Then one Sunday morning she saw him enter with his mother and sister and father the pew they always occupied near the front of the church. With all the eager impulsiveness of youth in love or youth imagining itself in love, Mimi felt a delightfully pleasant sensation in watching the back of Carl’s head, in being near him. She wanted to put in place the rebellious lock of hair which sprang in disarray from the top of Carl’s head like the feather from an Indian’s headdress. She wanted eagerly to talk with him again as they used to, she wanted to ramble from subject to subject in that comradely way which she missed now that the talks had been ended. The gossip which had partly led to that abrupt severance of their companionship had died down, though Mimi knew from experience that rumour, apparently dead and forgotten, was many lived and any misstep of the future could and would resurrect all previous reports. She knew they could arise again and always did, springing into life with new vigour like that mythical being whose name she could never remember who, thrown to earth, received new strength by contact with it, and entered the struggle again invigorated and more powerful than before.
To regain the friendship she had lost, however, she was willing to risk the wagging of tongues. She stood with bowed head watching Carl with irreverently slitted eyes as the services neared their close. “The Grace of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, the love of God the Father … now and forevermore, Amen!” droned the minister, his head tilted back, closed eyes raised to the low-hung ceiling.
The human impulse to talk, to move, to be saying or doing something, anything rather than endure introspection however slight, found gushing release as soon as the minister finished. Cloaks and wraps half donned as the benediction was being pronounced were adjusted and feminine hats given the final pat of arrangement, while little eddies of gusts of greeting and conversation flew back and forth. Comments, most of them admiring, were made on the sermon; inquiries, most of them perfunctory, regarding the health of those absent and those present; remarks on the weather, all the petty chitchat which serves as the mucilage that holds together everyday social relations.
Mimi maneuvred her way from the pew into the aisle, timing it so exactly that she reached the end of the seat just as the Hunters were passing up the aisle. She greeted them inclusively but her eyes were on Carl. He sought to avoid her but as his parents passed on he was left standing face to face with Mimi. She smiled easily, he somewhat embarrassedly.
“I haven’t seen you lately—that is, only at a distance,” she said. “I saw you enter Wright’s grocery rather hastily one day, though,” she added maliciously.
Carl flushed and seemed anxious to escape.
“Why should you see me?” he demanded, half angrily. “You practically told me to stay away from you just because of some silly old fools gossiping—”
“You know that isn’t the truth,” she corrected him. “But I didn’t mean for you to avoid me as though I had some sort of contagious disease.”
Carl’s aggressiveness vanished, a tortured, hurt look in his eyes.
“It’s best things go along this way, Mimi,” he pleaded. “If we can’t be the kind of friends we were, it’s wisest I stay away from you altogether.”
His earnestness, for some reason she could not explain; created within her a vague uneasiness. He went on hurriedly before she could speak, his voice lowered to prevent those near overhearing.
“I’ve done a lot of thinking during the last few weeks and I think you were right in breaking off our friendship. No, I don’t mean on account of Hilda—I wish I did care for her, it would make things easier. But I don’t and that’s all there is to it. I was happy with you, Mimi, because you made me content to go along and try to satisfy Dad by working. But now I see I was just fooling myself—I never will be an insurance man—”
“But, Carl, you’ve no right—” Mimi interrupted him.
“Right? What do I care about right? And who’s to say what is right for me and what isn’t? I’m no fool—I know pretty well what I’m doing and I know I’m a pretty rotten sort—you’ll know what I mean by that before long—as soon as the anvil chorus starts on me again.”
“Why don’t you come to see us any more, Carl? You know papa and I’ll always welcome, you.” Neither of them noticed that Mrs. Daquin had not been included.
“No—I’ve caused enough talk about you already,” he answered cryptically as he lost himself in the crowd. …
For many days Mimi thought of the talk she had had with Carl. Naturally his mysterious statements of the talk he was certain to create piqued her interest. As discreetly as she could, she sought to find out what he referred to but with no success until Mrs. Hunter called at the Daquin home a week or two later and asked to speak to Mimi, alone. Mrs. Daquin, bursting with curiosity, regretfully complied with the suggestion that she absent herself.
As soon as the door closed, Mrs. Hunter explained her mission. She prefaced her story with a disconcerting question.
“Mimi,” she demanded, her eyes fixed on Mimi’s face, “do you love my Carl?”
“Oh, Mrs. Hunter, why do you ask me such a question?” Mimi, startled, parried the query. She was amazed—she had never asked herself
