Stubble Part 23

He peered at her closely. "Much," he grunted and followed her through the swinging door.

They played bridge with the Thompsons.

Through the open windows the noise of the city came swelling up distractingly. The cards kept blowing from the table so that the men were busy gathering them up from the floor. Mrs. Thompson wore a lacy gown of lilac organdie cut quite low in the neck and her hair was arranged in an elaborate and immaculate coiffure that stuck out behind in huge, smooth, artificial-looking puffs. Her colour was high and not all her own. Her husband was of the type commonly called a "rough diamond," showing evident signs of hours spent in the barber's chair, with a sort of rawness about a blue-black chin, traces of talc.u.m powder, and a lurking odour of toilet water. He was too big for his clothes, which were just a bit flashy, and he looked as though he might like to doff his coat.

Mary Louise and Claybrook arrived at eight-thirty. At eight thirty-five Thompson produced a flask from a desk drawer and mixed up a couple of high b.a.l.l.s with an air of grave deliberation. The gla.s.ses were placed on the folding bridge table and remained there throughout the evening, Mrs. Thompson stooping over and taking delicate sips from her husband's gla.s.s every now and then.

The game languished. Mary Louise did not know much about it and the men would lapse into rather boisterous spells of conversation during which time the cards would lie on the table forgotten, and Mrs.

Thompson would gaze at her husband with deep absorption and occasionally at Claybrook and sometimes at Mary Louise in a far-off, absent-minded way. And then they would ask each other whose deal it was and "How were the honours?" and then they would be at it again.

Claybrook laughed at the slightest provocation, and seemed to pay a little too obsequious attention to whatever Thompson had to say, and after a while the conversation narrowed down entirely to the two men, with Mrs. Thompson contracting a gla.s.sy look in her pale-blue eyes beneath their fine-plucked brows. And at ten o'clock she stifled a yawn behind her handkerchief, threw down her cards, got up and went over to the corner where stood an expensive "Victrola."

"Let's have a little jazz," she said brightly. The men were busy discussing the income tax and the ways of avoiding it and did not seem to mind at all. And Mary Louise welcomed the suggestion with relief.

For another hour they sat back in deep chairs, relaxed, relieved of responsibility. And then Claybrook, straightening in his chair, said: "Think I'll have to get a new car. The old wagon's been losing compression. Hasn't any get-away at all these days." Then turning abruptly to Mary Louise who, sunk back in her chair, was absently dreaming, "What kind shall I get? You're the one to be pleased." The crow's-feet at the corners of his eyes gathered in tight little cl.u.s.ters and there was an odd pucker about his lips.

In spite of herself she flushed fiery red. There was in the tone a suggestion of proprietary claim that jangled on her. Almost without thinking she replied, "Joe Hooper's selling the Marlowe. It's the best make, isn't it?"

Three pairs of eyes were regarding her, Claybrook's with a slight frown. He continued gazing at her for a moment, in consideration, and then, the topic changing to Florida in the winter, he apparently forgot her.

At eleven o'clock they rose to go. Mrs. Thompson showed signs of relief, and there was more warmth in the farewells than in any previous interchange of amenities. Mr. Thompson laid his hand affectionately on Mary Louise's shoulder as they stood in the doorway into the hall. His manner was bluff and friendly:

"John tells me you're running the tea room over on Spruce Street.

Guess I'll have to drop in and see how you're doing."

She murmured her grat.i.tude.

"Won't mind, will you, if I bring in anything on my hip? Tea's mighty weak for a growing boy."

They all laughed, and as she and Claybrook made their way to the elevator, the Thompsons stood in the hall calling gibes and parting injunctions after them.

"Great old scout," commented Claybrook as they descended to the ground floor. "Sure been a good friend to me."

Mary Louise felt her taut nerves slowly relaxing.

"What does he do?" she responded wearily.

"Contractor. Biggest in town." And then when they reached the street and were climbing into the car, "Whadda you say to meeting me at five o'clock to-morrow afternoon? Look at that Marlowe car you say you like."

He was looking into her eyes with an odd sort of questioning directness. She started to refuse, remembering her resolve to see him less often. But then the thought of Joe Hooper presented itself. She owed Joe a kindness or two. Perhaps if she delayed, Claybrook would change his mind. She hesitated a moment.

"All right," she a.s.sented.

Claybrook laughed shortly. "You don't sound so keen, somehow. Don't know if I can afford a Marlowe or not. You've a pretty extravagant taste in automobiles. Only one of 'em higher priced than the Marlowe."

"Oh, is it? I didn't know." And then, "But I don't see what my taste has got to do with it. It's your affair, you know. I knew Joe Hooper, that's all."

He was silent, but as he took leave of her at the doorway of her apartment, he again brought up the subject in a quiet tone. "Meet me at live to-morrow?"

"Surely," she agreed, and then went thoughtfully upstairs to bed.

