The elevator jiggled to a stop and they stepped into the corridor.
Scrawny-faced women were crawling patiently down the floor. They slopped wet brushes before them, wrung mops out over pails, and crawled an inch farther down the floor. Hazlitt smiled. This, too, was a part of life--keeping the floors of the building scrubbed. He won law cases.
Old women scrubbed floors. It fitted into an orderly pattern with a great meaning to its order. He paused for a moment to admire the cleanliness of the washed surface. Homage to the work of others--of old women on their knees scrubbing floors.
"Well, it"s all over, Miss Pollard."
She was sitting beside the desk where she had sat the first time they had discussed her defense. Hazlitt, unloading his brief-case, looked at her. Uncommonly pretty. Trusting eyes. What a rotten fellow, the interne!
"I don"t know why I wanted to come here." Pauline"s eyes stared sadly about the room. "I"m free, but ..." She covered her face and wept.
"Now, now, Miss Pollard!"
"Oh, it"s still awful."
"You"ll forget soon."
"I"ll go away. Somewhere. Alone." A louder sob.
"Please don"t cry."
Hazlitt watched her tenderly. The weeping increased. A lonesomeness and a vagueness were in the girl"s heart. The tick-tock of the city had a foreign sound. She was a stranger in its streets. There had been something else, and now it was gone. A wilderness, a tension, the familiar face of Frankie Hamel telling her to go to h.e.l.l one night and stop bothering him with her d.a.m.ned wailing ... and Frankie dying at her feet whispering, "What the devil, Pauline?" Then the trial. Hot and cold hours. A roomful of silent, open-mouthed faces listening to her weep, watching her squirm with proper shame and anguish as she told her story to the jurors ... the details of the abortion. "And then I couldn"t stand it. I don"t remember what happened. Oh, I loved him! I don"t remember. He cursed me. He called me a ... Oh, G.o.d, names. Awful names! I told him I was going to kill myself. I couldn"t live, disgraced ... without his love. I"d bought a gun to kill myself. And he laughed. I don"t remember after that; except that somehow he was ... he was dead.
And I wasn"t...."
These things were gone. The trial was over and done. Now there was nothing left but the city with its street-cars and offices.
"Oh, everything"s so changed," she murmured. Hazlitt stood behind her chair, hand on her shoulder. Poor child! The law could not free her from the remorse for her crime and mistake. Lawlessness carried its own punishment. Virtue its own rewards, sin its own torments.
"You"ll forget," he answered softly. The law sometimes punished. But after all this was the real punishment ... beyond the power of the law to mete out. Punishment of sin. Conscience. Poor child! Inexorable fruit of evil. Despair, remorse....
"You must forget. You"re young. You can begin over. Please don"t cry."
Thus Hazlitt comforted her who was weeping not with remorse for what had been, but that it had gone. No word consciousness stirred her grief. An unintelligible sorrow, it swelled in her heart and filled her with helplessness. Life had gone from her. She was mourning for it. Mourning for a murderess and a sinner who had gone, abandoned her and left her a naked, uninteresting Pauline Pollard again--a n.o.body surrounded by n.o.bodies. And once it had been different. Lighted faces listening to her in a room. Frankie whispering, "What the devil, Pauline?"
A fresh burst of tears brought Hazlitt in front of her. Gently he moved her hands from her face.
"You mustn"t," he began over again.
"Oh, I won"t ever be able to...."
"Yes you will, little girl."
"No, no!"
She was standing. Snow outside. Rows of lighted windows drifting.
Thoughts slipped out of his head. Traffic probably tied up.
"Please don"t cry."
She dropped her head against his shoulder and wept anew. It was nice to have somebody asking her not to cry. It made it easier and more purposeful to weep.
Hazlitt sighed. Tears ... tears ... the live odor of hair. Arms that felt soft. She was mumbling close to him, "I can"t help it. Please forgive me."
"Yes, yes! There, there!" Of course he would forgive her. Forgiveness made him glow. But as he spoke his voice depressed him. What should he do? Could he help her? What was life, anyway? Snow outside and rows of lighted windows drifting. Her body close, warm, and saddening. The firmness of his nerves dissolved. He had his sorrow too ... Rachel. Far away. Drifting like the snow outside. Rachel ... the odor of hair brought her back. Should he cry? Her knees had touched him once like this. She had held her arm about his shoulder once, like this. But, oh, so different!... The girl seemed to come closer to him.
