K Part 29

Under K.'s direction, Max did marvels. Cases began to come in to him from the surrounding towns. To his own daring was added a new and remarkable technique. But Le Moyne, who had found resignation if not content, was once again in touch with the work he loved. There were times when, having thrashed a case out together and outlined the next day's work for Max, he would walk for hours into the night out over the hills, fighting his battle. The longing was on him to be in the thick of things again. The thought of the gas office and its deadly round sickened him.

It was on one of his long walks that K. found Tillie.

It was December then, gray and raw, with a wet snow that changed to rain as it fell. The country roads were ankle-deep with mud, the wayside paths thick with sodden leaves. The dreariness of the countryside that Sat.u.r.day afternoon suited his mood. He had ridden to the end of the street-car line, and started his walk from there. As was his custom, he wore no overcoat, but a short sweater under his coat. Somewhere along the road he had picked up a mongrel dog, and, as if in sheer desire for human society, it trotted companionably at his heels.

Seven miles from the end of the car line he found a road-house, and stopped in for a gla.s.s of Scotch. He was chilled through. The dog went in with him, and stood looking up into his face. It was as if he submitted, but wondered why this indoors, with the scents of the road ahead and the trails of rabbits over the fields.

The house was set in a valley at the foot of two hills. Through the mist of the December afternoon, it had loomed pleasantly before him. The door was ajar, and he stepped into a little hall covered with ingrain carpet.

To the right was the dining-room, the table covered with a white cloth, and in its exact center an uncompromising bunch of dried flowers. To the left, the typical parlor of such places. It might have been the parlor of the White Springs Hotel in duplicate, plush self-rocker and all. Over everything was silence and a pervading smell of fresh varnish. The house was aggressive with new paint--the sagging old floors shone with it, the doors gleamed.

"h.e.l.lo!" called K.

There were slow footsteps upstairs, the closing of a bureau drawer, the rustle of a woman's dress coming down the stairs. K., standing uncertainly on a carpet oasis that was the center of the parlor varnish, stripped off his sweater.

"Not very busy here this afternoon!" he said to the unseen female on the staircase. Then he saw her. It was Tillie. She put a hand against the doorframe to steady herself. Tillie surely, but a new Tillie! With her hair loosened around her face, a fresh blue chintz dress open at the throat, a black velvet bow on her breast, here was a Tillie fuller, infinitely more attractive, than he had remembered her. But she did not smile at him. There was something about her eyes not unlike the dog's expression, submissive, but questioning.

"Well, you've found me, Mr. Le Moyne." And, when he held out his hand, smiling: "I just had to do it, Mr. K."

"And how's everything going? You look mighty fine and--happy, Tillie."

"I'm all right. Mr. Schwitter's gone to the postoffice. He'll be back at five. Will you have a cup of tea, or will you have something else?"

The instinct of the Street was still strong in Tillie. The Street did not approve of "something else."

"Scotch-and-soda," said Le Moyne. "And shall I buy a ticket for you to punch?"

But she only smiled faintly. He was sorry he had made the blunder.

Evidently the Street and all that pertained was a sore subject.

So this was Tillie's new home! It was for this that she had exchanged the virginal integrity of her life at Mrs. McKee's--for this wind-swept little house, tidily ugly, infinitely lonely. There were two crayon enlargements over the mantel. One was Schwitter, evidently. The other was the paper-doll wife. K. wondered what curious instinct of self-abnegation had caused Tillie to leave the wife there undisturbed.

Back of its position of honor he saw the girl's realization of her own situation. On a wooden shelf, exactly between the two pictures, was another vase of dried flowers.

Tillie brought the Scotch, already mixed, in a tall gla.s.s. K. would have preferred to mix it himself, but the Scotch was good. He felt a new respect for Mr. Schwitter.

"You gave me a turn at first," said Tillie. "But I am right glad to see you, Mr. Le Moyne. Now that the roads are bad, n.o.body comes very much.

It's lonely."

Until now, K. and Tillie, when they met, had met conversationally on the common ground of food. They no longer had that, and between them both lay like a barrier their last conversation.

"Are you happy, Tillie?" said K. suddenly.

"I expected you'd ask me that. I've been thinking what to say."

Her reply set him watching her face. More attractive it certainly was, but happy? There was a wistfulness about Tillie's mouth that set him wondering.

"Is he good to you?"

"He's about the best man on earth. He's never said a cross word to me--even at first, when I was panicky and scared at every sound."

Le Moyne nodded understandingly.

"I burned a lot of victuals when I first came, running off and hiding when I heard people around the place. It used to seem to me that what I'd done was written on my face. But he never said a word."

"That's over now?"

"I don't run. I am still frightened."

"Then it has been worth while?"

Tillie glanced up at the two pictures over the mantel.

"Sometimes it is--when he comes in tired, and I've a chicken ready or some fried ham and eggs for his supper, and I see him begin to look rested. He lights his pipe, and many an evening he helps me with the dishes. He's happy; he's getting fat."

"But you?" Le Moyne persisted.

"I wouldn't go back to where I was, but I am not happy, Mr. Le Moyne.

There's no use pretending. I want a baby. All along I've wanted a baby.

He wants one. This place is his, and he'd like a boy to come into it when he's gone. But, my G.o.d! if I did have one; what would it be?"

K.'s eyes followed hers to the picture and the everlastings underneath.

"And she--there isn't any prospect of her--?"

"No."

There was no solution to Tillie's problem. Le Moyne, standing on the hearth and looking down at her, realized that, after all, Tillie must work out her own salvation. He could offer her no comfort.

They talked far into the growing twilight of the afternoon. Tillie was hungry for news of the Street: must know of Christine's wedding, of Harriet, of Sidney in her hospital. And when he had told her all, she sat silent, rolling her handkerchief in her fingers. Then:--

"Take the four of us," she said suddenly,--"Christine Lorenz and Sidney Page and Miss Harriet and me,--and which one would you have picked to go wrong like this? I guess, from the looks of things, most folks would have thought it would be the Lorenz girl. They'd have picked Harriet Kennedy for the hospital, and me for the dressmaking, and it would have been Sidney Page that got married and had an automobile. Well, that's life."

She looked up at K. shrewdly.

"There were some people out here lately. They didn't know me, and I heard them talking. They said Sidney Page was going to marry Dr. Max Wilson."

"Possibly. I believe there is no engagement yet."

He had finished with his gla.s.s. Tillie rose to take it away. As she stood before him she looked up into his face.

"If you like her as well as I think you do, Mr. Le Moyne, you won't let him get her."

"I am afraid that's not up to me, is it? What would I do with a wife, Tillie?"

"You'd be faithful to her. That's more than he would be. I guess, in the long run, that would count more than money."

That was what K. took home with him after his encounter with Tillie. He pondered it on his way back to the street-car, as he struggled against the wind. The weather had changed. Wagon-tracks along the road were filled with water and had begun to freeze. The rain had turned to a driving sleet that cut his face. Halfway to the trolley line, the dog turned off into a by-road. K. did not miss him. The dog stared after him, one foot raised. Once again his eyes were like Tillie's, as she had waved good-bye from the porch.

His head sunk on his breast, K. covered miles of road with his long, swinging pace, and fought his battle. Was Tillie right, after all, and had he been wrong? Why should he efface himself, if it meant Sidney's unhappiness? Why not accept Wilson's offer and start over again? Then if things went well--the temptation was strong that stormy afternoon. He put it from him at last, because of the conviction that whatever he did would make no change in Sidney's ultimate decision. If she cared enough for Wilson, she would marry him. He felt that she cared enough.