Eugene sat on the porch rail one evening and talked to her. Before, he had only nodded, or spoken stiffly a word or two. They began haltingly, aware painfully of gaps in their conversation.
“You’re from Little Richmond, aren’t you?” he said.
“Yes,” said Laura James, “do you know anyone from there?”
“Yes,” said he, “I know John Bynum and a boy named Ficklen. They’re from Little Richmond, aren’t they?”
“Oh, Dave Ficklen! Do you know him? Yes. They both go to Pulpit Hill. Do you go there?”
“Yes,” he said, “that’s where I knew them.”
“Do you know the two Barlow boys? They’re Sigma Nus,” said Laura James.
He had seen them. They were great swells, football men.
“Yes, I know them,” he said, “Roy Barlow and Jack Barlow.”
“Do you know ‘Snooks’ Warren? He’s a Kappa Sig.”
“Yes. They call them Keg Squeezers,” said Eugene.
“What fraternity are you?” said Laura James.
“I’m not any,” he said painfully. “I was just a Freshman this year.”
“Some of the best friends I have never joined fraternities,” said Laura James.
They met more and more frequently, without arrangement, until by silent consent they met every night upon the porch. Sometimes they walked along the cool dark streets. Sometimes he squired her clumsily through the town, to the movies, and later, with the uneasy pugnacity of youth, past the loafing cluster at Wood’s. Often he took her to Woodson Street, where Helen secured for him the cool privacy of the veranda. She was very fond of Laura James.
“She’s a nice girl. A lovely girl. I like her. She’s not going to take any beauty prizes, is she?” She laughed with a trace of good-natured ridicule.
He was displeased.
“She looks all right,” he said. “She’s not as ugly as you make out.”
But she was ugly—with a clean lovely ugliness. Her face was freckled lightly, over her nose and mouth: her features were eager, unconscious, turned upward in irregular pertness. But she was exquisitely made and exquisitely kept: she had the firm young line of Spring, budding, slender, virginal. She was like something swift, with wings, which hovers in a wood—among the feathery trees suspected, but uncaught, unseen.
He tried to live before her in armor. He showed off before her. Perhaps, he thought, if he were splendid enough, she would not see the ugly disorder and meanness of the world he dwelt in.
Across the street, on the wide lawn of the Brunswick—the big brick gabled house that Eliza once had coveted—Mr. Pratt, who crawled in that mean world in which only a boardinghouse husband can exist, was watering wide green spaces of lawn with a hose. The flashing water motes gleamed in the red glare of sunset. The red light fell across the shaven pinched face. It glittered on the buckles of his armbands. Across the walk, on the other lobe of grass, several men and women were playing croquet. There was laughter on the vine-hid porch. Next door, at the Belton, the boarders were assembled on the long porch in bright hash-house chatter. The comedian of the Dixie Ramblers arrived with two chorus girls. He was a little man, with the face of a weasel and no upper teeth. He wore a straw hat with a striped band, and a blue shirt and collar. The boarders gathered in around him. In a moment there was shrill laughter.
Julius Arthur sped swiftly down the hill, driving his father home. He grinned squintily and flung his arm up in careless greeting. The prosperous lawyer twisted a plump Van Dyked face on a wry neck curiously. Unsmiling, he passed.
A negress in the Brunswick struck on the several bells of a Japanese gong. There was a scramble of feet on the porch; the croquet players dropped their mallets and walked rapidly toward the house. Pratt wound his hose over a wooden reel.
A slow bell-clapper in the Belton sent the guests in a scrambling drive for the doors. In a moment there was a clatter of heavy plates and a loud foody noise. The guests on the porch at Dixieland rocked more rapidly, with low mutters of discontent.
Eugene talked to Laura in thickening dusk, sheeting his pain in pride and indifference. Eliza’s face, a white blur in the dark, came up behind the screen.
“Come on out, Mrs. Gant, and get a breath of fresh air,” said Laura James.
“Why no‑o, child. I can’t now. Who’s that with you?” she cried, obviously flustered. She opened the door. “Huh? Heh? Have you seen ’Gene? Is it ’Gene?”
“Yes,” he said. “What’s the matter?”
“Come here a minute, boy,” she said.
He went into the hall.
“What is it?” he asked.
“Why, son, what in the world! I don’t know. You’ll have to do something,” she whispered, twisting her hands together.
“What is it, mama? What are you talking about?” he cried irritably.
“Why—Jannadeau’s just called up. Your papa’s on a rampage again and he’s coming this way. Child! There’s no telling what he’ll do. I’ve all these people in the house. He’ll ruin us.” She wept. “Go and try to stop him. Head him off if you can. Take him to Woodson Street.”
He got his hat quickly and ran through the door.
“Where are you going?” asked Laura James. “Are you going off without supper?”
“I’ve got to go to town,” he said. “I won’t be long. Will you wait for me?”
“Yes,” she said.
He leaped down on the walk just as his father lurched in from the street by the high obscuring hedge that shut the house from the spacious yard of the attorney Hall. Gant reeled destructively, across a border of lilies, on to the lawn, and strode for the veranda. He stumbled, cursing, on the bottom step and plunged forward in a sprawl upon the porch. The boy jumped for him, and half dragged, half lifted his great drunken body
