“Over 100,000 books, do you suppose? They wouldn’t have half a million, would they?” He did not wait for an answer, he was talking to himself. “No, of course not. How many books can you take out at a time? What?”
The great shadow of his hunger bent over her; he rushed out of himself, devouring her with his questions.
“What are the girls like? Are they blonde or brunette? What?”
“Why, we have both kinds—more dark than fair, I should say.” She looked through the darkness at him, grinning.
“Are they pretty?”
“Well! I can’t say. You’ll have to draw your own conclusions, Eugene. I’m one of them, you know.” She looked at him with demure lewdness, offering herself for inspection. Then, with a laugh of teasing reproof, she said: “I believe you’re a bad boy, Eugene. I believe you’re a bad boy.”
He lighted another cigarette feverishly.
“I’d give anything for a smoke,” muttered “Miss Brown.” “I don’t suppose I could here?” She looked round her.
“Why not?” he said impatiently. “There’s no one to see you. It’s dark. What does it matter anyway?”
Little electric currents of excitement played up his spine.
“I believe I will,” she whispered. “Have you got a cigarette?”
He gave her his package; she stood up to receive the flame he nursed in his cupped hands. She leaned her heavy body against him as, with puckered face and closed eyes, she held her cigarette to the fire. She grasped his shaking hands to steady the light, holding them for a moment after.
“What,” said “Miss Brown,” with a cunning smile, “what if your mother should see us? You’d catch it!”
“She’ll not see us,” he said. “Besides,” he added generously, “why shouldn’t women smoke the same as men? There’s no harm in it.”
“Yes,” said “Miss Brown,” “I believe in being broad-minded about these things, too.”
But he grinned in the dark, because the woman had revealed herself with a cigarette. It was a sign—the sign of the province, the sign unmistakable of debauchery.
Then, when he laid his hands upon her, she came very passively into his embrace as he sat before her on the rail.
“Eugene! Eugene!” she said in mocking reproof.
“Where is your room?” he said.
She told him.
Later, Eliza came suddenly and silently out upon them, on one of her swift raids from the kitchen.
“Who’s there? Who’s there?” she said, peering into the gloom suspiciously. “Huh? Hah? Where’s Eugene? Has anyone seen Eugene?” She knew very well he was there.
“Yes, here I am,” he said. “What do you want?”
“Oh! Who’s that with you? Hah?”
“ ‘Miss Brown’ is with me.”
“Won’t you come out and sit down, Mrs. Gant?” said “Miss Brown.” “You must be tired and hot.”
“Oh!” said Eliza awkwardly, “is that you, ‘Miss Brown’? I couldn’t see who it was.” She switched on the dim porch light. “It’s mighty dark out here. Someone coming up those steps might fall and break a leg. I tell you what,” she continued conversationally, “this air feels good. I wish I could let everything go and just enjoy myself.”
She continued in amiable monologue for another half hour, her eyes probing about swiftly all the time at the two dark figures before her. Then hesitantly, by awkward talkative stages, she went into the house again.
“Son,” she said before she went, troubled, “it’s getting late. You’d better go to bed. That’s where we all ought to be.”
“Miss Brown” assented gracefully and moved toward the door.
“I’m going now. I feel tired. Good night, all.”
He sat quietly on the rail, smoking, listening to the noises in the house. It went to sleep. He went back and found Eliza preparing to retire to her little cell.
“Son!” she said, in a low voice, after shaking her puckered face reproachfully for a moment, “I tell you what—I don’t like it. It doesn’t look right—your sitting out alone with that woman. She’s old enough to be your mother.”
“She’s your boarder, isn’t she?” he said roughly, “not mine. I didn’t bring her here.”
“There’s one thing sure,” said Eliza, wounded. “You don’t catch me associating with them. I hold up my head as high as anyone.” She smiled at him bitterly.
“Well, good night, mama,” he said, ashamed and hurt. “Let’s forget about them for a while. What does it matter?”
“Be a good boy,” said Eliza timidly. “I want you to be a good boy, son.”
There was a sense of guilt in her manner, a note of regret and contrition.
“Don’t worry!” he said, turning away suddenly, wrenched bitterly, as he always was, by a sense of the childlike innocence and steadfastness that lay at the bottom of her life. “It’s not your fault if I’m not. I shan’t blame you. Good night.”
The kitchen-light went out; he heard his mother’s door click gently. Through the dark house a shaft of air blew coolly. Slowly, with thudding heart, he began to mount the stairs.
But on that dark stair, his footfalls numbed in the heavy carpet, he came squarely upon a woman’s body that, by its fragrance, like magnolia, he knew was that of Mrs. Selborne. They held each other sharply by the arms, discovered, with caught breath. She bent toward him: a few strands of her blonde hair brushed his face, leaving it aflame.
“Hush-h!” she whispered.
So they paused there, holding each other, breast to breast, the only time that they had ever touched. Then, with their dark wisdom of each other confirmed, they parted, each a sharer in the other’s life, to meet thereafter before the world with calm untelling eyes.
He groped softly back along the dark corridor until he came to the door of “Miss Brown’s” room. It was slightly ajar. He went in.
She took all his medals, all that he had won at Leonard’s school—the one for debating, the one for declaiming, the one in bronze for William Shakespeare. W. S. 1616–1916—Done for a Ducat!
He had no money to give her: she did not want much—a coin or two at a time. It was, she said, not the money: it was the principle of the thing. He saw the
