Just Around the Corner Part 22

In the dresser mirror, and without turning her head or gaining her feet, she looked into the eyes of her husband.

"p.u.s.s.y-cat!" he said, and came toward her with his teeth flashing like Carrara marble in sunlight.

She sprang to her feet and backed against the dresser.

"Don't! Don't you come near me!"

"You don't mean that, Goldie."

She shivered in her scorn.

"Don't you come near me! I came--to get my things."

"Oh!" he said, and tossed his hat on the bed and peeled off his coat.

"Help yourself, kiddo. Go as far as you like."

She fell to tearing at the contents of her drawer without discrimination, cramming them into her bag and breathing furiously, like a hare in the torture of the chase. The color sprang out in her cheeks, and her eyes took fire.

Her husband threw himself, in his shirt-sleeves and waistcoat, across the bed and watched her idly. Only her fumbling movements and the sing of the too-high gas broke the silence. He rose, lowered the flame, and lay down again.

Her little box of poor trinkets spilled its contents as she packed it; her hair-brush fell from her trembling fingers and clattered to the floor.

"Can I help you, Goldie-eyes?"

Silence. He coughed rather deep in his chest, and she almost brushed his hand as she pa.s.sed to the clothes wardrobe. He reached out and caught her wrist.

"Now, Goldie, you--"

"Don't--don't you touch me! Let go!"

He drew her down to the bed beside him.

"Can't you give a fellow another chance, baby? Can't you?" She tugged for her freedom, but his clasp was tight as steel and tender as love.

"Can't you, baby?"

"You!" she said, kicking at the sloppy satin slipper at her feet, as if it were a loathsome thing that crawled. "I--I don't ever want to see you again, you--you--"

"You drove me to it, p.u.s.s.y; honest you did!"

"You didn't need no driving. You take to it like a fish to water--n.o.body can drive you. You just ain't--no--good!"

"You drove me to it. When you quit I just went crazy mad. I kicked the skylight--I tore things wide open. I was that sore for you--honest, baby!"

"I've heard that line of talk before. I ain't forgot the night at Hinkey's. I ain't forgot nothing. You or horses can't hold me here!" She wrenched at her wrists.

"I got a job yesterday, baby. Bill made good. Eighty dollars, honey! Me and Cutty are quits for good. Ain't that something--now, ain't it?"

"Let me go!"

"p.u.s.s.y-cat!"

"Let me go, I say!"

He coughed and turned on his side toward her.

"You don't mean it."

"I do! I do! Let go! Let go!"

She tore herself free and darted to the wardrobe door. He closed his eyes and his lashes lay low on his cheeks.

"Before you go, Goldie, where's the antiphlogistin? I got a chest on me like an ice-wagon."

"Sure, you have. That's the only time you ever show up before crack of dawn."

He reached out and touched her wrist.

"I'm hot, ain't I?"

She placed a reluctant hand on his brow.

"Fever?"

"It ain't nothing much. I'll be all right."

"It's just one of your spells. Stay in bed a couple of days, and you'll soon be ready for another jamboree!"

"Don't fuss at me, baby."

"It's in the wash-stand drawer in a little tin can. Don't make the plaster too hot."

"Sure, I won't. I'll get along all righty."

She threw a shabby cloth skirt over her arm and a pressed-plush coat that was gray at the elbows and frayed at the hem. He reached out for the dangling empty sleeve as she pa.s.sed.

"You was married in that coat, wasn't you, hon?"

"Yes," she said, and her lips curled like burning paper; "I was married in that coat."

"Goldie-eyes, you know I can't get along without my petsie; you know it.

There ain't no one can hold a candle to you, baby!"

"Yes, yes!"

"There ain't! I wish I was feelin' well enough to tell you how sorry, baby--how sorry a fellow like me can get. I just wish it, baby--baby--"

She surrendered like a reed to the curve of a scythe and crumpled in a contortional heap beside the bed.

"You--you always get me!"