20. CHAPTER XX
I
HE sat smoking with the piano-salesman, clinging to the
warm refuge of gossip, afraid to venture into thoughts of
Paul. He was the more affable on the surface as secretly he
became more apprehensive, felt more hollow. He was certain
that Paul was in Chicago without Zilla's knowledge, and that
he was doing things not at all moral and secure. When the
salesman yawned that he had to write up his orders, Babbitt
left him, left the hotel, in leisurely calm. But savagely he said
"Campbell Inn!'' to the taxi-driver. He sat agitated on the
slippery leather seat, in that chill dimness which smelled of
dust and perfume and Turkish cigarettes. He did not heed the
snowy lake-front, the dark spaces and sudden bright corners
in the unknown land south of the Loop.
The office of the Campbell Inn was hard, bright, new; the
night clerk harder and brighter. "Yep?'' he said to Babbitt.
"Mr. Paul Riesling registered here?''
"Yep.''
"Is he in now?''
"Nope.''
"Then if you'll give me his key, I'll wait for him.''
"Can't do that, brother. Wait down here if you wanna.''
Babbitt had spoken with the deference which all the Clan
of Good Fellows give to hotel clerks. Now he said with snarling
abruptness:
"I may have to wait some time. I'm Riesling's brother-in-law.
I'll go up to his room. D' I look like a sneak-thief?''
His voice was low and not pleasant. With considerable
haste the clerk took down the key, protesting, "I never said
you looked like a sneak-thief. Just rules of the hotel. But
if you want to—''
On his way up in the elevator Babbitt wondered why he was
here. Why shouldn't Paul be dining with a respectable married
woman? Why had he lied to the clerk about being Paul's
brother-in-law? He had acted like a child. He must be careful
not to say foolish dramatic things to Paul. As he settled
down he tried to look pompous and placid. Then the
thought— Suicide. He'd been dreading that, without knowing
it. Paul would be just the person to do something like
that. He must be out of his head or he wouldn't be confiding
in that—that dried-up hag.
Zilla (oh, damn Zilla! how gladly he'd throttle that nagging
fiend of a woman!)—she'd probably succeeded at last, and
driven Paul crazy.
Suicide. Out there in the lake, way out, beyond the piled
ice along the shore. It would be ghastly cold to drop into the
water to-night.
Or—throat cut—in the bathroom—
Babbitt flung into Paul's bathroom. It was empty. He
smiled, feebly.
He pulled at his choking collar, looked at his watch, opened
the window to stare down at the street, looked at his watch,
tried to read the evening paper lying on the glass-topped bureau,
looked again at his watch. Three minutes had gone by
since he had first looked at it.
And he waited for three hours.
He was sitting fixed, chilled, when the doorknob turned.
Paul came in glowering.
"Hello,'' Paul said. "Been waiting?''
"Yuh, little while.''
"Well?''
"Well what? Just thought I'd drop in to see how you
made out in Akron.''
"I did all right. What difference does it make?''
"Why, gosh, Paul, what are you sore about?''
"What are you butting into my affairs for?''
"Why, Paul, that's no way to talk! I'm not butting into
nothing. I was so glad to see your ugly old phiz that I just
dropped in to say howdy.''
"Well, I'm not going to have anybody following me around
and trying to boss me. I've had all of that I'm going to stand!''
"Well, gosh, I'm not—''
"I didn't like the way you looked at May Arnold, or the
snooty way you talked.''
"Well, all right then! If you think I'm a buttinsky, then
I'll just butt in! I don't know who your May Arnold is, but
I know doggone good and well that you and her weren't talking
about tar-roofing, no, nor about playing the violin, neither! If
you haven't got any moral consideration for yourself, you ought
to have some for your position in the community. The idea of
your going around places gawping into a female's eyes like a
love-sick pup! I can understand a fellow slipping once, but
I don't propose to see a fellow that's been as chummy with me
as you have getting started on the downward path and sneaking
off from his wife, even as cranky a one as Zilla, to go
woman-chasing—''
"Oh, you're a perfectly moral little husband!''
"I am, by God! I've never looked at any woman except
Myra since I've been married—practically—and I never will!
I tell you there's nothing to immorality. It don't pay. Can't
you see, old man, it just makes Zilla still crankier?''
Slight of resolution as he was of body, Paul threw his snow-beaded
overcoat on the floor and crouched on a flimsy cane
chair. "Oh, you're an old blowhard, and you know less about
morality than Tinka, but you're all right, Georgie. But you
can't understand that— I'm through. I can't go Zilla's hammering
any longer. She's made up her mind that I'm a devil,
and— Reg'lar Inquisition. Torture. She enjoys it. It's a
game to see how sore she can make me. And me, either it's
find a little comfort, any comfort, anywhere, or else do something
a lot worse. Now this Mrs. Arnold, she's not so young,
but she's a fine woman and she understands a fellow, and
she's had her own troubles.''
"Yea! I suppose she's one of these hens whose husband
`doesn't understand her'!''
"I don't know. Maybe. He was killed in the war.''
Babbitt lumbered up, stood beside Paul patting his shoulder,
making soft apologetic noises.
"Honest, George, she's a fine woman, and she's had one hell
of a time. We manage to jolly each other up a lot. We tell
each other we're the dandiest pair on earth. Maybe we don't
believe it, but it helps a lot to have somebody with whom you
can be perfectly simple, and not all this discussing—explaining—''
"And that's as far as you go?''
"It is not! Go on! Say it!''
