Millions for thousands!
He was thinking now not of persons but of dollars.
Millions for thousands.
He paused at a news stand. Sprawled over it were specimens of the new sort of periodical, the moving-picture magazines. So the publishers, like the theatrical men, were being driven back by the invader.
He bought the fattest, most brightly colored of these publications and turned the pages eagerly as he descended into the station.
He stood half-hidden behind a pillar, his eyes wandering from the magazine to the ticket gate where Hy and the two girls would appear, then back to the magazine. Those pages reeked of enthusiasm, fresh ideas, prosperity. They stirred new depths within his soul.
He saw his little party coming in through the gate.
The two girls wore sweaters. Their skirts were short, their tan shoes low and flat of heel.
They were attractive, each in her individual way; Sue less regular as to features, but brighter, slimmer, more alive. Betty’s more luxurious figure was set off almost too well by the snug sweater. As she moved, swaying a little from the hips, her eyelids drooping rather languidly, the color stirring faintly under her fair fine skin, she was, Peter decided, unconscious neither of the sweater nor of the body within it… Just before the train roared in, while Sue, all alertness, was looking out along the track, Peter saw Hy’s hand brush Betty’s. For an instant their fingers intertwined; then the hands drifted casually apart.
CHAPTER VIII – SUE WALKS OVER A HILL
PETER joined them – a gloomy man, haunted by an anonymous letter. Sue was matter-of-fact. It seemed to Hy that she made some effort to put the well-known playwright more nearly at his ease.
They lurched, an hour’s ride out in Northern New Jersey, at a little motorists’ tavern that Hy guided them to. They sat on a shaded veranda while the men smoked cigars and the girls smoked cigarettes. After which they set forth on what was designed to be a four-hour tramp through the hills to another railroad – Sue and Peter ahead (as it turned out); Hy and Betty lagging behind.
The road curved over hills and down into miniature valleys. There were expanses of plowed fields, groves of tall bare trees, groups of farmhouses. Robins hopped beside the road. The bright sun mitigated the crisp sting in the air. A sense of early spring touched eye and ear and nostril.
Peter felt it; breathed more deeply; actually smiled.
Sue threw back her head and hummed softly.
Hy and Betty dropped farther and farther behind.
Once Sue turned and waved them on; then stood and laughed with sheer good humor at their deliberate, unrhythmical step.
“Come on,” she said to Peter “They don’t get it – the joy of it. You have to walk with a steady swing. It takes you a mile or two, at that, to get going. When I’m in my stride, it carries me along so I hate to stop at all. You know, you can’t pick it up again right off – the real swing. Walking is a game – a fine game!”
Peter didn’t know. He had never thought of walking as a game. He played golf a little, tennis a little less. It had always been difficult for him to hold his mind on these unimportant pursuits. But he found himself responding eagerly.
“You’ve gone in a lot for athletics,” said he, thinking of the lightness, the sheer ease, with which she had moved about the little Crossroads stage.
“Oh, yes – at school and college – basket ball, running, fencing, dancing and this sort of thing. Dancing especially. I’ve really worked some at that, you know.”
“Yes,” said he moodily, “I know.”
They swung down into a valley, over a bridge, up the farther slope, through a notch and out along a little plateau with a stream winding across it.
Peter found himself in some danger of forgetting his earnest purpose. He could fairly taste the fresh spring air. He could not resist occasionally glancing sidelong at his companion and thinking – “She is great in that sweater!” A new soft magic was stealing in everywhere among what he had regarded as his real thoughts and ideas. Once her elbow brushed his; and little flames rose in his spirit… She walked like a boy. She talked like a boy. She actually seemed to think like a boy. The Worm’s remark came to him, with an odd stabbing effect… “We haven’t got around to ‘the complete life’ yet!”
She quite bewildered him. For she distinctly was not a boy. She was a young woman. She couldn’t possibly be so free from thoughts of self and the drama of life, of man and the all-conquering urge of nature! As a dramatist, as a student of women, he knew better. No, she couldn’t – no more than “friend Betty” back there, philandering along with Hy, The Worm had guaranteed her innocence… but the Worm notoriously didn’t understand women. No, it couldn’t be true. For she had broken away from her folks. She did live with the regular bunch in the Village. She did undoubtedly know her Strindberg and Freud. She had taken up public dancing and acting. She did smoke her cigarettes – had smoked one not half an hour back, publicly, on the veranda of a road house! … He felt again the irritation she had on other occasions stirred in him.
He slowed down, tense with this bewilderment. He drew his hand across his forehead.
Sue went on a little ahead; then stopped, turned and regarded him with friendly concern!
“Anything the matter?”
“No – oh, no!”
“Perhaps we started too soon after lunch.”
She was babying him!
“No – no… I was thinking of something!..”
Almost angrily he struck out at a swift pace. He would show her who was the weakling in this little party! He would make her cry for mercy!
But she struck out with him. Swinging along at better than four miles an hour they followed the road into another valley and for a mile or two along by a bubbling brook.
It was Peter who slackened first. His feet began hurting: an old trouble with his arches. And despite the tang in the air, he was dripping with sweat. He mopped his forehead and made a desperate effort to breathe easily.
Sue was a thought flushed, there was a shine in her eyes; she danced a few steps in the road and smiled happily.
“That’s the thing!” she cried. “That’s the way I love to move along!”
Apparently she liked him better for walking like that. It really seemed to make a difference. He set his teeth and struck out again, saying – “All right. Let’s have some more of it, then!” And sharp little pains shot through his insteps.
“No,” said she, “it’s best to slow down for a while. I like to speed up just now and then. Besides, I’ve got something on my mind. Let’s talk.” He walked in silence, waiting.
“It’s about that other talk we had,” said she. “It has bothered me since. I told you your plays were dreadful. You remember?”
He laughed shortly. “Oh, yes; I remember.”
“There,” said she, “I did hurt you. I must have been perfectly outrageous.”
He made no reply to this; merely mopped his forehead again and strode along. The pains were shooting above the insteps now, clear up into the calves of his legs.
“I ought to have made myself plainer,” said she. “I