...'
'Don't you think,' Gertrude said gently, 'it was always his imagination? I should venture to say that if one simply didn't mention . . .'
'There's very little veal,' Isabel said. 'It's nearly all beef.'
Josephine looked from one to the other.
Maud roused herself. 'Why don't we have dinner?' she shouted. 'What are we waiting for?'
Josephine grimaced and pointed upstairs.
'Don't know what you mean,' Maud said stubbornly. 'Where's dinner? Why ain't it on the table? Write it down.'
Alice closed the bathroom door upon herself vnth sagging relief. Innes had kissed her in the hall. 'You're so pretty,' he said. 'Well go on right after dinner. Right after dinner.' He was in his spirits, but this was meant for comfort and as comfort she took it. Nevertheless, the bathroom was sanctuary. Here, for a few moments at least, she would be alone and away from any members of the Whitiock family. Perhaps she could get in touch with Alice Brennan, that independent young woman with such firm ideas of her own, who seemed to have evaporated, who seemed to have been for many hours a mere echo, an echoing mirror, a copy of something called a young lady.
As she splashed cold water on her face, she heard the whir of a starter, pulled the bliad aside, and saw the big gray car slip around a segment of the drive visible from this side window. It was running all right. The tail light winked at her.
Thank God, she thought, this is only for an hour or so more. Only for dinner. Right after dinner, Innes said, they'd be away. They would push on north. It would be dark, of course. She and Innes would sit side by side in the dark. They would come to the bad road in the dark and then at the end of it. . .
Alice leaned against the marble washbowl and looked at her fear in the glass. This was strange. Why must she tell herself these future steps, one by one? Because she could not see them. She couldn't imagine. Always, almost always, there persisted in her mind a view ahead, an outline of what was going to happen next. Vague, perhaps, but with clearly imagined spots in it. Arrival at a destination. Pieces of a plan. Pictures.
Only once before had she felt this blankness, this loss of the previewing sense, this chopping off of the antennae of her mind as they went forward into the future. That had been when she had been driving home from a dance with a gang, and she could not see herself getting home. The picture wasn't there. As now, she couldn't imagine it. It remained imimagined, an empty plan, without images, without faith.
That night the car had hit a tree and turned over.
Maybe I'm going to die, this time, she thought. Then, with a rush of her misery and her bitterness, 'What the hell difference would it make?' she said aloud. And what difference would it make, indeed, when she was going to marry Innes Whitlock and not Art Killeen, ever?
In the long hall, on her way back, she met the chaufeur.
'Miss Brennan?'
'Yes.' She kept her scrubbed face turned away.
''Congratulations.' She turned her head angrily. His hand with the long thin fingers was held out to her.
'It's not proper to congratulate the girl,' she said rudely. 'Don't you know any better? Congratulate the man, but wish her happiness.'
'Is that so?' he murmured mildly.
'Yes, of com'se,' she said. It was not until she had closed the door of her room that she recognized his innocent mildness for the sham it was, and what he had said and meant came back to her like an echo.
He had meant to congratulate her.
Alice set firm and defiant feet on the stairs, going down, but there was a carpet. She could hear their voices in the parlor.
Gertrude's flute: 'Of course Innes is Susan's son so it can't matter as much, you know. And indeed, it's possible that quite nice girls go into business these modem days.''
Isabel's monotone: 'You know very little about it. She's very young. Much too young for Lmes. Innes ought...
Maud, crashing in: 'Say, Innes'll have twins before the year is out. Litde heirs. Little sons and heirs. I think she's pregnant.' Maud's laughter.
Isabel said, 'Oh, be quiet!'
Gertrude, a soft soprano ripple: 'Someone is on the stairs.'
Maud, harshly: 'Getting touchy, Innes is. And you won't get any . . . Eh? What?'
Isabel, in the archway: 'Come in. Miss Brennan. My dear, I meant to say Alice, of course. Come in, my dear. Dinner will be served in a few minutes now. As soon as ' Innes is down. Did you find what you needed?'
'Yes, indeed.' Smiling, her head high, Alice walked into then: parlor. They turned toward her. Their heads on their necks were three stalks in the same wind.
'And when do you plan to be manied?' said Isabel.
'Yes,' said Gertrude, ''we are so interested. Have you set a day?'
'Say, Alice Brennan,' said Maud, 'that's your name, ain't it? When is the wedding? How soon, eh?'
'Oh, quite soon,' said Alice carelessly. 'There's no reason to wait.' She took Maud's pad.