"Well, I don't—I can't say I like it, but—'' With a burst
which left him feeling large and shining with generosity,
"it's none of my darn business! I'll do anything I can for
you, if there's anything I can do.''
"There might be. I judge from Zilla's letters that 've been
forwarded from Akron that she's getting suspicious about my
staying away so long. She'd be perfectly capable of having
me shadowed, and of coming to Chicago and busting into a
hotel dining-room and bawling me out before everybody.''
"I'll take care of Zilla. I'll hand her a good fairy-story when
I get back to Zenith.''
"I don't know—I don't think you better try it. You're
a good fellow. but I don't know that diplomacy is your strong
point.'' Babbitt looked hurt, then irritated. "I mean with
women! With women, I mean. Course they got to go some
to beat you in business diplomacy, but I just mean with
women. Zilla may do a lot of rough talking, but she's pretty
shrewd. She'd have the story out of you in no time.''
"Well, all right, but—'' Babbitt was still pathetic at not
being allowed to play Secret Agent. Paul soothed:
"Course maybe you might tell her you'd been in Akron and
seen me there.''
"Why, sure, you bet! Don't I have to go look at that candy-store
property in Akron? Don't I? Ain't it a shame I have
to stop off there when I'm so anxious to get home? Ain't it
a regular shame? I'll say it is! I'll say it's a doggone shame!''
"Fine. But for glory hallelujah's sake don't go putting any
fancy fixings on the story. When men lie they always try
to make it too artistic, and that's why women get suspicious.
And— Let's have a drink, Georgie. I've got some gin and
a little vermouth.''
The Paul who normally refused a second cocktail took a
second now, and a third. He became red-eyed and thick-tongued.
He was embarrassingly jocular and salacious.
In the taxicab Babbitt incredulously found tears crowding
into his eyes.
II
He had not told Paul of his plan but he did stop at Akron,
between trains, for the one purpose of sending to Zilla a postcard
with "Had to come here for the day, ran into Paul.'' In
Zenith he called on her. If for public appearances Zilla was
over-coiffed, over-painted, and resolutely corseted, for private
misery she wore a filthy blue dressing-gown and torn stockings
thrust into streaky pink satin mules. Her face was sunken.
She seemed to have but half as much hair as Babbitt remembered,
and that half was stringy. She sat in a rocker amid a
debris of candy-boxes and cheap magazines, and she sounded
dolorous when she did not sound derisive. But Babbitt was
exceedingly breezy:
"Well, well, Zil, old dear, having a good loaf while hubby's
away? That's the ideal I'll bet a hat Myra never got up
till ten, while I was in Chicago. Say, could I borrow your
thermos—just dropped in to see if I could borrow your thermos
bottle. We're going to have a toboggan party—want to take
some coffee
mit. Oh, did you get my card from Akron, saying
I'd run into Paul?''
"Yes. What was he doing?''
"How do you mean?'' He unbuttoned his overcoat, sat tentatively
on the arm of a chair.
"You know how I mean!'' She slapped the pages of a magazine
with an irritable clatter. "I suppose he was trying to
make love to some hotel waitress or manicure girl or somebody.''
"Hang it, you're always letting on that Paul goes round
chasing skirts. He doesn't, in the first place, and if he did,
it would prob'ly be because you keep hinting at him and dinging
at him so much. I hadn't meant to, Zilla, but since Paul
is away, in Akron—''
"He really is in Akron? I know he has some horrible woman
that he writes to in Chicago.''
"Didn't I tell you I saw him in Akron? What 're you trying
to do? Make me out a liar?''
"No, but I just— I get so worried.''
"Now, there you are! That's what gets me! Here you love
Paul, and yet you plague him and cuss him out as if you
hated him. I simply can't understand why it is that the more
some folks love people, the harder they try to make 'em miserable.''
"You love Ted and Rone—I suppose—and yet you nag
them.''
"Oh. Well. That. That's different. Besides, I don't nag
'em. Not what you'd call nagging. But zize saying: Now,
here's Paul, the nicest, most sensitive critter on God's green
earth. You ought to be ashamed of yourself the way you pan
him. Why, you talk to him like a washerwoman. I'm surprised
you can act so doggone common, Zilla!''
She brooded over her linked fingers. "Oh, I know. I do go
and get mean sometimes, and I'm sorry afterwards. But, oh,
Georgie, Paul is so aggravating! Honestly, I've tried awfully
hard, these last few years, to be nice to him, but just because
I used to be spiteful—or I seemed so; I wasn't, really, but
I used to speak up and say anything that came into my head—
and so he made up his mind that everything was my fault.
Everything can't always be my fault, can it? And now if I
get to fussing, he just turns silent, oh, so dreadfully silent,
and he won't look at me—he just ignores me. He simply isn't
human! And he deliberately keeps it up till I bust out and
say a lot of things I don't mean. So silent— Oh, you righteous
men! How wicked you are! How rotten wicked!''
They thrashed things over and over for half an hour. At
the end, weeping drably, Zilla promised to restrain herself.
Paul returned four days later, and the Babbitts and Rieslings
went festively to the movies and had chop suey at a
Chinese restaurant. As they walked to the restaurant through
a street of tailor shops and barber shops, the two wives in front,
chattering about cooks, Babbitt murmured to Paul, "Zil seems
a lot nicer now.''
"Yes, she has been, except once or twice. But it's too late
now. I just— I'm not going to discuss it, but I'm afraid of
her. There's nothing left. I don't ever want to see her.
Some day I'm going to break away from her. Somehow.''