As she slowly undressed she thought of Joe Hooper in his new "shepherd plaid" suit and wondered if he were getting along. And she thought of the Thompsons living in their bleak finery on the top floor of the Ardmore, just sixty feet removed from the hideous clatter of the traffic. And she speculated on the appearance of Mrs. Thompson with all the hairs in her eyebrows that nature meant them to have. And then she thought upon Claybrook's boyishness in wanting her to help him go pick out a new toy. He was without guile, entirely without guile.

Suddenly she laughed aloud and then she switched off the light and went smiling to bed.

CHAPTER XVI

They met at the Marlowe garage. When Mary Louise saw Claybrook and Joe Hooper standing together in absorbed conversation, leaning each with one foot propped on the running board of a big shiny new car in the display room, she suddenly knew she had no business there. She saw them through the big plate-gla.s.s window as she came along. It would be hard to make her arrival seem casual. And when Joe Hooper raised his head as she entered the doorway--he was wearing that gaudy suit--she was confused.

But he did not seem to notice and greeted her cordially. He was looking a bit thin, with a high colour and a restless snap in his eyes. There was an alertness about him that was new to her and a something in his manner that was quite different. She stole a look at him while he and Claybrook were discussing lubrication and wondered in what way he had changed. A sureness? A steadiness? A bit of reserve that sat well upon him? All of these, surely. She had never seen him show to better advantage. Once he turned to her and asked her opinion about the leather. There was an air of quiet deference in the way he put the question. It was a trivial question and she was thinking of the impersonal note in his tone, just as though she might have been a total stranger to whom he owed courtesy, and she was wishing he had asked her something about herself. Her uneasiness about the unconventionality of her being there vanished, so completely were the two men absorbed in technical discussion. She noted the contrast: Claybrook rather beefy and a bit too red of face; Joe, on the other hand, quite slim and taut. His new clothes fitted him better; he had lost that raw-boned look.

Joe asked her if she would not like to go for a ride.

She looked up into his eyes from the chair which he had got for her and felt a childish pleasure, just as though he had shown her a personal attention.

"I'd love to," she said.

They waited at the curb for the demonstrating car to be brought around and she had a chance to ask him how things were at home.

"I haven't been back this summer," he replied, and looked away.

Once, when she and Claybrook were standing a little apart, she caught Joe looking at them, she imagined, under lowered brows, and she had an impulse to go to him and tell him that she was bringing him this business, putting in a word for him. She did not hear what Claybrook was saying to her at all. And then the car came rolling up and stopped, and her chance was gone.

She and Claybrook sat down in the back seat together, while Joe took the wheel. In about thirty minutes they were climbing a steep hill that lead out of Fenimore Park to one of the back lanes.

"Takes the grade all right," commented Claybrook to her, and she wished that he would not continue to include her in the discussion.

She strove to counteract the impression that might be formed by calling attention to the clouds that were gathering in the southwest.

Dark and sombre they came rolling, like great billows of smoke, although the green of the park meadows was flooded with golden sunlight. At the crest of the hill Joe partly turned in his seat and with one arm thrown along the back of it pointed to the outline of a ma.s.sive stone bridge that was being built across the creek far below them. The greenish brown blended subtly with the golden-green shadows of the trees and the dark pools of water beneath.

"New bridge," he said. "Man that's buildin' it knows a thing or two about colour tones."

Mary Louise bent eagerly forward to look. It seemed as though he were speaking directly to her. Claybrook remained leaning back in the corner. They turned a curve and the bridge pa.s.sed out of view below.

They gained the macadam of the lane that led out from the park gate into the country. Claybrook turned and asked her how she liked the car. His low, direct tone and intent gaze made her uncomfortable, made her nerves ruffle up in a most irritating manner. But she controlled herself and answered lightly, "Oh, ever so much."

He looked as though he might say something more, but changed his mind and sank back against the cushions. For a time they rode on in silence. Claybrook had been strangely quiet ever since they had left the garage. She could feel him watching her and she tried not to notice it. So absorbed was she in trying to appear unconcerned that she did not see the approach of the storm; in fact, there was a supercharge of restraint on all three of them, and it startlingly broke upon them in a clap of thunder that sounded as if it had smashed a tree not fifty feet away.

Joe stopped the car and scrambled back into the tonneau to adjust the side curtains. He murmured an apology as he brushed against her--just like a stranger. Quite sharply she felt the change that had come over their relations. When everything had been adjusted he resumed his seat and called over his shoulder, "Guess we had better go back, hadn't we?

I'm sorry this rain had to come and spoil things."

They turned slowly around in the narrow road and when they again faced the west, the rain came beating furiously down against the wind-shield so that the road ahead was barely visible. Never had she seen such blinding sheets of water. It tore at the roof, it whipped about the curtains, it threatened to engulf them all in a torrential flood. The car was moving slowly forward--she could see Joe's outline bent slightly over the wheel--and in spite of his care the rear wheels would slew gently from side to side. As she peered ahead she could see a yellow flood of water rushing down the road before them so that it did not look like a road at all but like an angry, muddy stream upon which they were floating. Once Claybrook leaned forward, his eyes narrowing. He had been as silent as a mummy.

"Got any chains?" he asked suddenly.

"Think I have," replied Joe. "Under the seat."