ELDRIDGE WALCOTT paused in front of the great building; he looked up and hesitated and went in. He crossed the marble lobby and passed through the silent, swinging doors on the opposite side and stepped into a softly lighted cafÉ. He had never been in Merwin’s before, though he had often heard of it, and he was curious as to what it would be like. There was a sound of music somewhere and low voices and the tinkle of silver and glass behind the little green curtains. He entered an alcove at the left and sat down. The restfulness of the place soothed him, and he sat listening to the distant music and looking out between the parted curtains of the alcove to the room with its little tables filling the space beyond the green-curtained alcoves on either side and the people seated at the tables. They were laughing and eating and talking and drinking from delicate cups or turning slender-stemmed glasses in their fingers as they talked. Beyond the tables rose a small platform; a woman had just mounted it and was bowing to the scattered tables. The sound of voices ceased an instant and hands clapped faintly here and there. The woman on the platform bowed again and looked at the accompanist, who struck the opening bars. It was a light, trivial song with more personality than art in the singing of it, and the audience applauded perfunctorily, hardly breaking off its talk to acknowledge that it was done. The woman stepped down from the platform and joined a group at a table near by, and waiters moved among the tables, refilling cups and glasses and taking orders.
A waiter paused by the alcove where Eldridge Walcott was sitting and pushed back the little curtain and looked in and waited. Eldridge took up the card on the table before him; he fingered it a little awkwardly and laid it down: “Bring me cigars,” he said.
The waiter scribbled on a card and passed on. When he had completed the alcoves on the left he turned and went back along the right, pausing before each one and bending forward to listen and take the order on his card. As he approached the third alcove he pushed back the curtain that half concealed it at the back and bent forward. When he passed on the curtain did not fall into place; it remained caught on the back of the seat. From where Eldridge sat he could see the woman seated in the alcove. She was alone, her back to him, her head a little bent as if in thought.
He glanced at her carelessly and along the row of green curtains to the tables beyond. It was all much as he had imagined it—a place where one could spend time and money without too much exertion. It was the money part of it that interested Eldridge. His client had asked him to look into it for him as an investment, and he had decided on this informal way of appraising it. To-morrow he was to go over the books and accounts. The owners wanted a stiff price for the goodwill. It was probably worth what they were asking he decided as he watched the careless, happy crowd. People who came here were not thinking how much they could save.... It was not the sort of place he should care to come to often himself. Life to Eldridge was a serious, drab affair compared with Merwin’s. He liked to think how much he could save; and when he had saved it he liked to invest it where it would breed more.... He might take a few shares of the capital stock himself—his client had suggested it.
The waiter brought the cigars and Eldridge lighted one and leaned back, smoking and enjoying the relaxed air of the place. He could understand dimly how people liked this sort of thing and would come day after day for music and talk and the purposelessness of it all; it was a kind of huge, informal club with a self-elected membership.
As a prospective investor the charm of it pleased him. They ought to be able to make a good thing of it. He fell to making little calculations; it was part of his power as a successful man of business that he understood detail and the value of small things.
He was not a financier, but he handled small interests well and he had built up a comfortable fortune. From being in debt before he married, he had advanced slowly until now his investments made a good showing. He could probably live on the income to-morrow if he chose.... He blew a little ring of smoke.... His investments and what they were mounting to was a kind of epic poem to Eldridge’s slow-moving mind.... Yes—he would take a few shares of the cafÉ stock. He looked thoughtfully at his cigar and calculated how many, and what they would be worth.... The music had taken the form of a young boy with a violin who stood absorbed in his playing, a kind of quick fervor in his face and figure. The voices had ceased and only now and then a cup clicked.
Eldridge lifted his eyes from the cigar. The woman in the alcove had moved nearer the end of the seat and was watching the boy, her lips parted on a half smile.
The cigar dropped from Eldridge’s fingers. He stared at the woman—stared—and stirred vaguely.
She turned a little and Eldridge reached out his hand and drew a quick curtain between them.
Through the slit he could still see the figure of the woman, her head thrown a little back, her eyes following the bow of music as it rose and fell, and the lips smiling in happy content—He drew a quick breath.
Slowly a deep flush came into his face—How dared Rosalind come here! It was a respectable place—of course—but how dared she spend her time and money—his money and time that belonged to her home and her children—in a place like this?... Her hands were folded in her lap, and her eyes followed the music.
She had barely touched the glass on the table before her, he noted, or the plate of little biscuit. She seemed to sit in a dream.... His mind whirled. Six hours before he had said good-by to her at the breakfast table—a plain, drab woman in shabby clothes, with steel-rimmed spectacles that looked at him with a little line between the eyes and reminded him that he needed to order coal for the range and a new clothes-line.... He had ordered the coal, but he recalled suddenly that he had forgotten the clothes-line; he had intended to see if he could get one cheaper at a wholesale place he knew of; his memory held the clothes-line fast in the left lobe of his brain while the grey matter of the right lobe whirled excitedly about the woman in the alcove.
