Stubble Part 24

"Better put 'em on, don't you think?"

Mary Louise started. "Oh, John! In this rain?"

"Guess I had at that," interposed Joe quickly.

He stopped the car and lifted the cushion on which he was sitting.

Directly he pulled forth a long, tangled confusion of links, opened the door, and stepped forth. As he thrust out his head Mary Louise called:

"Haven't you any coat?" and his answer came back cheerily from the outside, "Never mind me. It'll all come out in the wash."

She looked at Claybrook reproachfully. He sat stolidly in the corner but there was a look of discomfort in his face.

"Don't want us to slide off one of these hills into the creek, do you?"

And she felt there was nothing more she could say.

They sat in awkward silence, listening to the downpour and the wind.

The thunder crashed incessantly and the air was alive with the lightning playing about them in livid flares. They could feel one side of the car lift slightly as Joe adjusted the chain, and then the other side; could dimly hear him struggling with the wheel jack. It seemed criminal to be exposed to such a rain. A wave of cold resentment against Claybrook came over her and she sat staring straight in front of her, lips tightly compressed, waiting.

It seemed an interminable time; in reality, in about ten minutes Joe's head appeared at the door of the car and he climbed stiffly in.

Drenched he was from top to toe. The water streaked down his checks in little streams; his clothes flapped and clung to him as though he had been flung into the river; his cap was a sodden, pulpy ma.s.s. But he chuckled as he slid over in behind the wheel.

"Guess I'll remember to bring my coat along next time."

She wanted to put her hand on his shoulder but she sat in stony silence. And she noticed that he no longer drove with the same care as before. She saw that he was giving little involuntary shivers, watched the water drip with silent monotony from his cap on to the back of the seat, making a slick, shiny spot there.

And then Claybrook broke the silence. "How will you split commission with me if I take one of these cars?" He spoke heartily, as though he wished to be friendly and cheerful.

Joe made no reply for a moment and when he did, his voice trembled just a little. "We're not allowed to make that kind of a deal."

"Oh, I know that, and all that sort of thing. But they all _do_, just the same." He reached over and gave Mary Louise a little shove on the elbow, from which she recoiled.

Joe made no further reply; they waited for what he might say. And directly Claybrook tried again:

"And how about my old car? Take that in, I suppose?"

"We'll take it and do the best we can to sell it for you," said Joe, without looking back. The water still dripped from his cap on to the cushion.

"Hum," muttered Claybrook, "Independent." And louder: "Two or three other concerns will allow me good money on my car."

Joe made no reply.

When they arrived at the garage again, the rain had about stopped and they drove in at the main entrance back into the general storage room.

Joe stood holding the tonneau door open for them, a ludicrous object in his bedraggled clothes. He made no effort to a.s.sist Mary Louise but stood there holding the door with an abstracted look on his face. All the dash, all the sleekness was out of him. They both thanked him and then Claybrook led the way to his own car which someone had brought in out of the rain.

He turned to Joe once more--"I'll see you later"--thanked him again, and started his motor.

Mary Louise satisfied herself with waving her hand to him as they started. His aloofness forbade her to do anything more, though she would have liked to go to him and tell him how sorry she was and to be sure and hurry and put on some dry clothes. But she didn't and she saw him standing in the centre of the pa.s.sage, a forlorn figure. It struck her as they rolled out on to the street that he had made no effort whatever to sell the car.

"Cold-blooded crowd," broke out Claybrook at length as they hurried on.

"I do hope he won't be sick," she replied.

He grunted. "In the army, wasn't he? Guess he can stand a little water. Used to worse than that."

And after apparently waiting for her to break the silence, he again ventured,

"I like the car. Think I'll have to see if I can't make some sort of deal with them. They'll probably come down a little off their perch."

His tone seemed to invite her opinion, but she offered none.

They came into the stiff little parlour lobby of Mary Louise's apartment. It was quite dark as they got out of the automobile, and the stuffy room was dimly lit by a few feeble incandescent lamps in loose-jointed and rather forlorn gilt wall brackets. They made their way over to the elevator. The lobby was empty; even the blonde was absent from her post.

As they pa.s.sed the faded plush divan Claybrook laid a detaining hand on her arm: "Sit down here a minute. I want to talk to you." His voice sounded rather gentle and subdued.

She turned and looked at him, wondering, and then obeyed.

"Listen," he began, and laid his hand quietly on hers. "Don't get sore at me because I was the cause of your friend's getting wet. It won't hurt him--just a little clothes-pressing bill--and I'd much rather he had that than for that car to slide off the cliff--especially when you were in it."

She felt somewhat mollified. "Was that what you wanted to say to me?"

She looked at his face and saw there an odd expression--a sort of dogged shamefacedness.

"No. I was just getting to it." He was silent a moment, staring at his foot. Suddenly he looked up at her--she had withdrawn her hand.

"When," he began, "when are we going to call this thing a game?"

"I don't understand what you mean."

He halted. "Well," he said. "How--when are you going to marry me?" He was looking into her face with that same queer, stubborn expression.

Her heart stopped momentarily. "Why," she faltered, "I hadn't thought of it."

They sat there in the hushed lobby as remote from the world as though shipwrecked on a desert island. It was Mary Louise who now looked at the floor. She could feel Claybrook's eyes upon her. He was waiting for her to speak, but she could not collect her thoughts. It had come upon her baldly, without preparation. She scarcely realized the import of his words.

"Well," he was saying, "think of it now."

Another pause.

She raised her eyes and looked at him squarely in spite of the trembling in her limbs. His face loomed big and blank before her, though his voice was very kind.

"I don't know," she heard herself saying. "You--I--it's come on me rather quickly."

For a moment he made no reply. A street car thundered past and made the windows rattle.

"Well, you're going to, aren't you? When?"

She could not trust herself to look at him. Again he waited on her words. She could feel him edging a hit nearer.

"I don't know." The words choked in her throat. She felt cornered, hemmed in. She could not clear the tumult in her brain. A short time before she had felt tremendously irritated at him. Now she did not know how she felt. He was hammering at her with his insistence.

"That can't be," he broke in on her confusion. "I'm not a stranger, you know. You've known me for over a year and, I think, seen enough of me to know what sort I am. We are not a couple of kids just out of school." His voice broke in a ridiculous quaver that somehow tempted her to laugh hysterically, but he mastered it and went on: "When shall it be? Next month? I'll buy that big car and we'll drive to California."