peter sat alone in the corner room downstairs. mechanically he turned the pages of le sourire—turned them forward and back, tried to see what lay before his eyes, tried indeed, to appear as should appear that well-known playwright, “eric” mann. “i must think objectively,” he told himself. “that's the great thing—to think objectively.”
time was passing—minutes, hours, years. he was trying to think out how long it had been since the worm went up-stairs. “was it one minute or ten?”
there was a sudden new noise outside—a voice. he listened intently. it was hy lowe's voice; excited, incoherent, shouting imprecations of some sort. somebody ought to take hy home. on any occasion short of the present crisis he would do it himself. gradually the voice died down.
he heard the side-street door open and close.
some one had entered the barroom. he tipped back and peered out there. he could see part of a bulky back, a familiarly bulky back. it moved over a little. it was the back of sumner smith.
peter got up, turned, then stood irresolute. it was not, he told himself, that he was afraid of sumner smith, only that the mere sight of the man stirred uncomfortable and wild emotions within him.
the best way to get out, in fact the only way now, was through the adjoining room to the door under the front steps. certainly he couldn't go up-stairs. there might be trouble on the avenue if the worm should see him coming out. for a moment he even considered swallowing down all this outrageous emotional upheaval within him and staying there. he had said that sue would send for him. during ten or twelve seconds out of every sixty he firmly believed she would. it was so in his plays—let the heartless girl, in her heyday, jilt a worthy lover, she was sure in her hours of trial to flee, chastened, to his arms.
but he looked again at the back of sumner smith. it was a solid back. it suggested, like the man's inscrutable round face, quiet power. peter decided on flight via that front door.
he moved slowly across the room. then he heard a voice that chilled his hot blood.
“mann,” said this voice.
he turned. one or two men glanced up from their papers, then went on reading.
peter stood wavering. sumner smith's eye was full on him from the barroom door; sumner smith's head was beckoning him with a jerk. he went.
“what'll you have?” he asked hurriedly, in the barroom.
“what'll i have?” mimicked sumner smith in a voice of rumbling calm. “you're good, maun. but if anybody was to buy, it'd be me. the joke, you see, is on me. only nobody's buying at the moment. you send me out—an evening earth man!—to pull off a murder for the morning papers. oh, it's good! i grant you, it's good. i do your little murder; the morning papers get the story. just to make sure of it you send jimmie markham around after me. it's all right, mann. i've done your murder. the continental's getting the story now—a marvel of a story. there's a page in it for them to-morrow. as for you—i don't know what you are. and i don't care to soil any of the words i know by putting 'em on you!”
even peter now caught the rumble beneath the calm surface of that voice. and he knew it was perhaps the longest speech of sumner smith's eventful life. peter's stomach, heart, lungs and spine seemed to drop out of his body, leaving a cold hollow frame that could hardly be strong enough to support his shoulders and head. but he drew himself up and replied with some dignity in a voice that was huskier and higher than his own:
“i can't match you in insults, smith. i appear to have a choice between leaving you and striking you. i shall leave you.”
“the choice is yours,” said smith. “either you say.”
“i shall leave you,” repeated peter; and walked, very erect, out to the side street.
here, near the corner of the avenue, he found hy lowe, leaning against the building, weeping, while four taxi chauffeurs and two victoria drivers stood by. it occurred to peter that it might, be best, after all, to give up brooding over his own troubles and take the boy home. he could bundle him into a taxi. and once at the old apartment building in the square, john the night man would help carry him up. it would be rather decent, for that matter, to pay for the taxi just as if it was a matter of course and never mention it to hy. of course, however, if hy were to remember the occurrence—a fist landed in peter's face—not a hard fist, merely a limp, folded-over hand. peter brushed it aside. it was the fist of hy lowe. hy lurched at him now, caught his shoulders, tried to shake him. he was saying things in a rapidly rising voice. after a moment of ineffectual wrestling, peter began to catch what these things were:
“call yourself frien'—take bread outa man's mouth! oh, i know. no good tryin' lie to me—tellin' me sumner smith don' know what he's talkin'! where's my raise? you jes' tell me—where's my raise? ol' walrus gone—croaked—where's my raise?”
peter propped him against the building and walked swiftly around the corner.
there he stopped; dodged behind a tree.
sue and the worm were running down tire wide front steps. she leaped into the first taxi. the worm stood, one foot on the step, hand on door, and called. one of hy's audience hurried around, brushing past peter, receiving his instructions as he cranked the engine and leaped to his seat. the door slammed. they were gone.
peter was sure that something snapped in his brain. it was probably a lesion, he thought. he strode blindly, madly, up the avenue, crowding past the other pedestrians, bumping into one man and rushing on without a word.
suddenly—this was a little farther up the avenue—peter stopped short, caught his breath, struggled with emotions that even he would have thought mixed. he even turned and walked back a short way. for across the street, back in the shadow of the corner building, his eyes made out the figure of a girl; and he knew that figure, knew the slight droop of the shoulders and the prise of the head.
she had seen him, of course. yes, this was tenth street! with swift presence of mind he stooped and went through the motion of picking up something from the sidewalk. this covered his brief retreat. he advanced now.
she hung back in the shadow of the building. her dark pretty face was clouded with anger, her breast rose and fell quickly with her breathing. she would not look at him.
he took her arm—her softly rounded arm—in his hand. she wrenched it away.
“oh, come, maria, dear,” he murmured rather weakly. “i'm sorry i kept you waiting.”
she confronted him now. there was passion in her big eyes. her voice was not under control.
“why don't you tell the truth?” she broke out. “you think you can do anything with me—play with me, hurt me.”
“hush, maria!” he caught her arm again. “some one will hear you!”
“why should i care? do you think i don't know—”
“child, i don't know what on earth you mean!”
“you do know! you play with me! you sent for your bags. why didn't you come yourself?”
“why, that—”
“when you saw me here you stopped—you went back—”
peter gulped. “i dropped my keys,” he cried eagerly. “i was swinging them. i had to go back and pick them up.” and triumphantly, with his free hand, he produced them from his pocket.
within the grip of his other hand he felt her soft arm tremble a little. her gaze drooped.
“it isn't just to-night—” he heard her trying to say.
“come, dear, here's a bus! we'll ride up-town.”
she let him lead her to the curb. solicitously he handed her up the winding little stairway to a seat on the roof.
there is no one book of peter's life. there are a great many little books, some of them apparently unconnected with any of the others. maria tonifetti, as you may gather from this unintelligible little scene on a street corner, had one of those detached peter books all to herself.
up on the roof of the bus, peter, reacting with great inner excitement from his experiences of the last three hours, slipped an arm about maria's shoulders, bent tenderly over her, whispered softly into her ear. before the bus reached forty-second street he had the satisfaction of feeling her nestle softly and comfortably against his arm, and he knew that once again he had won her. slowly within his battered spirit the old thrill of conquest stirred and flamed up into a warm glow....
