Short Fiction

temporarily disembarked. Curiosity and pity bubbled out of suddenly conversing groups. People tried to help, got in the way. Then the bell rang and voices rose stridently again.

“Get her out all right?”

“Say, did you see that?”

“This damn’ company ought to⁠—”

“Did you see the man that carried her out? He was pale as a ghost, too.”

“Yes, but did you hear⁠—?”

“What?”

“That fella. That pale fella that carried her out. He was sittin’ beside her⁠—he says she’s his wife!”

---

The house was quiet. A breeze pressed back the dark vine leaves of the veranda, letting in thin yellow rods of moonlight on the wicker chairs. Jaqueline rested placidly on the long settee with her head in his arms. After a while she stirred lazily; her hand reaching up patted his cheek.

“I think I’ll go to bed now. I’m so tired. Will you help me up?”

He lifted her and then laid her back among the pillows.

“I’ll be with you in a minute,” he said gently. “Can you wait for just a minute?”

He passed into the lighted living-room, and she heard him thumbing the pages of a telephone directory; then she listened as he called a number.

“Hello, is Mr. Lacy there? Why⁠—yes, it is pretty important⁠—if he hasn’t gone to sleep.”

A pause. Jaqueline could hear restless sparrows splattering through the leaves of the magnolia over the way. Then her husband at the telephone:

“Is this Mr. Lacy? Oh, this is Mather. Why⁠—why, in regard to that matter we talked about this afternoon, I think I’ll be able to fix that up after all.” He raised his voice a little as though someone at the other end found it difficult to hear. “James Mather’s son, I said⁠—About that little matter this afternoon⁠—”

Gretchen’s Forty Winks

I

The sidewalks were scratched with brittle leaves, and the bad little boy next door froze his tongue to the iron mailbox. Snow before night, sure. Autumn was over. This, of course, raised the coal question and the Christmas question; but Roger Halsey, standing on his own front porch, assured the dead suburban sky that he hadn’t time for worrying about the weather. Then he let himself hurriedly into the house, and shut the subject out into the cold twilight.

The hall was dark, but from above he heard the voices of his wife and the nursemaid and the baby in one of their interminable conversations, which consisted chiefly of “Don’t!” and “Look out, Maxy!” and “Oh, there he goes!” punctuated by wild threats and vague bumpings and the recurrent sound of small, venturing feet.

Roger turned on the hall-light and walked into the living-room and turned on the red silk lamp. He put his bulging portfolio on the table, and sitting down rested his intense young face in his hand for a few minutes, shading his eyes carefully from the light. Then he lit a cigarette, squashed it out, and going to the foot of the stairs called for his wife.

“Gretchen!”

“Hello, dear.” Her voice was full of laughter. “Come see baby.”

He swore softly.

“I can’t see baby now,” he said aloud. “How long ’fore you’ll be down?”

There was a mysterious pause, and then a succession of “Don’ts” and “Look outs, Maxy” evidently meant to avert some threatened catastrophe.

“How long ’fore you’ll be down?” repeated Roger, slightly irritated.

“Oh, I’ll be right down.”

“How soon?” he shouted.

He had trouble every day at this hour in adapting his voice from the urgent key of the city to the proper casualness for a model home. But tonight he was deliberately impatient. It almost disappointed him when Gretchen came running down the stairs, three at a time, crying “What is it?” in a rather surprised voice.

They kissed⁠—lingered over it some moments. They had been married three years, and they were much more in love than that implies. It was seldom that they hated each other with that violent hate of which only young couples are capable, for Roger was still actively sensitive to her beauty.

“Come in here,” he said abruptly. “I want to talk to you.”

His wife, a bright-colored, Titian-haired girl, vivid as a French rag doll, followed him into the living-room.

“Listen, Gretchen”⁠—he sat down at the end of the sofa⁠—“beginning with tonight I’m going to⁠—What’s the matter?”

“Nothing. I’m just looking for a cigarette. Go on.”

She tiptoed breathlessly back to the sofa and settled at the other end.

“Gretchen⁠—” Again he broke off. Her hand, palm upward, was extended toward him. “Well, what is it?” he asked wildly.

“Matches.”

“What?”

In his impatience it seemed incredible that she should ask for matches, but he fumbled automatically in his pocket.

“Thank you,” she whispered. “I didn’t mean to interrupt you. Go on.”

“Gretch⁠—”

Scratch! The match flared. They exchanged a tense look.

Her fawn’s eyes apologized mutely this time, and he laughed. After all, she had done no more than light a cigarette; but when he was in this mood her slightest positive action irritated him beyond measure.

“When you’ve got time to listen,” he said crossly, “you might be interested in discussing the poorhouse question with me.”

“What poorhouse?” Her eyes were wide, startled; she sat quiet as a mouse.

“That was just to get your attention. But, beginning tonight, I start on what’ll probably be the most important six weeks of my life⁠—the six weeks that’ll decide whether we’re going on forever in this rotten little house in this rotten little suburban town.”

Boredom replaced alarm in Gretchen’s black eyes. She was a Southern girl, and any question that had to do with getting ahead in the world always tended to give her a headache.

“Six months ago I left the New York Lithographic Company,” announced Roger, “and went in the advertising business for myself.”

“I know,” interrupted Gretchen resentfully; “and now instead of getting six hundred a month sure, we’re living on a risky five hundred.”

“Gretchen,” said Roger sharply, “if you’ll just believe in me as hard as you can for six weeks more we’ll be rich. I’ve got a chance now to get some of the biggest accounts in the country.” He hesitated. “And for these