It was as though it were yesterday he had stood waiting eagerly for some word from Margot’s room. As he had heard her agony he had hated this newcomer who was causing his Margot to descend into the shadows. When finally he had been admitted to the room he had rushed to the bed, refusing even to look at the intruder, and had fallen on his knees weeping bitter tears of suffering and relief. He had taken a solemn oath Margot would never go through the ordeal again, an oath which later the doctor had confirmed as necessary—another child would have killed Margot. … The years of happiness the three of them had spent together came back to him. The first step, the first word, the first tooth. Long walks wandering through the old winding streets of New Orleans, little fat hands clutching his and Margot’s fingers. The first days of school. Margot’s illness and death. A sharp pain went through him that shook him like a convulsion.
“What’s the matter? Sick?” inquired Mrs. Daquin. “No—I’m all right,” he whispered, resenting the intrusion into his reverie of her who had come after Margot.
The years of indecision, days followed by lonely nights when he had sought to achieve oblivion in the mottled green wineglass. Mary. The coming to Atlanta. Years of discontent. Years of unhappiness. He was better off, materially, of course. He had made money, it’s true, but he wondered if he would have even held his job had it not been backed by Mary’s father with his money and his influence. Good Lord, he had been slowly achieving the respectable status of solid citizenry under the combined urging and guidance of Mary and Mr. Robertson. And what was it all worth? Was any of this petty striving and scrambling worth half the things it took out of you?
And Mimi—she had grown away from him, too. There was between them of course the old affection—he never doubted that for a minute. But the little ways that revealed the bond beneath, they were becoming fewer each passing year. Oh, well, she is young, he thought, while I’m old and away behind the new generation. He was proud of her, nevertheless. As she marched from the chapel and passed successively the long, narrow windows, the sun streaming in had made her beautiful hair burst into a wild, exotic, flaming red beauty. It stood out against the blacks and browns of the heads of the other girls like a radiant setting sun in a sky of rain clouds. He was happy she was so pretty—he hoped she’d be married before he joined Margot. He had watched the little ways, the growth of tiny revealments of the warm blood which coursed beneath Mimi’s laughing exterior. He was afraid, terribly afraid, of leaving her alone. Alone? Yes, he concluded, that’s exactly what would be the case if anything happened to me. Mary and Mimi would never agree were he not there. …
“Come on, Jean,” Mary roused him. “It’s all over. … Oh, how do you do, Mrs. Lewis? Yes, it’s sad, in a way, to see our little Mimi become a young woman right before your very eyes. Yes, she did look nice … and she’s a dear—Mr. Daquin and I adore her.—Oh, thank you so much, Mr. Thompson.—Where’s Mrs. Thompson?—There she is! My dear, that was a beautiful gift you sent. I was just thanking your husband for it but I want to thank you both. …”
Here, there, everywhere Mrs. Daquin nodded or flung a cheerful, religiously proper phrase. Jean and Mimi owe all this to me, she was thinking. It was I who brought them into a civilized community. …
It was that summer that Carl Hunter came home. Mr. Hunter told Jean why.
“That boy’s been there at school all these years, spending money and having a good time. I told him if he flunked any more of his studies he would have to come home and work. I guess he thought I was fooling but he’ll see whether I am or not. Either he’s going to come back here and work or else I’m through with him.”
“Aren’t you a little hard on the boy?” Jean ventured to inquire. “He’s young yet—hasn’t found himself—he’ll come around in time. …”
“Come around?” Mr. Hunter snorted. “He’s twenty-three now, and when I was his age I had been working for six years. No, I’m through coddling him and he’s got to strike out for himself or go under. …”
It was at a picnic late in June that Mimi saw Carl again. She remembered the curt manner in which he had greeted her at the party years before and she found on seeing him again that she still resented the cavalier way in which he had acted. She determined to treat him with the same coolness and lack of interest. As he spied her and Hilda a three-piece orchestra began to play in the covered pavilion.
“Hello,” he casually greeted them both. Mimi stiffened, it was the same word he had used five years before.
“How do you do?” she questioned but in a tone that said plainly she did not expect nor did she want an answer to her inquiry.
Carl grinned.
“My! You’re upstagy. Will you dance with me?”
“Thanks, no. You’d better dance with Hilda,” was Mimi’s answer as she turned away.
Hilda had stood there, saying nothing, but fighting to keep her eyes free from tears. She felt the electrical current that flashed between the two of her friends heavily charged with antagonism—but Hilda was too wise to let that ill feeling reassure her. His five years’ absence had not changed Carl—she knew he cared
