Man-woman relationships -- Fiction; Married people -- Fiction
Of course the only lie involved in all this was the warp of the whole
fabric; that he was doing it, impersonally, for the success of the show.
And that might well enough have been true. Only in this case, it
definitely wasn't. He was doing it because it would establish a personal
connection, the want of which was becoming so tormenting a thing to his
soul, between himself and this girl whom he had to order about on the
stage and call by her last name, or rather by a last name that wasn't
hers--an imagination-stirring, question-compelling, warm human creature,
who, up to now, had been as completely shut away from him as if she had
been a wax figure in a show-window.
They had reached the Randolph Street end of the avenue, and a policeman,
like Moses cleaving the Red Sea, had opened the way through the tide of
motors for a throng of pedestrians bound across the viaduct to the
Illinois Central suburban station.
"Come across here," said Galbraith taking her by the arm and stemming
this current with her. "We've got to have a minute of shelter to finish
this up in," and he led her into the north lobby of the public library.
The stale baked air of the place almost made them gasp. But, anyway, it
was quiet and altogether deserted. They could hear themselves think in
here, he said, and led the way to a marble bench alongside the
staircase.
Rose unpinned her veil and, to his surprise, because of course she was
going out in a minute, put it into her ulster pocket. But, curiously
enough, the sight of her face only intensified an impression that had
been strong on him during the last part of their walk--the impression
that she was a long way off. It wasn't the familiar contemplative brown
study, either. There was an active eager excitement about it that made
it more beautiful than ever he had seen it before. But it was as if she
were looking at something he couldn't see--listening to words he
couldn't hear.
"Well," he said a little impatiently, "are you going to do it?"
At that the glow of her was turned fairly on him. "Yes," she said, "I'm
going to do it. I suppose I mustn't thank you," she went on, "because
you say it isn't anything you're doing for me. But it is--a great thing
for me--greater than I could tell you. And I won't fail. You needn't be
afraid."
Inexplicably to him (the problem wouldn't have troubled James Randolph)
the very completeness with which she made this acknowledgment--the very
warmth of the hand-clasp with which she bound the bargain, vaguely
disappointed him--left him feeling a little flat and empty over his
victory.
He found his pocketbook and counted out a hundred and twenty dollars,
which he handed over to her. She folded it and put it away in her
wrist-bag. The glow of her hadn't faded, but once more it was turned on
something--or some one--else. It wasn't until he rose a little abruptly
from the marble bench, that she roused herself with a shake of the head,
arose too, and once more faced him.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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