He had been holding a stranger politely. Now the stranger relaxed. Soft, warm, familiar body. He grew frightened. Somehow the clinging of the girl"s body, the murmur of her tears, brought a sorrow into his heart. I am not Rachel, but I am like her.... What made him think that? Yes, she was like her, warm, soft, and woman. Like her--like her. Why had they kissed? And her hands clasping nervously at his shoulders? She was not in love? Not Rachel. But she wanted something. And he too. Something that was a dream song. Here were the lips of the singer, eager, reaching to his own. Pressing, asking more. How had this happened? Should he speak? But what? Nothing to say. Had he forgotten Rachel? Remembering Rachel? Who was this? The questions blurred. Rachel, sang his heart. For a moment he embraced the warm shadow of a dream. And then a woman was offering herself to him. No dream now. Her thighs riveted themselves against him. Under her clothes her body seemed to be moving, coming to him.
Hazlitt grew dizzy. He had been consoling her. No more. Now what? He threw his strength into his embrace. Their bodies moved together.
"Oh ..." A moan as if she were still weeping. Her lips parted in desperate surrender. Her kiss took the breath out of him.
"Dearest!" His voice carried him out of her arms. He knew suddenly that but for the word and the familiar sound of his voice he would have possessed her. But the word rang an alarm in his ears. Fright, nausea, relaxed muscles. A wiliness in his thought.... "Do you feel better now?"
She failed to hear. Her fingers still clutched.
"There ... there, don"t cry!" He felt cold. His hands on her arms pressed them gently away, his fingers patting them with a fatherly diapason. George Hazlitt, attorney-at-law.
"Better now, Pauline?" An error to have called her Pauline. Look bad in the record. Committed him to "Pauline."
"Oh, George!"
The thought of Rachel listened in amazement ... George ... Pauline.
Dearest! He must be careful. She had grown numb against him. A numb woman sewed to his lapels. He lowered her as if she were lifeless and he fearful of disturbing her. She looked harmless in a chair. Was it possible to talk now? Not yet. Take her hand; careful not to squeeze it.
Pat it as he"d done in the street. An all"s-well-with-the-world pat.
Somebody rattled the doork.n.o.b. Hazlitt started eagerly. Relief. But, good G.o.d, no lights in the office. The cleaners would come in and think things. Her hair in disorder and her face smeared with weeping would make them think things. An oath disentangled itself from his confusion.
The door opened. Two scrawny-faced women with mops and brooms....
"It"s all right. Go ahead. We"re just leaving. Are you ready, Miss Pollard?"
The Miss Pollard was a masterpiece. But did it deceive the mops and brooms? d.a.m.n them! They walked arm in arm down the corridor.
"I think the elevators have stopped. Wouldn"t it be a joke if we had to walk down?"
She refused to answer. Witness remains silent. Why couldn"t she be interested in jokes?... the woman of it. Nothing had happened. She had nothing to think about. Why not jokes? He frowned at the grilling of the elevator door. An elevator bobbed up.
In the street, "I"ll get a cab, Miss Pollard." Take a firm stand and not call her Pauline again. But she was silent. Nothing had happened. He grew frightened. She was trying to bulldoze him by pretending. Bundle her into a cab and get rid of her.
Suddenly, as if he"d been thinking it out when he hadn"t, "You must forgive me for--that. I didn"t mean to, please."
Anything rather than her silence. Even an apology. Nothing had happened, but he would apologize anyway to be on the safe side. She looked at him and said, "Oh!"
"Please, Miss Pollard, you make me feel like a cur."
A chauffeur leaned forward from his seat and thrust open the cab door.
Pauline entered without hesitation. She might have the decency to hesitate when he was apologizing for nothing. Hazlitt stuck his head in after her. The thing was ludicrously unfinished and he was making an a.s.s of himself. She should have hesitated.
"Tell your mother I hope she"ll be better soon."
"Where to, mister?"