Short stories; United States -- Social life and customs -- 20th century -- Fiction
Their car was caught in the jam. When they moved at all, it was by
inches. When at last they reached Jo's apartment they were flushed,
nervous, apprehensive. But he had not yet come in. So they waited.
No, they were not staying to dinner with their brother, they told the
relieved houseman.
Stell and Eva, sunk in rose-colored cushions, viewed the place with
disgust and some mirth. They rather avoided each other's eyes.
"Carrie ought to be here," Eva said. They both smiled at the thought
of the austere Carrie in the midst of those rosy cushions, and
hangings, and lamps. Stell rose and began to walk about restlessly.
She picked up a vase and laid it down; straightened a picture. Eva got
up, too, and wandered into the hall. She stood there a moment,
listening. Then she turned and passed into Jo's bedroom, Stell
following. And there you knew Jo for what he was.
This room was as bare as the other had been ornate. It was Jo, the
clean-minded and simplehearted, in revolt against the cloying luxury
with which he had surrounded himself. The bedroom, of all rooms in any
house, reflects the personality of its occupant. True, the actual
furniture was paneled, cupid-surmounted, and ridiculous. It had been
the fruit of Jo's first orgy of the senses. But now it stood out in
that stark little room with an air as incongruous and ashamed as that
of a pink tarlatan danseuse who finds herself in a monk's cell. None
of those wall pictures with which bachelor bedrooms are reputed to be
hung. No satin slippers. No scented notes. Two plain-backed military
brushes on the chiffonier (and he so nearly hairless!). A little
orderly stack of books on the table near the bed. Eva fingered their
titles and gave a little gasp. One of them was on gardening.
"Well, of all things!" exclaimed Stell. A book on the war, by an
Englishman. A detective story of the lurid type that lulls us to sleep.
His shoes ranged in a careful row in the closet, with a shoe tree in
every one of them. There was something speaking about them. They
looked so human. Eva shut the door on them quickly. Some bottles on
the dresser. A jar of pomade. An ointment such as a man uses who is
growing bald and is panic-stricken too late. An insurance calendar on
the wall. Some rhubarb-and-soda mixture on the shelf in the bathroom,
and a little box of pepsin tablets.
"Eats all kinds of things at all hours of the night," Eva said, and
wandered out into the rose-colored front room again with the air of one
who is chagrined at her failure to find what she has sought. Stell
followed her furtively.
"Where do you suppose he can be?" she demanded. "It's"--she glanced at
her wrist--"why, it's after six!"
And then there was a little click. The two women sat up, tense. The
door opened. Jo came in. He blinked a little. The two women in the
rosy room stood up.
"Why--Eve! Why, Babe! Well! Why didn't you let me know?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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