Obediently Angela let her go her way and walking over to Seventh Avenue mounted the bus, smarting a little under Jinny’s generous precautions. But presently she began to realize their value, for at 114th Street Anthony Cross entered. He sat down beside her. “I never expected to see you in my neighbourhood.”
“Oh is this where you live? I’ve often wondered.”
“As it happens I’ve just come here, but I’ve lived practically all over New York.” He was thin, restless, unhappy. His eyes dwelt ceaselessly on her face. She said a little nervously:
“It seems to me I hardly ever see you any more. What do you do with yourself?”
“Nothing that you would be interested in.”
She did not dare make the obvious reply and after all, though she did like him very much, she was not interested in his actions. For a long moment she sought for some phrase which would express just the right combination of friendliness and indifference.
“It’s been a long time since we’ve had lunch together; come and have it today with me. You be my guest.” She thought of Jinny and the possible sale of the house. “I’ve just found out that I’m going to get a rather decent amount of money, certainly enough to stand us for lunch.”
“Thank you, I have an engagement; besides I don’t want to lunch with you in public.”
This was dangerous ground. Flurried, she replied unwisely: “All right, come in some time for tea; every once in a while I make a batch of cookies; I made some a week ago. Next time I feel the mood coming on me I’ll send you a card and you can come and eat them, hot and hot.”
“You know you’ve no intention of doing any such thing. Besides you don’t know my address.”
“An inconvenience which can certainly be rectified,” she laughed at him.
But he was in no laughing mood. “I’ve no cards with me, but they wouldn’t have the address anyway.” He tore a piece of paper out of his notebook, scribbled on it. “Here it is. I have to get off now.” He gave her a last despairing look. “Oh, Angel, you know you’re never going to send for me!”
The bit of paper clutched firmly in one hand, she arrived finally at her little apartment. Naturally of an orderly turn of mind she looked about for her address book in which to write the street and number. But some unexplained impulse led her to smooth the paper out and place it in a corner of her desk. That done she took off her hat and gloves, sat down in the comfortable chair and prepared to face her thoughts.
Yesterday! Even now at a distance of twenty-four hours she had not recovered her equilibrium. She was still stunned, still unable to realize the happening of the day. Only she knew that she had reached a milestone in her life; a possible turning point. If she did not withdraw from her acquaintanceship with Roger now, even though she committed no overt act she would never be the same; she could never again face herself with the old, unshaken pride and self-confidence. She would never be the same to herself. If she withdrew, then indeed, indeed she would be the same old Angela Murray, the same girl save for a little sophistication that she had been before she left Philadelphia, only she would have started on an adventure and would not have seen it to its finish, she would have come to grips with life and would have laid down her arms at the first onslaught. Would she be a coward or a wise, wise woman? She thought of two poems that she had read in Hart’s Class-Book, an old, old book of her father’s—one of them ran:
“He either fears his fate too much
Or his deserts are small,
Who dares not put it to the touch
For fear of losing all.”
The other was an odd mixture of shrewdness and cowardice:
“He who fights and runs away
Shall live to fight another day
But he who is in battle slain
Has fallen ne’er to rise again.”
Were her deserts small or should she run away and come back to fight another day when she was older, more experienced? More experienced! How was she to get that experience? Already she was infinitely wiser, she would, if occasion required it, exercise infinitely more wariness than she had yesterday with Roger. Yet it was precisely because of that experience that she would know how to meet, would even know when to expect similar conditions.
She thought that she knew which verse she would follow if she were Jinny, but, back once more in the assurance of her own rooms, she knew that she did not want to be Jinny, that she and Jinny were two vastly different persons. “But,” she said to herself, “if Jinny were as fair as I and yet herself and placed in the same conditions as those in which I am placed her colour would save her. It’s a safeguard for Jinny; it’s always been a curse for me.”
Roger had come for her in the blue car. There were a hamper and two folding chairs and a rug stored away in it. It was a gorgeous day. “If we can,” he said, “we’ll picnic.” He was extremely handsome and extremely nervous. Angela was nervous too, though she did not show it except in the loss of her colour. She was rather plain today; to be so near the completion of her goal and yet to have to wait these last few agonizing moments, perhaps hours, was deadly. They were rather silent for a while, Roger intent on his driving. Traffic in New York is a desperate strain at all hours, at eleven in the morning it is deadly; the huge leviathan of a city is breaking into the last of its stride. For a few hours it will proceed at a
