"When I feel punk and--" He was about to bring in the tragedy of Paul, but that was too sacred even for the diplomacy of love. "--when I get tired out at the office and everything, I like to look across the street and think of you. Do you know I dreamed of you, one time!"
"Was it a nice dream?"
"Lovely!"
"Oh, well, they say dreams go by opposites! Now I must run in."
She was on her feet.
"Oh, don"t go in yet! Please, Louetta!"
"Yes, I must. Have to look out for my guests."
"Let "em look out for "emselves!"
"I couldn"t do that." She carelessly tapped his shoulder and slipped away.
But after two minutes of shamed and childish longing to sneak home he was snorting, "Certainly I wasn"t trying to get chummy with her! Knew there was nothing doing, all the time!" and he ambled in to dance with Mrs. Orville Jones, and to avoid Louetta, virtuously and conspicuously.
CHAPTER XXIV
I
HIS visit to Paul was as unreal as his night of fog and questioning.
Unseeing he went through prison corridors stinking of carbolic acid to a room lined with pale yellow settees pierced in rosettes, like the shoe-store benches he had known as a boy. The guard led in Paul. Above his uniform of linty gray, Paul"s face was pale and without expression.
He moved timorously in response to the guard"s commands; he meekly pushed Babbitt"s gifts of tobacco and magazines across the table to the guard for examination. He had nothing to say but "Oh, I"m getting used to it" and "I"m working in the tailor shop; the stuff hurts my fingers."
Babbitt knew that in this place of death Paul was already dead. And as he pondered on the train home something in his own self seemed to have died: a loyal and vigorous faith in the goodness of the world, a fear of public disfavor, a pride in success. He was glad that his wife was away.
He admitted it without justifying it. He did not care.
II
Her card read "Mrs. Daniel Judique." Babbitt knew of her as the widow of a wholesale paper-dealer. She must have been forty or forty-two but he thought her younger when he saw her in the office, that afternoon. She had come to inquire about renting an apartment, and he took her away from the unskilled girl accountant. He was nervously attracted by her smartness. She was a slender woman, in a black Swiss frock dotted with white, a cool-looking graceful frock. A broad black hat shaded her face.
Her eyes were l.u.s.trous, her soft chin of an agreeable plumpness, and her cheeks an even rose. Babbitt wondered afterward if she was made up, but no man living knew less of such arts.
She sat revolving her violet parasol. Her voice was appealing without being coy. "I wonder if you can help me?"
"Be delighted."
"I"ve looked everywhere and--I want a little flat, just a bedroom, or perhaps two, and sitting-room and kitchenette and bath, but I want one that really has some charm to it, not these dingy places or these new ones with terrible gaudy chandeliers. And I can"t pay so dreadfully much. My name"s Tanis Judique."
"I think maybe I"ve got just the thing for you. Would you like to chase around and look at it now?"
"Yes. I have a couple of hours."
In the new Cavendish Apartments, Babbitt had a flat which he had been holding for Sidney Finkelstein, but at the thought of driving beside this agreeable woman he threw over his friend Finkelstein, and with a note of gallantry he proclaimed, "I"ll let you see what I can do!"
He dusted the seat of the car for her, and twice he risked death in showing off his driving.
"You do know how to handle a car!" she said.
He liked her voice. There was, he thought, music in it and a hint of culture, not a bouncing giggle like Louetta Swanson"s.
He boasted, "You know, there"s a lot of these fellows that are so scared and drive so slow that they get in everybody"s way. The safest driver is a fellow that knows how to handle his machine and yet isn"t scared to speed up when it"s necessary, don"t you think so?"
"Oh, yes!"
"I bet you drive like a wiz."
"Oh, no--I mean--not really. Of course, we had a car--I mean, before my husband pa.s.sed on--and I used to make believe drive it, but I don"t think any woman ever learns to drive like a man."
"Well, now, there"s some mighty good woman drivers."
"Oh, of course, these women that try to imitate men, and play golf and everything, and ruin their complexions and spoil their hands!"
"That"s so. I never did like these mannish females."
"I mean--of course, I admire them, dreadfully, and I feel so weak and useless beside them."
"Oh, rats now! I bet you play the piano like a wiz."
"Oh, no--I mean--not really."
"Well, I"ll bet you do!" He glanced at her smooth hands, her diamond and ruby rings. She caught the glance, snuggled her hands together with a kittenish curving of slim white fingers which delighted him, and yearned:
"I do love to play--I mean--I like to drum on the piano, but I haven"t had any real training. Mr. Judique used to say I would "ve been a good pianist if I"d had any training, but then, I guess he was just flattering me."
"I"ll bet he wasn"t! I"ll bet you"ve got temperament."
"Oh--Do you like music, Mr Babbitt?"
"You bet I do! Only I don"t know "s I care so much for all this cla.s.sical stuff."
"Oh, I do! I just love Chopin and all those."
"Do you, honest? Well, of course, I go to lots of these highbrow concerts, but I do like a good jazz orchestra, right up on its toes, with the fellow that plays the ba.s.s fiddle spinning it around and beating it up with the bow."
"Oh, I know. I do love good dance music. I love to dance, don"t you, Mr.
Babbitt?"
"Sure, you bet. Not that I"m very darn good at it, though."
"Oh, I"m sure you are. You ought to let me teach you. I can teach anybody to dance."
"Would you give me a lesson some time?"