Winner Take All Part 13

She found herself an hour later in a huge light room, with a floor like a dance hall and much strange paraphernalia against the walls. Little of it she was able to identify, though she took it all in with alert and eager eyes. This was the chiefest part of his life, so she must not even seem to slight it. The Indian clubs and dumb-bells--but they were easy. And the roped-off square at one end. That was the ring.

She found herself alone for a while, and was thrilled and excited and very happy. And then a quiet man who was, she guessed correctly, English's trainer came briskly toward her.

"You needn't be afraid." So Perry had a.s.sured her.

Surely not if this man's bearing was any criterion. He brought her a chair.

"Thank you." Her voice sounded small in that high-ceiled room. He only bowed in reply and went quietly away.

And then the next time she looked up it was to find Perry standing there beside her--a different Perry--a pagan Perry, stripped of all save trunks and shoes, yet unconscious of his nakedness.

"I'm not afraid," she'd told him. "It's not that."

Now she knew why she had hesitated about coming. And she was sorry, and breathlessly glad.

A pagan Perry, and one more beautiful than she otherwise could ever have dreamed. And yet, after the first startled glance, while she still dropped her head and put palms to her cheeks to hide a furious color, his lack of self-consciousness dismayed her, until it occurred to her that these were his working clothes--casual, ordinary. And with that a queer thought, seemingly unrelated, flashed through her head.

She remembered that women almost never went to prize-fights--it was a man's sport--and she was jealously glad over that.

It shamed her. But she looked again. And again. And sudden rebellion at that shame led her to a wholly spontaneous, wholly unconsidered act.

Perry was deep in abstraction. She knew what he was brooding over.

That made her rebellious, too. Suddenly she reached out and laid her hand upon his bare shoulder.

He looked around and smiled.

"Hard?" He believed he understood the expression he had surprised in her eyes.

"I'm in pretty good shape. I'm pretty hard."

She made only a m.u.f.fled attempt at reply. She found it, without speaking, hard enough to breathe.

Hard? Yes. Unexpectedly undeniable, like a billiard ball. Nor could she very well stammer that it was the smoothness of his skin which had stunned her. She dropped her head again. She could not have kept it up after that and kept her eyelids open.

When she finally lifted it Perry was already in the ring and English vaulting the ropes. English was as unclothed as the other, yet she found immediately that she could look at him without any disturbing mixture of ecstasy and guilt. And even critically, too. He was thick, bulky. He did not make one catch one's breath. And brown. And Perry's whiteness! She took her lower lip between her teeth.

"Time!" the trainer called.

She cried sharply aloud.

The sound came unsummoned, in spite of herself.

Why, they had just been standing there together--just talking--just laughing--just boys! But with that signal they had exploded into action. No other word could hope to convey that sudden burst of motion.

They touched gloves! She followed that. English tried to hit him!

She followed that. And then thud! thud! thud! She could not beat as swiftly with one fist the palm of her other hand as Perry's glove struck thrice the welter's face.

Thud! thud! thud! And skip and shuffle--thud! And a straining, desperate embrace.

"Oh, he's so much bigger," she heard herself wailing. "He's _so_ much bigger!"

And the trainer, remembering through it all her presence:

"Watch it! Watch it! Watch--that--left--hand!"

She saw then that it was Perry's short, jabbing, stiff left forearm which perplexed the heavier man. She saw the latter set himself to swing, and take it in the face, and go off balance. And set and take it again. And she didn't cry out any more. She leaned forward, so tensely set herself in every muscle that she found she was tired when the trainer stopped it.

"Time!"

The trainer she learned then was not pleased. He snarled at Jack English. But English only grinned.

"Slow!" he said. "Slow! Oh, boy! So'd you look slow trying to pace the Empire State Express."

And there was more. Faster, faster and faster. And cruder! He could never tell her again that this was merely sport. And English _was_ bigger and his size did count. At the last he seemed barely to snap his right gloved hand forward, and Perry staggered back.

"Time!"

She thanked G.o.d, out loud, for that.

Perry stood for a while, his back toward her, sagging against the ropes. And English, one hand on his shoulder, was talking to him.

"Is he hurt?" she weakly asked the trainer.

He gave her a fleet glance.

"Some. Not bad." And louder to the other two:

"That's plenty."

A second later Perry nodded across the room to her and went to dress.

But Jack English slid through the ropes and approached. There was some blood on his lip, and he wiped it away. She marveled at so little sign of conflict. He came straight to her, glistening with sweat. The trainer threw him a robe, which he wrapped about him to his very chin.

She thought the welter-weight was bashful, too. And Irish--that without a doubt from his bright eyes.

"Your lad?" he asked.

"My--my what?"

She'd hardly been ready for the abrupt question. It confused her.

"Your steady?" This time he nodded toward the door through which Perry had disappeared.

Jack English was almost thirty--an old man for the prize-ring--and had a family. Under his bright regard Cecille stammered, and stammered a lie.

"Yes," she said, not steadily, and very softly indeed. "Yes, my--my lad."

English nodded sagely.

"Been worried about him lately, I suppose? Bothered by what folks are saying?"

"I--I haven't heard much," she said, and this was all the truth.