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Page 88
He tried to recall in their order the events of those three days since
he had left the office on Saturday. His coolest efforts failed. It was
like watching a screen upon which many and diverse films were
superimposing scenes in which he was an actor of more or less
consequence, but in which his figure was always blurred. It was
confounding.
Yet he had certainly gone out to that country place Sunday for tea and
things, taking Nap. And the flapper, with a sinful pride, had shown him
off to the family. He and the flapper had clearly been of more
consequence than the big sister and the affianced waster, who wouldn't
be able to earn his own cigarettes, say nothing of his ties and gloves.
Sister and the waster, who seemed to be an agreeable young man, were
simply engaged in a prosaic way, and looked prosaically forward to a
church wedding. No one thought anything about them, and sister was
indeed made perfectly furious by the airs the flapper put on.
Mrs. Breede, from one of the very oldest families of Omaha, had
displayed amazing fortitude. She had not broken down once, although she
plainly regarded Bean as a malignant and fatal disease with which her
latest-born had been infected. "I must be brave, brave!" she had seemed
to be reminding herself. And when Nap had chased and chewed her toy
spaniel, named "Rex," until it seemed that Rex might pass on, she had
summoned all her woman's resignation and only murmured, "Nothing can
matter now!"
There had seemed to be one fleeting epoch which he shared alone with the
flapper, feeling the smooth yielding of her cheek and expanding under
her very proudest gaze of ownership. And a little more about fumed oak
panels and the patent laundry tubs.
Monday there had been a mere look-in at the office, with Tully saying
"Sir"; with Breede exploding fragments of words to a middle-aged and
severely gowned woman stenographer who was more formidable than a
panorama of the Swiss Alps, and who plainly made Breede uncomfortable;
and with Bulger saying, "Never fooled your Uncle Cuthbert for a minute.
Did little old George W. Wisenham have you doped out right or not? Ask
me, _ask_ me; wake me up any time in the night and ask me!"
Tuesday afternoon he had walked with the flapper in the park and had
learned of many things going forward with solely his welfare in
view--little old house surrounded on all sides by just perfectly
scenery--little old next year's car--little old going-away rag--little
old perfectly just knew it the first moment she saw him--little old new
rags to be bought in Paris--and sister only going to Asheville on
_hers_.
And the dinner in town, where he had seemed to make an excellent
impression, only that Mrs. Breede persisted in behaving as if the body
was still upstairs and she must be brave, brave! And Grandma, the Demon,
confiding to him over her after-dinner cigarette that he was in for it
now, though she hadn't dared tell him so before; but he'd find that out
for himself soon enough if he wasn't very careful about thwarting her.
It made her perfectly furious to be thwarted.
Nor did he fail to note that the stricken mother was distinctly blaming
the Demon for the whole dreadful affair. Her child had been allowed to
associate with a grandmother who had gone radical at an age when most of
her sex simmer in a gentle fireside conservatism and die respectably.
But it was too late now. She could only be brave, brave!
And he was to be there at nine sharp, which was too early, but the
flapper could be sure only after he came that nothing had happened to
him, that he had neither failed in business, been poisoned by some
article of food not on her list, nor diverted by that possible Other One
who seemed always to lurk in the flapper's mental purlieus. She just
perfectly wanted him there an hour too early; all there was about it!
These events had beaten upon him with the unhurried but telling impact
of an ocean tide. Two facts were salient from the mass: whatever he had
done he had done because of Ram-tah; and he was going to Paris, where he
would see the actual tomb of that other outworn shell of his.
He thought he would not be able to sleep. He had the night in which to
pack that steamer trunk. Leisurely he doffed the faultless evening
garments--he was going to have a waistcoat pointed like the waster's,
with four of those little shiny buttons, and studs and cuff-links to
match--and donned a gayly flowered silk robe.
With extreme discomfort he surveyed the new steamer trunk. Merely
looking at a steamer trunk left him with acute premonitions of what the
voyage had in store for him. But the flapper was the flapper; and it was
the only way ever to see that tomb.
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