For another hour she thought of many things she might have done differently. She might have walked past the office of Clark & Hayward, meeting him as if by accident when he came out. But that might have annoyed him. She might have gone to some of the cafés for tea on the chance of meeting him there. But there were so many cafés! He must be dining in one of them now, and she could not know which one. She could not know who might be dining with him.
“Helen Davies Kennedy, stop it! Stop it!” she said aloud. She was a little quieter then, walking to the window, and standing there, gazing down at the street. Her heart beat suffocatingly at the sight of each machine that passed; she thought, until it went by, that he might be in it.
It was the old agony again, and weariness and contempt for herself were mingled with her pain. So many times she had waited, as she was waiting now, and always he had come back to her, laughing at her hysteria. Why could she not learn to bear it more easily? She might have to wait until midnight, until later than midnight. She set her teeth.
The sudden peal of the telephone-bell in the dark room startled a smothered cry from her. She ran, stumbling against the table, and the receiver shook at her ear; but her voice was steady and pleasant.
“Yes?”
“Helen? Bert. I’m going south tonight on the Lark. Pack my suitcases and ship ’em express to Bakersfield, will you?”
“What? Yes, yes. Right away. Are you—will you—be gone long?”
His voice was going on, jubilant:
“Trust your Uncle Dudley to put it over! D’you know what I got from the tightest firm in town? Unlimited letter of credit! Get that ‘unlimited’?
“Oh Bert!”
“It’s the biggest land proposition ever put out in the West! Ripley Farmland Acres! I’m going to put them on the map in letters a mile high! Believe me, I’m going to wake things up! There’s half a million in it for me if it’s handled right, and, believe me, I’m some little handler!”
“I know you are! O Bert, how splendid!”
“All right. Get the suitcases off early—here’s my train. Bye-bye.”
“Wait a minute—when’re you coming back? Can’t I come, too?”
“Not yet. I’ll let you know. Oh, d’you want some money?”
“Well—I haven’t got much—but that isn’t—”
“Send you a check. From now on I’m made of money—so long—”
“Bert dear—” she cried, against the click of a closed receiver. Then with a long, relaxing sigh she slowly put down the telephone. After a moment she went into the bedroom, switched on the lights, and began to pack shirts and collars into his bags. She was smiling, because happiness and hope had come back to her; but her hands shook, for she was exhausted.
It was thirty-two days before she heard from him again. A postdated check for a hundred dollars, crushed into an envelope and mailed on the train, had come back to her, and that was all. But she assured herself that he was too busy to write. The month went by slowly, but it was not unbearably dreary, for she was able to keep uneasy doubts in check, and to live over in her memory many happy hours with him. She planned, too, the details of the house they would have if this time he really did make a great deal of money. He would give her a house, she knew, whenever he could do it easily and carelessly.
When the telephone awakened her one night at midnight her first thought was that he had come back. She was struggling into a negligee and snatching a fresh lace cap from a drawer when it rang again and undeceived her.
Long distance from Coalinga had a call for her and wished her to reverse charges. She repeated the name uncertainly, and the voice repeated: “Call from Mr. Kennedy in Coalinga—”
“Oh, yes, yes! Yes. I’ll pay for it. Yes, it’s OK.” She waited nervously in the darkness until his voice came faintly to her.
“Hello, Helen! Bert. Listen. Have you got any money?”
“About thirty dollars.”
“Well, listen, Helen. Wire me twenty, will you? I’ve got to have it right away.”
“Of course. Very first thing in the morning. Are you all right?”
“Am I all right? Good God, Helen! do you think anybody’s all right when he hasn’t got any money? We’ve just got into this rotten burg; been driving all day long and half the night across a desert hotter than the hinges of the main gate, and not a drink for a hundred and forty—” His voice blurred into a buzzing on the wire, and she caught disconnected words: “Skinflints—over on me—they’ve got another guess—piker stunt—”
She reiterated loudly that she would send the money, and heard central relaying the words. Nothing more came over the wire, though she rattled the receiver. At last she went back to bed, to lie awake till dawn came.
She was waiting at the telegraph-office when the money-order department opened. After she had sent the twenty dollars she tried to drink a cup of coffee, and walked quickly back to the apartment. She felt that she should be able to think of something to do, some action she could take which would help Bert, and many wild schemes rushed through her feverish brain. But she knew that she could do nothing but wait.
The telephone-bell was ringing when she reached her door. It seemed an eternity before she could reach it. Again she assured central that she would pay the charges, and heard his voice. He wanted to know why she had not sent the money, then when she had sent it, then why it had not arrived. He talked a great deal, impatiently, and she saw that his high-strung temperament had been excited to a frenzy by disasters which in her ignorance of business she could not know. Her heart ached with a passion of sympathy and
