She could see his young, eager face and broad shoulders in the looking-glass.His hands were clasped tightly round one knee.
"I've been listening to the sound of traffic," she said."That's the sort of music that appeals to me.It seems a year since I did my hair in that great, prim room and heard the owls cry and watched myself grow old.Just think! It's really only a few hours ago that Idropped my suit-case out of a window and climbed down the creeper.
We said we'd make things move, didn't we?""I shall write to your grandfather in the morning," said Martin, with almost comical gravity and an unconscious touch of patronage.
How childlike the old are to the very young!
"That will be nice of you," answered Joan."We'll be very kind to him, won't we? There'll be no one to read the papers to him now.""He was a great chap once," said Martin."My father liked him awfully."She swung her hair free and turned her chair a little."You must tell me what he said about him, in the morning.Heigh-ho, I'm so sleepy."Martin got up and went to see if the windows were all open."They'll call us at eight," he said, "unless you'd like it to be later."Joan went to the door and opened it and held out her hand."Eight's good," she said."Good night, Marty."The boy looked at the little open hand with its long fingers, and at his wife, who seemed so cool and sweet and friendly.What did she mean?
He asked her, with an odd catch in his voice.
And she gave him the smile of a tired child."Just that, old boy.
Good night."
"But--but we're married," he said with a little stammer.
"Do you think I can forget that, in this room, with that sound in the street?""Well, then, why say good night to me like this?""How else, Marty dear?"
An icy chill ran over Martin and struck at his heart.Was it really true that she could stand there and hold out her hand and with the beginning of impatience expect him to leave a room the right to which had been made over to him by law and agreement?
He asked her that, as well as he could, in steadier, kinder words than he need have used.
And she dropped her hand and sighed a little."Don't spoil everything by arguing with me, Marty.I really am only a kid, you know.Be good and run along now.Look--it's almost one."The blood rushed to his head, and he held out his hands to her."But I love you.I love you, Joany.You can't--you CAN'T tell me to go."It was a boy's cry, a boy profoundly, terribly hurt and puzzled.
"Well, if we've got to go into all this now I may as well sit down,"she said, and did."That air's rather chilly, too." She folded her arms over her breast.
It was enough.All the chivalry in Martin came up and choked his anger and bitterness and untranslatable disappointment.He went out and shut the door and stumbled downstairs into the dark sitting room and stood there for a long time all among chaos and ruin.He loved her to adoration, and the spring was in his blood; and if she was young, she was not so young as all that; and where was her side of the bargain? And at last, through the riot and jumble of his thoughts, her creed of life came back to him, word for word: she took all she could get and gave nothing in return; and "Who cares?"was her motto.
And after that he stood like a man balanced on the edge of a precipice.In cold blood he could go back and like a brute demand his price.And if he went forward and let her off because he loved her so and was a gentleman, down he must go, like a stone.
He was very white, and his lips were set when he went up to his room.With curious deliberation he got back into his clothes and saw that he had money, returned to the hall, put on his coat and hat, shut the door behind him and walked out under the stars.
"All right, then, who cares?" he said, facing toward the "Great White Way." "Who the devil cares?"And up in her room, with her hand under her cheek like a child, Joan had left the world with sleep.