Peter started the coffee machine, smiling as he worked. A sense of deep utter calm was flowing into his harassed spirit, pervading it. He went into the bedroom and gazed with tolerant concern at the downcast Hy. “The trouble with you, my boy,” he began, then paused. “What's the trouble with me?” growled Hy. “The trouble with you, my boy, is that you don't understand women.” CHAPTER XIV--THE WORM TURNS FROM BOOKS TO LIFE |THE Worm worked hard all of this particular day at the Public Library, up at Forty-second Street and Fifth Avenue. At five o'clock he came out, paused on the vast incline of marble steps to consider the spraying fountains of pale green foliage on the terraces (it was late April) and the brilliant thronging avenue and decided not to ride down to Washington Square on an autobus, but to save the ten cents and walk. Which is how he came to meet Sue Wilde. She was moving slowly along with the stream of pedestrians, her old coat open, her big tarn o'shanter hanging down behind her head and framing her face in color. The face itself, usually vital, was pale. She turned and walked with him. She was loafing, she said listlessly, watching the crowds and trying to think. And she added: “It helps.” “Helps?” “Just feeling them crowding around--I don't know; it seems to keep you from forgetting that everybody else has problems.” Then she closed her lips on this bit of self-revelation. They walked a little way in silence. “Listen!” said she. “What are you doing?” “Half an hour's work at home clearing up my notes, then nothing. Thinking of dinner?” She nodded. “I'll meet you. Wherever you say.” “At the Muscovy, then. By seven.” She stopped as if to turn away, hesitated, lingered, gazing out with sober eyes at the confusion of limousines, touring cars and taxis that rolled endlessly by, with here and there a high green bus lumbering above all the traffic. “Maybe we can have another of our talks, Henry,” she said. “I hope so. I need it--or something.” “Sue,” said he, “you're working too hard.” She considered this, shook her head, turned abruptly away. When he reached the old bachelor rookery in the Square he did not enter, but walked twice around the block, thinking about Sue. It had disturbed him to see that tired look in her odd deep-green eyes. Sue had been vivid, striking, straightforward; fired with a finely honest revolt against the sham life into an observance of which nearly all of us, soon or late, get beaten down. He didn't want to see Sue beaten down like the rest. It was pleasant that she, too, had felt deeply about their friendship. This thought brought a thrill of the sort that had to be put down quickly; for nothing could have been plainer than, that he stirred no thrill in Sue. No, he was not in the running there. He lived in books, the Worm; and he reflected with a rather unaccustomed touch of bitterness that books are pale things. Peter, now--he had seemed lately to be in the running.