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She had raised a lorgnette to her eyes and was looking at the boy violinist, a little, happy, wistful smile on her lips.... Eldridge had not seen her smile like that for years. His left lobe abandoned the clothes-line and recalled to him when it was he saw the little smile, half wistful, half happy, on her face.... They were standing by the gate, and he was saying good night; the moon had just come up, and there was a fragrant bush beside the path that gave out the smell of spring; the left lobe yielded up fragrance and moonlight and the little wistful smile while his quick eye followed the lorgnette; it had dropped to her lap, and her hands were folded on it.... Rosalind—! A gold lorgnette—and draperies, soft, gauzy lines and folds of silk—and a hat on her shining, lifted hair, like a vague coronet! Eldridge Walcott held his cigar grimly between his teeth; the cigar had gone out—both lobes had ceased to whirl.... A kind of frozen light held his face. His hand groped for his hat. Why should he not step across the aisle and sit down in the chair opposite her and confront her?—the green curtains would shut them in.... Both lobes stared at the thought and held it tight—to face Rosalind, a grey, frightened woman in her finery, behind the little green curtains! He shook himself loose and stood up. Softly his hand drew back the curtain, and he stepped out. They were clapping the boy violinist, who had played to the end, and Eldridge moved toward the swinging doors and passed out and stood in the lobby. He wiped his forehead.... A sound of moving chairs came from behind the doors, and he crossed the lobby quickly and plunged into the crowd. It was five o’clock, and the streets were filled with people hurrying home. Eldridge turned against the tide and crossed a side street and pressed east, his feet seeming to find a way of their own. He was not thinking where he would go—except that it must be away from her. He could not face her yet—Who was she? There was the drab woman of the morning, waiting for him to come home with the clothesline, and there was the woman of the alcove, splendid, gentle, with the little smile and the gold lorgnette.... Rosalind—Fifteen years he had lived with her, and he had known her ten years before that—there was nothing queer about Rosalind! He lifted his head a little proudly—The woman he had just left was very beautiful! It struck him for the first time that she was beautiful, and he half stopped.
He walked more slowly, taking it in—Rosalind was not beautiful; she had not been beautiful—even as a girl—only pretty, with a kind of freshness and freedom about her and something in her eyes that he had not understood—It was the look that had drawn him—He was always wondering about it. Sometimes he saw it in the night—as if it flitted when he woke. He had not thought of it for years. Something in the woman’s shoulder and the line of her head was like it. But the woman was very beautiful!—Suppose it were not Rosalind after all! He gave a quick breath, and his feet halted and went on. Then a thought surged at him, and he walked fast—he almost ran. No—No—! It was as if he put his hands over his ears to shut it out. Other women—but not his wife! She had children—three children! He tried to think of the children to steady himself. He pictured her putting them to bed at night, bending above Tommie and winding a flannel bandage tight around his throat for croup; he could see her quite plainly, the quick, efficient fingers and firm, roughened hands drawing the bed-clothes in place and tucking them in.... The woman’s hands had rested so quietly in her lap! Were they rough?—She had worn gloves—he remembered now—soft gloves, like the color in her gown.... He stared at the gloves—they were long—they came to the elbow—yes, there was a kind of soft, lacy stuff that fell away from them—yes, they were long gloves.... They must have cost——
He tried to think what the gloves must have cost, but he had nothing to go by. Rosalind had never worn such gloves, nor his mother or sisters. Only women who were very rich wore gloves like that—or women——
He faced the thought at last. He had come out where the salt air struck him; the town and its lights had fallen behind; there was the marsh to cross, and he was on a long beach, the wind in his face, the water rolling up in spray and sweeping slowly back—He strode forward, his head to the wind.... There was no one that she knew—no man.... How should she know any one that he did not know!
She was never away.... But was he—sure! How did he know what went on—all day... half past seven till seven at night? In the evenings she mended the children’s clothes and he looked over the paper. Sometimes they talked about things and planned how they could get along. Rosalind was a good manager. He saw her sitting beside the lamp, in her cheap dress, her head bent over the figures, working it out with him—and he saw the woman in the alcove—the clothes she wore—he drew back before it—more than the whole family spent in a year!... The gloves alone might have bought her Sunday suit—Sunday was, after all, the only day he knew where she was—in church with him and, in the afternoon, lying down in her room while he took the children for a walk.... He was a good father—he set his teeth to it defiantly, against the wind. She could not accuse him of neglect.... Suddenly a hurt feeling stirred somewhere deep down—He did not look at it; he did not know it was there. But the first shock had passed. He was not bewildered any more. He could think steadily, putting point to point, building up the “case”.... Then, suddenly, he would see her in the great spectacles, reminding him of the clothes-line—and his “case” collapsed like a foolish little card house.... Not Rosalind—other women, perhaps—but not Rosalind.... He turned slowly back, the wind behind him urging him on. He would go home—to her. Perhaps when he saw her he should know what to think.... But perhaps she had not yet come home. If he hurried he might get there before her and face her as she came in. He hurried fast, he almost ran, and when he reached the streets he signalled a cab; he had not used a cab for years; it would cost a dollar, at least—He looked out at the half-deserted street—the crowd had thinned. He held his watch where the light of the street arc flashed across it—six-thirty. Half an hour before his usual time. He paid the fare and went quickly up the steps.... The children were talking in the dining-room. There was no other sound. He opened the door and looked in. She was standing by the table looking at Tommie’s coat—There was a rent in the shoulder and the face bent above it had a look of quiet patience—The grey-drab hair was parted exactly in the middle and combed smoothly down; the eyes behind the spectacles looked up—with the little line between them. When she saw who it was she glanced for a moment at the clock and then back at him—“Did you bring the clothesline?” she asked.
He stared at her a moment—at her plain, cheap dress and homely face. Then he turned away. “I—forgot,” he said.
