The Turmoil Booth Tarkington (best reads .txt) 📖

‘What time do I want the car?’ he says. ‘Well, now, that depends⁠—that depends,’ he says. He talks slow like that, you know. ‘I’ll tell you what time I want the car, George,’ he says, ‘if you’ll tell me what you think of this statue!’ That’s exactly his words! Asked the darky what he thought of that Arab Edith and mother bought for the hall!”

Mary pondered upon this. “He might have been in fun, perhaps,” she suggested.

“Askin’ a darky what he thought of a piece of statuary⁠—of a work of art! Where on earth would be the fun of that? No, you’re just kindhearted⁠—and that’s the way you ought to be, of course⁠—”

“Thank you, Mr. Sheridan!” she laughed.

“See here!” he cried. “Isn’t there any way for us to get over this Mister and Miss thing? A month’s got thirty-one days in it; I’ve managed to be with you a part of pretty near all the thirty-one, and I think you know how I feel by this time⁠—”

She looked panic-stricken immediately. “Oh, no,” she protested, quickly. “No, I don’t, and⁠—”

“Yes, you do,” he said, and his voice shook a little. “You couldn’t help knowing.”

“But I do!” she denied, hurriedly. “I do help knowing. I mean⁠—Oh, wait!”

“What for? You do know how I feel, and you⁠—well, you’ve certainly wanted me to feel that way⁠—or else pretended⁠—”

“Now, now!” she lamented. “You’re spoiling such a cheerful afternoon!”

“ ‘Spoilin’ it!’ ” He slowed down the car and turned his face to her squarely. “See here, Miss Vertrees, haven’t you⁠—”

“Stop! Stop the car a minute.” And when he had complied she faced him as squarely as he evidently desired her to face him. “Listen. I don’t want you to go on, today.”

“Why not?” he asked, sharply.

“I don’t know.”

“You mean it’s just a whim?”

“I don’t know,” she repeated. Her voice was low and troubled and honest, and she kept her clear eyes upon his.

“Will you tell me something?”

“Almost anything.”

“Have you ever told any man you loved him?”

And at that, though she laughed, she looked a little contemptuous. “No,” she said. “And I don’t think I ever shall tell any man that⁠—or ever know what it means. I’m in earnest, Mr. Sheridan.”

“Then you⁠—you’ve just been flirting with me!” Poor Jim looked both furious and crestfallen.

“Not one bit!” she cried. “Not one word! Not one syllable! I’ve meant every single thing!”

“I don’t⁠—”

“Of course you don’t!” she said. “Now, Mr. Sheridan, I want you to start the car. Now! Thank you. Slowly, till I finish what I have to say. I have not flirted with you. I have deliberately courted you. One thing more, and then I want you to take me straight home, talking about the weather all the way. I said that I do not believe I shall ever ‘care’ for any man, and that is true. I doubt the existence of the kind of ‘caring’ we hear about in poems and plays and novels. I think it must be just a kind of emotional talk⁠—most of it. At all events, I don’t feel it. Now, we can go faster, please.”

“Just where does that let me out?” he demanded. “How does that excuse you for⁠—”

“It isn’t an excuse,” she said, gently, and gave him one final look, wholly desolate. “I haven’t said I should never marry.”

“What?” Jim gasped.

She inclined her head in a broken sort of acquiescence, very humble, unfathomably sorrowful.

“I promise nothing,” she said, faintly.

“You needn’t!” shouted Jim, radiant and exultant. “You needn’t! By George! I know you’re square; that’s enough for me! You wait and promise whenever you’re ready!”

“Don’t forget what I asked,” she begged him.

“Talk about the weather? I will! God bless the old weather!” cried the happy Jim.

IX

Through the open country Bibbs was borne flying between brown fields and sun-flecked groves of gray trees, to breathe the rushing, clean air beneath a glorious sky⁠—that sky so despised in the city, and so maltreated there, that from early October to mid-May it was impossible for men to remember that blue is the rightful color overhead.

Upon each of Bibbs’s cheeks there was a hint of something almost resembling a pinkishness; not actual color, but undeniably its phantom. How largely this apparition may have been the work of the wind upon his face it is difficult to calculate, for beyond a doubt it was partly the result of a lady’s bowing to him upon no more formal introduction than the circumstance of his having caught her looking into his window a month before. She had bowed definitely; she had bowed charmingly. And it seemed to Bibbs that she must have meant to convey her forgiveness.

There had been something in her recognition of him unfamiliar to his experience, and he rode the warmer for it. Nor did he lack the impression that he would long remember her as he had just seen her: her veil tumultuously blowing back, her face glowing in the wind⁠—and that look of gay friendliness tossed to him like a fresh rose in carnival.

By and by, upon a rising ground, the driver halted the car, then backed and tacked, and sent it forward again with its nose to the south and the smoke. Far before him Bibbs saw the great smudge upon the horizon, that nest of cloud in which the city strove and panted like an engine shrouded in its own steam. But to Bibbs, who had now to go to the very heart of it, for a commanded interview with his father, the distant cloud was like an implacable genius issuing thunderously in smoke from his enchanted bottle, and irresistibly drawing Bibbs nearer and nearer.

They passed from the farm lands, and came, in the amber light of November late afternoon, to the farthermost outskirts of the city; and here the sky shimmered upon the verge of change from blue to gray; the smoke did not visibly permeate the air, but it was there, nevertheless⁠—impalpable, thin, no more than the dust of smoke. And then, as the car drove on, the chimneys