Chains : $b lesser novels and storiesDreiser, Theodore
General
Chains : $b lesser novels and stories
Dreiser, Theodore
American fiction -- 20th century; Short stories, American
Bergley Place was a cross street two doors from where they lived on
Winton. And just around the corner in Bergley, was an old vacant
residence with a deal of shrubbery and four overarching trees in front,
which made it very dark there at night. That night as he was coming
home from Mr. Harris Cohn’s—(he had told Beryl that he was going to the
lodge, in order to throw her off and had come home earlier in order
to see what he might see) and just as he was stepping off the Nutley
Avenue car which turned into Marko Street, about half a block above
where they lived whom should he see—But, no, let us put it this way.
Just at that moment or a moment later as he turned toward his home an
automobile that had been going the same way he was along Winton swung
into Bergley Place and threw its exceptionally brilliant lights on
a big closed automobile that was standing in front of the old house
aforementioned. There were two vacant corner lots opposite the old
house at Bergley and Winton and hence it was that he could see what
was going on. Near the rear of the automobile, just as though she had
stepped out of it and was about to leave, stood Beryl—or, he certainly
thought it was Beryl, talking to some one in the car, just as one would
before parting and returning into the house. She had on a hooded cape
exactly like the one she wore at times though not often. She did not
like hooded capes any more. They were out of style. Just the same so
sure had he been that it was Beryl and that at last he had trapped her
that he hurried on to the house or, rather, toward the car. But just
as he neared the corner the lights of the car that had been standing
there lightless flashed on for a second—then off and then sped away.
Yet even with them on there had not been enough light to see whether
it was Beryl, or who. Or what the number on the license plate was. It
was gone and with it Beryl, presumably up the alley way and into the
back door or so he had believed. So sure was he that she had gone that
way that he himself had gone that way. Yet when he reached the rear
door following her, as he chose to do, it was locked and the kitchen
was dark. And he had to rap and pound even before she came to let him
in. And when she did there she was looking as though she had not been
out at all, undressed, ready for bed and wanting to know why he chose
to come that way! And asking him not to make so much noise for fear of
waking Tickles...!
Think of it. Not a trace of excitement. No cape with a hood on. The
light up in the dining-room and a book on the table as though she might
have been reading—one of those novels by that fellow Barclay. And not a
sign about anywhere that she might have been out—that was the puzzling
thing. And denying that she had been out or that she had seen any car,
or anything. Now what would you make of that!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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