“I have to,” he said with sudden irritation.
“Well, at least I’m not a piece of bric-a-brac that you can just put somewhere and forget.”
He knelt down by her quickly, and took her arms in his hands.
“Gretchen, listen!” he said breathlessly. “For God’s sake, don’t go to pieces now! We’re both all stored up with malice and reproach, and if we had a quarrel it’d be terrible. I love you, Gretchen. Say you love me—quick!”
“You know I love you.”
The quarrel was averted, but there was an unnatural tenseness all through dinner. It came to a climax afterward when he began to spread his working materials on the table.
“Oh, Roger,” she protested, “I thought you didn’t have to work tonight.”
“I didn’t think I’d have to, but something came up.”
“I’ve invited George Tompkins over.”
“Oh, gosh!” he exclaimed. “Well, I’m sorry, honey, but you’ll have to phone him not to come.”
“He’s left,” she said. “He’s coming straight from town. He’ll be here any minute now.”
Roger groaned. It occurred to him to send them both to the movies, but somehow the suggestion stuck on his lips. He did not want her at the movies; he wanted her here, where he could look up and know she was by his side.
George Tompkins arrived breezily at eight o’clock.
“Aha!” he cried reprovingly, coming into the room. “Still at it.”
Roger agreed coolly that he was.
“Better quit—better quit before you have to.”
He sat down with a long sigh of physical comfort and lit a cigarette. “Take it from a fellow who’s looked into the question scientifically. We can stand so much, and then—bang!”
“If you’ll excuse me”—Roger made his voice as polite as possible—“I’m going upstairs and finish this work.”
“Just as you like, Roger.” George waved his hand carelessly. “It isn’t that I mind. I’m the friend of the family and I’d just as soon see the missus as the mister.” He smiled playfully. “But if I were you, old boy, I’d put away my work and get a good night’s sleep.”
When Roger had spread out his materials on the bed upstairs he found that he could still hear the rumble and murmur of their voices through the thin floor. He began wondering what they found to talk about. As he plunged deeper into his work his mind had a tendency to revert sharply to his question, and several times he arose and paced nervously up and down the room.
The bed was ill adapted to his work. Several times the paper slipped from the board on which it rested, and the pencil punched through. Everything was wrong tonight. Letters and figures blurred before his eyes, and as an accompaniment to the beating of his temples came those persistent murmuring voices.
At ten he realized that he had done nothing for more than an hour, and with a sudden exclamation he gathered together his papers, replaced them in his portfolio, and went downstairs. They were sitting together on the sofa when he came in.
“Oh, hello!” cried Gretchen, rather unnecessarily, he thought. “We were just discussing you.”
“Thank you,” he answered ironically. “What particular part of my anatomy was under the scalpel?”
“Your health,” said Tompkins jovially.
“My health’s all right,” answered Roger shortly.
“But you look at it so selfishly, old fella,” cried Tompkins. “You only consider yourself in the matter. Don’t you think Gretchen has any rights? If you were working on a wonderful sonnet or a—a portrait of some madonna or something”—he glanced at Gretchen’s Titian hair—“why, then I’d say go ahead. But you’re not. It’s just some silly advertisement about how to sell Nobald’s hair tonic, and if all the hair tonic ever made was dumped into the ocean tomorrow the world wouldn’t be one bit the worse for it.”
“Wait a minute,” said Roger angrily; “that’s not quite fair. I’m not kidding myself about the importance of my work—it’s just as useless as the stuff you do. But to Gretchen and me it’s just about the most important thing in the world.”
“Are you implying that my work is useless?” demanded Tompkins incredulously.
“No; not if it brings happiness to some poor sucker of a pants manufacturer who doesn’t know how to spend his money.”
Tompkins and Gretchen exchanged a glance.
“Oh‑h‑h!” exclaimed Tompkins ironically. “I didn’t realize that all these years I’ve just been wasting my time.”
“You’re a loafer,” said Roger rudely.
“Me?” cried Tompkins angrily. “You call me a loafer because I have a little balance in my life and find time to do interesting things? Because I play hard as well as work hard and don’t let myself get to be a dull, tiresome drudge?”
Both men were angry now, and their voices had risen, though on Tompkins’s face there still remained the semblance of a smile.
“What I object to,” said Roger steadily, “is that for the last six weeks you seem to have done all your playing around here.”
“Roger!” cried Gretchen. “What do you mean by talking like that?”
“Just what I said.”
“You’ve just lost your temper.” Tompkins lit a cigarette with ostentatious coolness. “You’re so nervous from overwork you don’t know what you’re saying. You’re on the verge of a nervous break—”
“You get out of here!” cried Roger fiercely. “You get out of here right now—before I throw you out!”
Tompkins got angrily to his feet.
“You—you throw me out?” he cried incredulously.
They were actually moving toward each other when Gretchen stepped between them, and grabbing Tompkins’s arm urged him toward the door.
“He’s acting like a fool, George, but you better get out,” she cried, groping in the hall for his hat.
“He insulted me!” shouted Tompkins. “He threatened to throw me out!”
“Never mind, George,” pleaded Gretchen. “He doesn’t know what he’s saying. Please go! I’ll see you at ten o’clock tomorrow.”
She opened the door.
“You won’t see him at ten o’clock tomorrow,” said Roger steadily. “He’s not coming to this house any more.”
Tompkins turned to Gretchen.
“It’s his house,” he suggested. “Perhaps we’d better meet at mine.”
Then he was gone, and Gretchen had shut the door behind him. Her eyes were full of angry tears.
“See what you’ve done!” she sobbed.
