He thrust both hands into his trousers’ pockets, spread his feet, and stared across at the long veranda of the Sunbury House. It seemed to him that he had never been so unhappy.
‘Are you’ – Martha began; hesitated; went on – ‘were you thinking of coming around this evening?’
‘Why – it’s Thursday, ain’t it?’
‘Yes,’ she said, ‘it’s Thursday.’
‘Listen, Martha!’ Was it possible that she suspected something? But how could she! His ears were getting red again. He knew it. She must never, never know about Mamie!.. ‘Listen, I may have to go down to Mrs Arthur V. Henderson’s.’
‘Oh,’ she murmured, ‘that musicale.’
‘Yes.’ Eagerness was creeping into his voice. ‘Anne Mayer Stelton. She’s been over studying with Marchesi, you know. Mrs Henderson asked specially to have me cover it.’
‘Why don’t you go?’
‘Well – you see how it is. Of course, I’d hate – ’
‘You’d better go.’ Saying which Martha turned away down Filbert Avenue, and left him standing there.
He bit his lip; pulled at his moustache. ‘I ought to do something for her,’ he thought. ‘Buy some flowers – or a box of Devoe’s.’
This was an idle thought; for the day, Thursday, lay much too close to the financially lean end of the week to permit of flowers or candy. And he hadn’t asked anywhere for a dollar of credit these nearly two years. Still, he felt faintly the warmth of his kindly intention.
It didn’t seem altogether right to let her go like that. They had not before drifted so near a quarrel. On the farther side of the street he paused, and glanced down the avenue.
A smart trap that he had never seen before had pulled up, midway of the block. An impeccable coachman sat stiffly upon an indubitable box. A man who appeared to have reddish hair, dressed in a brown cutaway suit and Derby hat, a man with a pronounced if close-cropped red moustache and a suggestively interesting band of mourning about his left sleeve, was leaning out, gracefully, graciously, talking to – Martha. And Martha was listening.
Henry moved on, little confused pangs of quite unreasonable jealousy stabbing at his heart, and entered the business-and-editorial office of The Weekly Voice of Sunbury, where he worked.
Here he laid down the Discourses of Epictetus and asked Humphrey Weaver, untitled editor of the paper (old man Boice, the owner, would never permit any one but himself to be known by that title), for the galley proofs of the week’s ‘Personal Mention.’
He found this item: —
Mr James B. Merchant, Jr., of Greggs, Merchant & Co., was a guest of Mr and Mrs Ames at the Country Club on Saturday evening. Mr Merchant has leased for the summer the apartment of M. B. Wills, on Lower Filbert Avenue.
That was the man! James B. Merchant was a bachelor, rich, a famous cotillion leader on the South Side, Chicago, an only son of the original James B. Merchant.
And Martha had gone to the Country Club Saturday with the Ameses. This curious tension between himself and Martha had then first bordered on the acute. Mr Ames disapproved of Henry; he felt that Martha shouldn’t have gone. And now, of course, her lack of consideration for himself was leading her into new complications.
He sat moodily fingering the papers on the littered, ink-stained table that served him for a desk. He was disturbed, uncomfortable, but couldn’t settle on what seemed a proper mental attitude. He was jealous; but he mustn’t let his jealousy carry him to the point of taking a definite stand with Martha, because – well…
Life seemed very difficult.
4
The Voice office occupied what had once been a shop, opposite the hotel. The show window of plate glass now displayed the splintery rear panels of old Mr Boice’s rolltop desk, that was heaped, on top, with back numbers of the Voice, the Inter Ocean and the Congressional Record, and a pile of inky zinc etchings mounted on wood blocks.
Within, back of a railing, were Humphrey Weaver’s desk and Henry Calverly’s table.
Humphrey was tall, rather thin and angular, with a long face, long nose, long chin, swarthy complexion, and quick, quizzical brown eyes with innumerable fine wrinkles about them. When he smiled, his whole face seemed to wrinkle back, displaying many large teeth in a cavernous mouth.
Humphrey might have been twenty-five or six. He was a reticent young man, with no girl or women friends that one ever saw, a fondness for the old corn-cob that he was always scraping, filling, or smoking, and a secret passion for the lesser known laws of physics. He lived alone, in a barn back of the old Parmenter place. He had divided the upper story into living and sleeping rooms, and put in hardwood floors and simple furniture and a piano. Downstairs, in what he called his shop, were lathes, a workbench, innumerable wood-and-metal working tools, a dozen or more of heavy metal wheels set, at right angles, in circular frames, and several odd little round machines suspended from the ceiling at the ends of twisted cords. In one corner stood a number of box kites, very large ones. And there were large planes of silk on spruce frames. He was an alumnus of the local university, but had made few friends, and had never been known in the town. Henry hadn’t heard of him before the previous year, when he had taken the desk in the Voice office.
‘Say, Hen,’ – Henry looked up from his copy paper – ; ‘Mrs Henderson looked in a few minutes ago, and left a programme and a list of guests for her show to-night. She wants to be sure and have you there. You can do it, can’t you?’
Henry nodded listlessly.
‘It seems there’s to be a contralto, too – somebody that’s visiting her. She – Sister Henderson – appears to take you rather seriously, my boy. Wants you particularly to hear the new girl. One Corinne Doag. We,’ – Humphrey smoked meditatively, then finished his sentence – ‘we talked you over, the lady and I. I promised you’d come.’
At noon, the editorial staff of two lunched at Stanley’s.
‘Wha’d you and Mrs Henderson say about me?’ asked Henry, over the pie.
‘She says,’ remarked Humphrey, the wrinkles multiplying about his eyes, ‘that you have temperament. She thinks it’s a shame.’
‘What’s a shame?’ muttered Henry.
‘Whatever has happened to you. I told her you were the steadiest boy I ever knew. Don’t drink, smoke, or flirt. I didn’t add that you enter every cent you spend in that little red book; but I’ve seen you doing it and been impressed. But I mentioned that you’re the most conscientious reporter I ever saw. That started her. It seems that you’re nothing of the sort. My boy, she set you before me in a new light. You begin to appear complex and interesting.’
Still muttering, Henry said, ‘Nothing so very interesting about me.’
‘It seems that you put on an opera here – directed it, or sang it, or something. Before my time.’
‘That was Iolanthe,’ said Henry, with a momentarily complacent memory.
‘And you sang – all over the place, apparently. Why don’t you sing now?’
‘It’s too,’ – Henry was mumbling, flushing, and groping for a word – ‘too physical.’
Then, with a sudden movement that gave Humphrey a little start, the boy leaned over the table, pulled at his moustache, and asked, gloomily: ‘Listen! Do you think a man can change his nature?’
Humphrey considered this without a smile. ‘I don’t see exactly how, Hen.’
‘I mean if he’s been heedless and reckless – oh, you know, girls, debts, everything. Just crazy, sorta.’
‘Well, I suppose a man can reform. Were you a very bad lot?’ The wrinkled smile was reassuring.
‘That