“Two things are wanted by the true man—danger and play. Therefore he seeketh woman as the most dangerous of toys.”
“Women are dangerous only when you think of them as toys. When a man finds that a woman can reason,—do anything but feel,—he regards her as a menace. But the reasoning woman is really less dangerous than the other sort.”
This was more like the real thing. To talk careful abstractions like this, with beneath each abstraction its concealed personal application, to talk of woman and look in her eyes, to discuss new philosophies with their freedoms, to discard old creeds and old moralities—that was his game. Wilson became content, interested again. The girl was nimble-minded. She challenged his philosophy and gave him a chance to defend it. With the conviction, as their meal went on, that Le Moyne and his companion must surely have gone, she gained ease.
It was only by wild driving that she got back to the hospital by ten o’clock.
Wilson left her at the corner, well content with himself. He had had the rest he needed in congenial company. The girl stimulated his interest. She was mental, but not too mental. And he approved of his own attitude. He had been discreet. Even if she talked, there was nothing to tell. But he felt confident that she would not talk.
As he drove up the Street, he glanced across at the Page house. Sidney was there on the doorstep, talking to a tall man who stood below and looked up at her. Wilson settled his tie, in the darkness. Sidney was a mighty pretty girl. The June night was in his blood. He was sorry he had not kissed Carlotta good-night. He rather thought, now he looked back, she had expected it.
As he got out of his car at the curb, a young man who had been standing in the shadow of the tree-box moved quickly away.
Wilson smiled after him in the darkness.
“That you, Joe?” he called.
But the boy went on.
CHAPTER VIII
Sidney entered the hospital as a probationer early in August. Christine was to be married in September to Palmer Howe, and, with Harriet and K. in the house, she felt that she could safely leave her mother.
The balcony outside the parlor was already under way. On the night before she went away, Sidney took chairs out there and sat with her mother until the dew drove Anna to the lamp in the sewing-room and her “Daily Thoughts” reading.
Sidney sat alone and viewed her world from this new and pleasant angle. She could see the garden and the whitewashed fence with its morning-glories, and at the same time, by turning her head, view the Wilson house across the Street. She looked mostly at the Wilson house.
K. Le Moyne was upstairs in his room. She could hear him tramping up and down, and catch, occasionally, the bitter-sweet odor of his old brier pipe.
All the small loose ends of her life were gathered up—except Joe. She would have liked to get that clear, too. She wanted him to know how she felt about it all: that she liked him as much as ever, that she did not want to hurt him. But she wanted to make it clear, too, that she knew now that she would never marry him. She thought she would never marry; but, if she did, it would be a man doing a man’s work in the world. Her eyes turned wistfully to the house across the Street.
K.‘s lamp still burned overhead, but his restless tramping about had ceased. He must be reading—he read a great deal. She really ought to go to bed. A neighborhood cat came stealthily across the Street, and stared up at the little balcony with green-glowing eyes.
“Come on, Bill Taft,” she said. “Reginald is gone, so you are welcome. Come on.”
Joe Drummond, passing the house for the fourth time that evening, heard her voice, and hesitated uncertainly on the pavement.
“That you, Sid?” he called softly.
“Joe! Come in.”
“It’s late; I’d better get home.”
The misery in his voice hurt her.
“I’ll not keep you long. I want to talk to you.”
He came slowly toward her.
“Well?” he said hoarsely.
“You’re not very kind to me, Joe.”
“My God!” said poor Joe. “Kind to you! Isn’t the kindest thing I can do to keep out of your way?”
“Not if you are hating me all the time.”
“I don’t hate you.”
“Then why haven’t you been to see me? If I have done anything—” Her voice was a-tingle with virtue and outraged friendship.
“You haven’t done anything but—show me where I get off.”
He sat down on the edge of the balcony and stared out blankly.
“If that’s the way you feel about it—”
“I’m not blaming you. I was a fool to think you’d ever care about me. I don’t know that I feel so bad—about the thing. I’ve been around seeing some other girls, and I notice they’re glad to see me, and treat me right, too.” There was boyish bravado in his voice. “But what makes me sick is to have everyone saying you’ve jilted me.”
