"There's nothing to be afraid of," she repeated silently to herself, and tried to understand the cause of her trembling. Even if there were consequences--there was Aubrey. She smiled nervously. It was his fault.
He was a fool.
They entered the elevator. A sleepy boy shut the cage door after them.
Schroder gripped her arm and his fingers caressed the soft flesh. She turned to him and smiled. She was no longer afraid. A shameless, exultant light kindled in her eyes. She leaned against him with a shiver as the elevator lifted slowly.
... They had decided to check out in time for her to return home for dinner.
"I don't have to go up to the desk with you, do I?" she asked.
Schroder smiled tiredly.
"Oh no," he said, "you wait at the entrance with the property suit case.
Then we'll both take a cab and drive a few blocks. I'll get out with the bag and you drive on home. It's simple."
Nevertheless the fear she had experienced in the morning returned as she watched him go to the desk. In another minute it would be all over and everything would be all right. But now--what if someone saw them? Bumped into her accidentally. The lassitude which had filled her when she locked the tumbled hotel room behind her, gave way to a curious panic.
Her tired nerves became unhappily alive.
"Why--hello, Mrs. Gilchrist."
She was unable to see the man for an instant. Her mind had darkened. "I mustn't faint," she murmured to herself. She was looking at an unshaven, dissipated face that smiled. As she looked her world seemed to be falling down. Everything gone--ruined. Because a face was smiling. Tom Ramsey. The man's name popped into her thought.
"Hello," she muttered.
Schroder approached and frowned. He took her arm and led her away. She began to cry in the cab.
"He saw us. He knows. He'll tell everybody. Oh my God! Why did you come up when you saw him? If you'd only realized. Oh, why did I do it? Now everything's ruined. I'm lost."
She wept, knowing the futility of tears. An accident that seemed provokingly unreal and soothingly unimportant--Tom Ramsey. Yet the name was like a guillotine block on which her head lay stretched.
Schroder, annoyed, tried to console her.
"Who was it? Listen, pull yourself together. People always imagine themselves guiltier looking than they are. He probably thought nothing wrong."
"Tom Ramsey. Didn't you see how he looked at me? Oh, God, I'm sick."
"Who is he?"
"He used to be my mother's friend. But he went to the dogs. He's just a tramp now. He isn't a gentleman."
Schroder sighed.
"Oh well," he said, "there's no use worrying. Come, put it out of your head."
"I can't. Oh, I can't. Why did I do it. I'll kill myself if ... if anything happens. Aubrey will.... Oh Paul, I feel sick."
He stared glumly at the back of the chauffeur's head. A nuisance. A damned nuisance. His mind played with contrasts. A few hours ago she had been shameless. Now she sat weeping. He thought of her as ungrateful and grew angry.
"I'll step out now," he whispered. "Call me up tomorrow at the office, will you? Nothing will happen. Please, be calm. It's all imagination."
He halted the cab and stepped out with the suitcase. She would feel better, he knew, as soon as he disappeared. She would be able to convince herself then that nothing had happened--that she was coming home from a shopping tour.
"Good-bye. Call me up, dearest."
Fanny sat weeping as the cab moved away. Ramsey had seen her. A misery too heavy for thought brought another burst of tears. She hated Schroder. And herself, too. But most of all the ragged looking, unshaven Ramsey in the lobby. Why had he come at just that moment? If they had left the room ten minutes earlier. It was Paul's fault. He insisted on combing his hair, and reading a story in the newspaper. If he hadn't sent down for the newspaper in the middle of the afternoon. He didn't love her or he wouldn't have thought of sending for it. She had laughed at the time but it was an insult. He was a brute. If he had loved her he wouldn't have wanted to read a newspaper and they wouldn't have met Ramsey. She sat conjuring up dozens of trifling incidents which, had they occurred, would have prevented the fatal meeting with Ramsey.
Then she smiled convulsively through her tears. It was about the story.
They had laughed at it in the room. "Judge Basine Launches Vice Quiz.
State to Investigate Problem of Immorality Among Women Wage Earners...."
"Why girls go wrong ... why girls go wrong," rumbled through her head now and she laughed hysterically. Oh, that tramp of a Ramsey had spoiled it all. Otherwise it would have been wonderful. And next week, too. But perhaps he hadn't noticed anything. Of course he hadn't. Paul was right.
She dried her tears and looked into the twilighted streets. She had planned her homecoming days ago. She would be ill, overcome by the heat and excuse herself from the dinner table. A final chill shot through her heart as the cab stopped.
She found herself entering her home with complete poise. It was almost as if nothing had happened. Here were the familiar things of life. Her home, Aubrey, the rows of books, the walnut library table. Nothing had happened. For a moment she was amazed at the complete unconsciousness of the day. Then smiling delightedly at her husband in a chair, a familiar husband in a familiar chair, she removed her hat and approached him.
Leaning over the back of his chair she kissed him tenderly on the cheek.
He was her protector. Good old Aubrey, so familiar, so placid and unchanged. If it only hadn't been for Ramsey everything would be so nice now. But anyway, it wasn't so bad. She had been a bit hysterical.
"Where've you been, Fanny?"
She felt no twinge at the question. Instead an enthusiasm for the situation filled her.
"To the matinee," she laughed. "Oh, I saw the nicest show."
She leaned forward and took his hand. Aubrey regarded her with a petulant stare. Despite their years of marriage, she was still an animal, gross and irritating.
"And I'm just starved," she exclaimed. "I was never so hungry in my life."
She laughed, overjoyed at the truth of the statement and hurried upstairs to prepare for dinner.
18
The manuscript had been found in the drawer where William Gilchrist kept his collars. It lay underneath a number of loose collars.
With the death of his father a curious love for the man had come to Aubrey. He remembered from day to day things his father had said, or seemed to say. A sad, elderly man who lived secretly in his thoughts.
That was his father.
Like him, Aubrey now had a secret life that he lived only in his thoughts, and this was slowly making him kin to the man who had died. In Aubrey's thoughts dwelt a dramatic, startling figure--a gleaming, hawk-faced thunderer; a lean Isaiah of burning phrases with an eagle-winged soul beating its way toward God. This was Aubrey Gilchrist.
Not the Aubrey whom life had mysteriously deformed into an advertising man, but an Aubrey triumphant who had risen above the petty turns of Fate and burst upon a world--a voice crying forth astounding phrases against the evil of man's ways.
The inner characterization in which Aubrey was gradually immersing himself remained a vague though warm generality. He was able to visualize the Thunderer and able to enjoy the results of his genius. In his day dreams he pictured this inner one bringing the world to his feet. Books were being written about him, magazines and newspapers were filled with his praises and interpretations, and men and women everywhere discussed his ascent in awe. He was a conqueror--a bloodless Napoleon and a martyrless Jesus. A prophet whose genius was lifting men out of the mire.
What the message was which this inner Aubrey was spreading through the world, what the phrases were that ignited the souls of men, were not contained in his imaginings. He approached them from a critical and not creative angle--his fancies presenting him with descriptive self praises. He composed rambling articles in his mind celebrating his triumphs. This inner Aubrey was eloquent, electrifying, unassailable; men and women wept over his writings and repented; cities reared statues to him, and all places sang his glories. The whole thing had begun as a game, deliberately invented to occupy the leisure of his mind. But he had elaborated on it and it had grown almost by itself. Now it preoccupied him to an alarming degree.