“Good gracious! Why, Joe, I never promised.”
“Well, we look at it in different ways; that’s all. I took it for a promise.”
Then suddenly all his carefully conserved indifference fled. He bent forward quickly and, catching her hand, held it against his lips.
“I’m crazy about you, Sidney. That’s the truth. I wish I could die!”
The cat, finding no active antagonism, sprang up on the balcony and rubbed against the boy’s quivering shoulders; a breath of air stroked the morning-glory vine like the touch of a friendly hand. Sidney, facing for the first time the enigma of love and despair sat, rather frightened, in her chair.
“You don’t mean that!”
“I mean it, all right. If it wasn’t for the folks, I’d jump in the river. I lied when I said I’d been to see other girls. What do I want with other girls? I want you!”
“I’m not worth all that.”
“No girl’s worth what I’ve been going through,” he retorted bitterly. “But that doesn’t help any. I don’t eat; I don’t sleep—I’m afraid sometimes of the way I feel. When I saw you at the White Springs with that roomer chap —”
“Ah! You were there!”
“If I’d had a gun I’d have killed him. I thought—” So far, out of sheer pity, she had left her hand in his. Now she drew it away.
“This is wild, silly talk. You’ll be sorry tomorrow.”
“It’s the truth,” doggedly.
But he made a clutch at his self-respect. He was acting like a crazy boy, and he was a man, all of twenty-two!
“When are you going to the hospital?”
“Tomorrow.”
“Is that Wilson’s hospital?”
“Yes.”
Alas for his resolve! The red haze of jealousy came again. “You’ll be seeing him every day, I suppose.”
“I dare say. I shall also be seeing twenty or thirty other doctors, and a hundred or so men patients, not to mention visitors. Joe, you’re not rational.”
“No,” he said heavily, “I’m not. If it’s got to be someone, Sidney, I’d rather have it the roomer upstairs than Wilson. There’s a lot of talk about Wilson.”
“It isn’t necessary to malign my friends.” He rose.
“I thought perhaps, since you are going away, you would let me keep Reginald. He’d be something to remember you by.”
“One would think I was about to die! I set Reginald free that day in the country. I’m sorry, Joe. You’ll come to see me now and then, won’t you?”
“If I do, do you think you may change your mind?”
“I’m afraid not.”
“I’ve got to fight this out alone, and the less I see of you the better.” But his next words belied his intention. “And Wilson had better lookout. I’ll be watching. If I see him playing any of his tricks around you—well, he’d better look out!”
That, as it turned out, was Joe’s farewell. He had reached the breaking-point. He gave her a long look, blinked, and walked rapidly out to the Street. Some of the dignity of his retreat was lost by the fact that the cat followed him, close at his heels.
Sidney was hurt, greatly troubled. If this was love, she did not want it—this strange compound of suspicion and despair, injured pride and threats. Lovers in fiction were of two classes—the accepted ones, who loved and trusted, and the rejected ones, who took themselves away in despair, but at least took themselves away. The thought of a future with Joe always around a corner, watching her, obsessed her. She felt aggrieved, insulted. She even shed a tear or two, very surreptitiously; and then, being human and much upset, and the cat startling her by its sudden return and selfish advances, she shooed it off the veranda and set an imaginary dog after it. Whereupon, feeling somewhat better, she went in and locked the balcony window and proceeded upstairs.
Le Moyne’s light was still going. The rest of the household slept. She paused outside the door.
“Are you sleepy?”—very softly.
There was a movement inside, the sound of a book put down. Then: “No, indeed.”
“I may not see you in the morning. I leave tomorrow.”
“Just a minute.”
From the sounds, she judged that he was putting on his shabby gray coat. The next moment he had opened the door and stepped out into the corridor.
“I believe you had forgotten!”
“I? Certainly not. I started downstairs a while ago, but you had a visitor.”
“Only Joe Drummond.”
