profession will feel the same way.” He drew back from the stair-foot. The disagreeable interview was over. “There’s no good talking any more about it. Accusations and denials don’t get us anywhere. We’ll let it rest till I’ve made my inquiries. I’ll say good-by now and hope you’ll have a good time in the woods.” [Pg 77] [Pg 77] He turned and walked up the hall to his room on the garden front next the Stokes’. Joe gathered his luggage and went the opposite way, down the hall and into the big central apartment. He stepped with gingerly softness as if he were creeping away from something he feared might follow him. At the entrance door he set down his luggage and as he bent over it a whispered stream of curses flowed from his lips. He cursed Bassett and his luck, but Sybil with a savage variety of epithet and choice of misfortune, for she had undone him. Straightening up he looked blankly about—his inner turmoil was such he hardly knew where he was—and he retraced his steps, seeking the seclusion of his room, went up the stairs in noiseless vaulting strides like a frightened spider climbing to its web. [Pg 78] [Pg 78] V Anne had taken off her costume and slipped into a negligée to do her packing comfortably, and then decided she had better bid good-by to Joe first. Bidding good-by was not an obligation between them, but she had to get the key of his trunk—it was going back to New York with hers—and her heart in its new warmth yearned to him, her only relation. She wanted to tell him her great secret, see an answering joy leap into his face, for he thought more of Bassett than anybody, and he’d be so surprised to hear that Anne, her charms held at a low valuation, had won such a prize. Anne Her room was the first on the left side of the gallery, Joe’s next to Sybil’s on the land front of the house. She passed the long line of closed doors, voices coming from behind Mrs. Cornell’s, [Pg 79]and reaching Joe’s, knocked. A “Come in,” uninvitingly loud and harsh, answered her and she entered. Joe was sitting in a low armchair, bent forward, his hands holding a cane with which he was tapping on the floor. The bright square of the window was behind him, framing rosy sky and the green shore-line. He looked up to see who it was; then, without greeting or comment, drooped his head and went on lightly striking the cane on the carpet as if he were hammering in a nail and it required all his
Prev.
Back
Top