There was a frightened look in her eyes and a sickened feeling at the pit of her stomach which did not lessen when he came close to her and said, “Poor child, I’m going to leave you.”
“No, you aren’t,” her voice was grim. “Come on out in the kitchen.”
And when he followed her into that retreat of theirs, she closed the door after them, disregarding the fact that the head nurse was liable to come on the ward at any minute. He thoughtfully put some bread and milk on the table near her so that if anyone did open the door suddenly it might appear as though she was breaking one of the minor rules of the hospital in eating on the ward. Then he took her in his arms.
“How can I leave you?” he said softly. “You seem to be a part of my heart now after these months—just a little part,” he teased her. “But it’s hard to cut it away. And I’m going to.”
“You won’t.”
“But I’ve got to. What in hell would I do with a woman around?”
“I don’t care. I’m just going to tag around after you from now on. If you go away I’ll go too. I can’t live without you and I don’t intend to stay here and suffer. You can run away all you want to, but I’ll just run after you, all over, wherever you go.”
“Silly little thing. What would you do in a lumber camp or harvest field? You wouldn’t last a minute. You can only endure the work here because of your morbid interest in it.”
June ignored the last part of his speech. “Where are you going? To the wheat fields? Oh God, I couldn’t stand your going away.” And her eyelashes were wet with the tears she pressed back.
“My sweetheart! Do you suppose I could go as far away as that? No I shall have to get out of your clutches gradually.”
“Where are you going then?”
“Me and my old sidekick, who’s still down in Caracas, have an apartment together here in New York which we subrented when we went away. The tenants are getting out now and I’ve found a respectable job acting the part of a drunkard in a play which is going on in a couple of weeks, and I’ve saved enough money from the job here to live for as long as that. Hip hip! I can loaf for a while.”
All that day she fought hard to keep from showing the bitter sorrow that was in her heart. It had to turn out right, she kept telling herself. It would turn out all right. She had to have him. She kept her head bent to hide her red-rimmed eyes. But she found herself dropping tears in the glasses of medicines on her tray.
Later in the day, Dick came into the linen room where she was hunting for sheets and while her hands were full took her face between his hands and kissed her and looked at her for a long time. “I know—you are mine. It was meant that I should love you so it’s no use fighting.” He slipped a little card down the bosom of her dress. “I find I can get off now, before supper, so I’m leaving. That’s my address that I’m giving you. Let your conscience be your guide.” And he kissed her again, a hard kiss and went away humming.
The time came for a consultation with the family. Not that Mr. Henreddy was called in to give his opinion or that the two brothers that June had not seen for such a long time were written to and asked for advice. It was a woman’s affair, June thought. Even young Glubb, who was now called James because he went to school, was left out of it. It is true that Adele and June installed a modern educational system in the household for his benefit and insisted that at the age of four he should be told how the buttercup family grew, at six, how the fishes produced their young and at seven, how men and women cohabited. He had now finished the course of biology recommended for little ones by Margaret Sanger, but nevertheless he occasionally came to his mother and asked her what certain words meant. So it was considered that he was still too young to be included in this family secret.
That was what it became—a secret, between Mother Grace and Adele and June.
It was easy enough to tell Adele about it. She was a serious and receptive young person and though not without a certain dry sense of humor, she was willing to take people and their intentions seriously. She might not approve of what one was about to do. But she would give it her most earnest consideration and the heartfelt hope that it would turn out for the best.
“You know … Dick … I’m going to live with him,” June announced rather jerkily that night after the weekly lecture on dietetics. The two had been comparing the notes they had taken and Adele had already concluded from the pages missing in June’s notebook that her attention in class had wavered often.
“June! You don’t really mean it, do you? I know you’ve always said you would live with a man rather than marry him, but I don’t know—it’s kind of a shock.”
“Yes, I’m going to leave tomorrow morning. I didn’t know before or I would have told you. Dick just told me he was going this morning. So I’m going too.
“I’m not going to tell you or mother our address for fear you might have a conscience-stricken impulse suddenly to come and urge Dick to make an honest woman of me and all that sort of thing. As a matter of fact, he’s not seducing me, I’m seducing him. So there
