the automobile, and the stuffy room was dimly lit by a few feeble incandescent lamps in loose-jointed and rather forlorn gilt wall brackets. They made their way over to the elevator. The lobby was empty; even the blonde was absent from her post.

As they passed the faded plush divan Claybrook laid a detaining hand on her arm: "Sit down here a minute. I want to talk to you." His voice sounded rather gentle and subdued.

She turned and looked at him, wondering, and then obeyed.

"Listen," he began, and laid his hand quietly on hers. "Don't get sore at me because I was the cause of your friend's getting wet. It won't hurt him--just a little clothes-pressing bill--and I'd much rather he had that than for that car to slide off the cliff--especially when you were in it."

She felt somewhat mollified. "Was that what you wanted to say to me?" She looked at his face and saw there an odd expression--a sort of dogged shamefacedness.

"No. I was just getting to it." He was silent a moment, staring at his foot. Suddenly he looked up at her--she had withdrawn her hand. "When," he began, "when are we going to call this thing a game?"

"I don't understand what you mean."

He halted. "Well," he said. "How--when are you going to marry me?" He was looking into her face with that same queer, stubborn expression.

Her heart stopped momentarily. "Why," she faltered, "I hadn't thought of it."

They sat there in the hushed lobby as remote from the world as though shipwrecked on a desert island. It was Mary Louise who now looked at the floor. She could feel Claybrook's eyes upon her. He was waiting for her to speak, but she could not collect her thoughts. It had come upon her baldly, without preparation. She scarcely realized the import of his words.

"Well," he was saying, "think of it now."

Another pause.

She raised her eyes and looked at him squarely in spite of the trembling in her limbs. His face loomed big and blank before her, though his voice was very kind.

"I don't know," she heard herself saying. "You--I--it's come on me rather quickly."

For a moment he made no reply. A street car thundered past and made the windows rattle.

"Well, you're going to, aren't you? When?"

She could not trust herself to look at him. Again he waited on her words. She could feel him edging a hit nearer.

"I don't know." The words choked in her throat. She felt cornered, hemmed in. She could not clear the tumult in her brain. A short time before she had felt tremendously irritated at him. Now she did not know how she felt. He was hammering at her with his insistence.

"That can't be," he broke in on her confusion. "I'm not a stranger, you know. You've known me for over a year and, I think, seen enough of me to know what sort I am. We are not a couple of kids just out of school." His voice broke in a ridiculous quaver that somehow tempted her to laugh hysterically, but he mastered it and went on: "When shall it be? Next month? I'll buy that big car and we'll drive to California."

He was groping for her hand.

"I don't know," she said again. "I can't think. Can't we let things run on as they are?" She ventured a look at him, appealingly.

He drew away just a little and she could see a grim little line gathering about his mouth and a frown about his eyes.

"I don't see any use in waiting to make up your mind. That's not the way _I_ do business. What is it?" He went on quietly and firmly, "Yes or no?" and then more gently, "I think you can see I am willing to do things for you. It hasn't been one-sided, has it?"

His words crystallized the turbulence in her mind. She was suddenly sure of herself. She looked up quickly. She could see the little folds of flesh about his collar, the fine little purplish lines in his cheeks, could hear his thick breathing, and yet his eyes were looking steadily and gravely into hers.

"You're right," she said. "There's no use waiting. I'm sorry. I can't."

Something faded from his face. He looked at her fixedly for a moment and then rose to his feet. "I wonder if you've fooled yourself as thoroughly as you have me," he said.

She made no reply, though she cringed slightly at the inference, and sat there watching him.

He lifted his shoulders and let them sink heavily, and then he cast a look about the deserted lobby. Then he turned to her again and imperceptibly inclined his head. He did not offer his hand.

"Good-bye," he said.

"Good-bye," she echoed, her lips barely moving.

She watched his broad, stolid back move slowly across the room, saw him pause for a moment at the door and then plunge resolutely through it, and then she was alone. Not a sound came to her ears. The desk by the switchboard was deserted. A bracket lamp on the wall opposite was crooked; one of the crystal pendants beneath it was broken short off. Someone had dropped a burnt match on the floor in front of the desk and it lay there in mute sacrilege. All at once the silence seemed fraught with a tumult of hateful suggestions, and, without ringing for the elevator, she sprang to her feet, rushed for the steps, and fled up to her room.

She switched on the light and stood for a moment by the table fingering an ivory paper cutter. Then she went to the window and peered out. Not a sound came to her, not a single, friendly sound. Below her the leafy branches stretched out, inert, indifferent; and below them, darkness.

"And this is the man," she thought, "from whom I have borrowed all that money."