K

by Mary Roberts Rinehart

  CHAPTER X

  On Monday morning, shortly after the McKee prolonged breakfast was over,a small man of perhaps fifty, with iron-gray hair and a sparse goatee,made his way along the Street. He moved with the air of one having adefinite destination but a by no means definite reception.

  As he walked along he eyed with a professional glance the ailanthus andmaple trees which, with an occasional poplar, lined the Street. At thedoor of Mrs. McKee's boarding-house he stopped. Owing to a slight changein the grade of the street, the McKee house had no stoop, but one flatdoorstep. Thus it was possible to ring the doorbell from the pavement,and this the stranger did. It gave him a curious appearance of beingready to cut and run if things were unfavorable.

  For a moment things were indeed unfavorable. Mrs. McKee herself openedthe door. She recognized him at once, but no smile met the nervous onethat formed itself on the stranger's face.

  "Oh, it's you, is it?"

  "It's me, Mrs. McKee."

  "Well?"

  He made a conciliatory effort.

  "I was thinking, as I came along," he said, "that you and the neighborshad better get after these here caterpillars. Look at them maples, now."

  "If you want to see Tillie, she's busy."

  "I only want to say how-d 'ye-do. I'm just on my way through town."

  "I'll say it for you."

  A certain doggedness took the place of his tentative smile.

  "I'll say it to myself, I guess. I don't want any unpleasantness, butI've come a good ways to see her and I'll hang around until I do."

  Mrs. McKee knew herself routed, and retreated to the kitchen.

  "You're wanted out front," she said.

  "Who is it?"

  "Never mind. Only, my advice to you is, don't be a fool."

  Tillie went suddenly pale. The hands with which she tied a white apronover her gingham one were shaking.

  Her visitor had accepted the open door as permission to enter and wasstanding in the hall.

  He went rather white himself when he saw Tillie coming toward him downthe hall. He knew that for Tillie this visit would mean that he wasfree--and he was not free. Sheer terror of his errand filled him.

  "Well, here I am, Tillie."

  "All dressed up and highly perfumed!" said poor Tillie, with thequestion in her eyes. "You're quite a stranger, Mr. Schwitter."

  "I was passing through, and I just thought I'd call around and tellyou--My God, Tillie, I'm glad to see you!"

  She made no reply, but opened the door into the cool and, shaded littleparlor. He followed her in and closed the door behind him.

  "I couldn't help it. I know I promised."

  "Then she--?"

  "She's still living. Playing with paper dolls--that's the latest."

  Tillie sat down suddenly on one of the stiff chairs. Her lips were aswhite as her face.

  "I thought, when I saw you--"

  "I was afraid you'd think that."

  Neither spoke for a moment. Tillie's hands twisted nervously in her lap.Mr. Schwitter's eyes were fixed on the window, which looked back on theMcKee yard.

  "That spiraea back there's not looking very good. If you'll save thecigar butts around here and put them in water, and spray it, you'll killthe lice."

  Tillie found speech at last.

  "I don't know why you come around bothering me," she said dully. "I'vebeen getting along all right; now you come and upset everything."

  Mr. Schwitter rose and took a step toward her.

  "Well, I'll tell you why I came. Look at me. I ain't getting anyyounger, am I? Time's going on, and I'm wanting you all the time.And what am I getting? What've I got out of life, anyhow? I'm lonely,Tillie!"

  "What's that got to do with me?"

  "You're lonely, too, ain't you?"

  "Me? I haven't got time to be. And, anyhow, there's always a crowdhere."

  "You can be lonely in a crowd, and I guess--is there any one around hereyou like better than me?"

  "Oh, what's the use!" cried poor Tillie. "We can talk our heads off andnot get anywhere. You've got a wife living, and, unless you intend to doaway with her, I guess that's all there is to it."

  "Is that all, Tillie? Haven't you got a right to be happy?"

  She was quick of wit, and she read his tone as well as his words.

  "You get out of here--and get out quick!"

  She had jumped to her feet; but he only looked at her with understandingeyes.

  "I know," he said. "That's the way I thought of it at first. Maybe I'vejust got used to the idea, but it doesn't seem so bad to me now. Hereare you, drudging for other people when you ought to have a place allyour own--and not gettin' younger any more than I am. Here's both of uslonely. I'd be a good husband to you, Till--because, whatever it'd be inlaw, I'd be your husband before God."

  Tillie cowered against the door, her eyes on his. Here before her,embodied in this man, stood all that she had wanted and never had. Hemeant a home, tenderness, children, perhaps. He turned away from thelook in her eyes and stared out of the front window.

  "Them poplars out there ought to be taken away," he said heavily."They're hell on sewers."

