Laura made a murmur of mild assent.
“He was disappointed, too,” continued Mrs. Cressler. “I could see that. He thought the play was going to interest a lot of our church people in his Sunday school. But he never said a word when it fizzled out. Is he coming tonight?”
“Well I declare,” said Laura. “How should I know, if you don’t?”
Jadwin was an almost regular visitor at the Cresslers’ during the first warm evenings. He lived on the South Side, and the distance between his home and that of the Cresslers was very considerable. It was seldom, however, that Jadwin did not drive over. He came in his double-seated buggy, his negro coachman beside him the two coach dogs, Rex and Rox, trotting under the rear axle. His horses were not showy, nor were they made conspicuous by elaborate boots, bandages, and all the other solemn paraphernalia of the stable, yet men upon the sidewalks, amateurs, breeders, and the like—men who understood good stock—never failed to stop to watch the team go by, heads up, the check rein swinging loose, ears all alert, eyes all alight, the breath deep, strong, and slow, and the stride, machine-like, even as the swing of a metronome, thrown out from the shoulder to knee, snapped on from knee to fetlock, from fetlock to pastern, finishing squarely, beautifully, with the thrust of the hoof, planted an instant, then, as it were, flinging the roadway behind it, snatched up again, and again cast forward.
On these occasions Jadwin himself inevitably wore a black slouch hat, suggestive of the general of the Civil War, a grey dust overcoat with a black velvet collar, and tan gloves, discoloured with the moisture of his palms and all twisted and crumpled with the strain of holding the thoroughbreds to their work.
He always called the time of the trip from the buggy at the Cresslers’ horse block, his stop watch in his hand, and, as he joined the groups upon the steps, he was almost sure to remark: “Tugs were loose all the way from the river. They pulled the whole rig by the reins. My hands are about dislocated.”
“Page plays very well,” murmured Mrs. Cressler as the young girl laid down her mandolin. “I hope J. does come tonight,” she added. “I love to have him ’round. He’s so hearty and whole-souled.”
Laura did not reply. She seemed a little preoccupied this evening, and conversation in the group died away. The night was very beautiful, serene, quiet; and, at this particular hour of the end of the twilight, no one cared to talk much. Cressler lit another cigar, and the filaments of delicate blue smoke hung suspended about his head in the moveless air. Far off, from the direction of the mouth of the river, a lake steamer whistled a prolonged tenor note. Somewhere from an open window in one of the neighbouring houses a violin, accompanied by a piano, began to elaborate the sustained phrases of “Schubert’s Serenade.” Theatrical as was the theme, the twilight and the muffled hum of the city, lapsing to quiet after the febrile activities of the day, combined to lend it a dignity, a persuasiveness. The children were still playing along the sidewalks, and their staccato gaiety was part of the quiet note to which all sounds of the moment seemed chorded.
After a while Mrs. Cressler began to talk to Laura in a low voice. She and Charlie were going to spend a part of June at Oconomowoc, in Wisconsin. Why could not Laura make up her mind to come with them? She had asked Laura a dozen times already, but couldn’t get a yes or no answer from her. What was the reason she could not decide? Didn’t she think she would have a good time?
“Page can go,” said Laura. “I would like to have you take her. But as for me, I don’t know. My plans are so unsettled this summer.” She broke off suddenly. “Oh, now, that I think of it, I want to borrow your Idylls of the King. May I take it for a day or two? I’ll run in and get it now,” she added as she rose. “I know just where to find it. No, please sit still, Mr. Cressler. I’ll go.”
And with the words she disappeared in doors, leaving Mrs. Cressler to murmur to her husband:
“Strange girl. Sometimes I think I don’t know Laura at all. She’s so inconsistent. How funny she acts about going to Oconomowoc with us!”
Mr. Cressler permitted himself an amiable grunt of protest.
“Pshaw! Laura’s all right. The handsomest girl in Cook County.”
“Well, that’s not much to do with it, Charlie,” sighed Mrs. Cressler. “Oh, dear,” she added vaguely. “I don’t know.”
“Don’t know what?”
“I hope Laura’s life will be happy.”
“Oh, for God’s sake, Carrie!”
“There’s something about that girl,” continued Mrs. Cressler, “that makes my heart bleed for her.”
Cressler frowned, puzzled and astonished.
“Hey—what!” he exclaimed. “You’re crazy, Carrie!”
“Just the same,” persisted Mrs. Cressler, “I just yearn towards her sometimes like a mother. Some people are born to trouble, Charlie; born to trouble, as the sparks fly upward. And you mark my words, Charlie Cressler, Laura is that sort. There’s all the pathos in the world in just the way she
