I
THE summer before, Mrs. Babbitt's letters had crackled
with desire to return to Zenith. Now they said nothing of
returning, but a wistful "I suppose everything is going on all
right without me'' among her dry chronicles of weather and
sicknesses hinted to Babbitt that he hadn't been very urgent
about her coming. He worried it:
"If she were here, and I went on raising cain like I been
doing, she'd have a fit. I got to get hold of myself. I got
to learn to play around and yet not make a fool of myself.
I can do it, too, if folks like Verg Gunch 'll let me alone, and
Myra 'll stay away. But—poor kid, she sounds lonely. Lord,
I don't want to hurt her!''
Impulsively he wrote that they missed her, and her next
letter said happily that she was coming home.
He persuaded himself that he was eager to see her. He
bought roses for the house, he ordered squab for dinner, he
had the car cleaned and polished. All the way home from
the station with her he was adequate in his accounts of Ted's
success in basket-ball at the university, but before they reached
Floral Heights there was nothing more to say, and already
he felt the force of her stolidity, wondered whether he could
remain a good husband and still sneak out of the house this
evening for half an hour with the Bunch. When he had
housed the car he blundered upstairs, into the familiar talcum-scented
warmth of her presence, blaring, "Help you unpack
your bag?''
"No, I can do it.''
Slowly she turned, holding up a small box, and slowly she
said, "I brought you a present, just a new cigar-case. I don't
know if you'd care to have it—''
She was the lonely girl, the brown appealing Myra Thompson,
whom he had married, and he almost wept for pity as he
kissed her and besought, "Oh, honey, honey, careto have it?
Of course I do! I'm awful proud you brought it to me. And
I needed a new case badly.''
He wondered how he would get rid of the case he had
bought the week before.
"And you really are glad to see me back?''
"Why, you poor kiddy, what you been worrying about?''
"Well, you didn't seem to miss me very much.''
By the time he had finished his stint of lying they were
firmly bound again. By ten that evening it seemed improbable
that she had ever been away. There was but one difference:
the problem of remaining a respectable husband, a Floral
Heights husband, yet seeing Tanis and the Bunch with frequency.
He had promised to telephone to Tanis that evening,
and now it was melodramatically impossible. He prowled
about the telephone, impulsively thrusting out a hand to lift
the receiver, but never quite daring to risk it. Nor could he
find a reason for slipping down to the drug store on Smith
Street, with its telephone-booth. He was laden with responsibility
till he threw it off with the speculation: "Why the
deuce should I fret so about not being able to 'phone Tanis?
She can get along without me. I don't owe her anything. She's
a fine girl, but I've given her just as much as she has me.
. . . Oh, damn these women and the way they get you all
tied up in complications!''