  Tillie found her voice at last:--

  "I couldn't do it, Mr. Schwitter. I guess I'm a coward. Maybe I'll besorry."

  "Perhaps, if you got used to the idea--"

  "What's that to do with the right and wrong of it?"

  "Maybe I'm queer. It don't seem like wrongdoing to me. It seems tome that the Lord would make an exception of us if He knew thecircumstances. Perhaps, after you get used to the idea--What I thoughtwas like this. I've got a little farm about seven miles from the citylimits, and the tenant on it says that nearly every Sunday somebodymotors out from town and wants a chicken-and-waffle supper. There ain'tmuch in the nursery business anymore. These landscape fellows buy theirstuff direct, and the middleman's out. I've got a good orchard, andthere's a spring, so I could put running water in the house. I'd be goodto you, Tillie,--I swear it. It'd be just the same as marriage. Nobodyneed know it."

  "You'd know it. You wouldn't respect me."

  "Don't a man respect a woman that's got courage enough to give upeverything for him?"

  Tillie was crying softly into her apron. He put a work-hardened hand onher head.

  "It isn't as if I'd run around after women," he said. "You're the onlyone, since Maggie--" He drew a long breath. "I'll give you time to thinkit over. Suppose I stop in to-morrow morning. It doesn't commit you toanything to talk it over."

  There had been no passion in the interview, and there was none inthe touch of his hand. He was not young, and the tragic loneliness ofapproaching old age confronted him. He was trying to solve his problemand Tillie's, and what he had found was no solution, but a compromise.

  "To-morrow morning, then," he said quietly, and went out the door.

  All that hot August morning Tillie worked in a daze. Mrs. McKee watchedher and said nothing. She interpreted the girl's white face and set lipsas the result of having had to dismiss Schwitter again, and looked fortime to bring peace, as it had done before.

  Le Moyne came late to his midday meal. For once, the mental anaesthesiaof endless figures had failed him. On his way home he had drawn hissmall savings from the bank, and mailed them, in cash and registered, toa back street in the slums of a distant city. He had done this before,and always with a feeling of exaltation, as if, for a time at least,the burden he carried was lightened. But to-day he experienced nocompensatory relief. Life was dull and stale to him, effort ineffectual.At thirty a man should look back with tenderness, forward with hope. K.Le Moyne dared not look back, and had no desire to look ahead into emptyyears.

  Although he ate little, the dining-room was empty when he finished.Usually he had some cheerful banter for Tillie, to which she respondedin kind. But, what with the heat and with heaviness of spirit, he didnot notice her depression until he rose.

  "Why, you're not sick, are you, Tillie?"

  "Me? Oh, no. Low in my min
d, I guess."

  "It's the heat. It's fearful. Look here. If I send you two tickets to aroof garden where there's a variety show, can't you take a friend and goto-night?"

  "Thanks; I guess I'll not go out."

  Then, unexpectedly, she bent her head against a chair-back and fell tosilent crying. K. let her cry for a moment. Then:--

  "Now--tell me about it."

  "I'm just worried; that's all."

  "Let's see if we can't fix up the worries. Come, now, out with them!"

  "I'm a wicked woman, Mr. Le Moyne."

  "Then I'm the person to tell it to. I--I'm pretty much a lost soulmyself."

  He put an arm over her shoulders and drew her up, facing him.

  "Suppose we go into the parlor and talk it out. I'll bet things are notas bad as you imagine."

  But when, in the parlor that had seen Mr. Schwitter's strange proposalof the morning, Tillie poured out her story, K.'s face grew grave.

  "The wicked part is that I want to go with him," she finished. "I keepthinking about being out in the country, and him coming into supper, andeverything nice for him and me cleaned up and waiting--O my God! I'vealways been a good woman until now."

  "I--I understand a great deal better than you think I do. You're notwicked. The only thing is--"

  "Go on. Hit me with it."

  "You might go on and be very happy. And as for the--for his wife, itwon't do her any harm. It's only--if there are children."

  "I know. I've thought of that. But I'm so crazy for children!"

  "Exactly. So you should be. But when they come, and you cannot givethem a name--don't you see? I'm not preaching morality. God forbid thatI--But no happiness is built on a foundation of wrong. It's been triedbefore, Tillie, and it doesn't pan out."

  He was conscious of a feeling of failure when he left her at last. Shehad acquiesced in what he said, knew he was right, and even promisedto talk to him again before making a decision one way or the other. Butagainst his abstractions of conduct and morality there was pleading inTillie the hungry mother-heart; law and creed and early training werefighting against the strongest instinct of the race. It was a losingbattle.