John like all the others signed steel trust certificates until his hand became an automaton. If he noticed what it was doing it faltered and forgot. He sat in the big room at the long table, a clerk standing by to remove the engraved sheets one by one and blot the signature. Suddenly he saw it all as for the first time, in an original, unfamiliar manner. “What are we doing?” he asked the clerk.
“Signing the certificates, sir. They want this lot before 2 o’clock.”
“Yes, but what does it mean?”
“What does it mean?” the clerk repeated. “I don’t know, sir. What do you mean?”
“I don’t know either,” said John. He threw the pen away, got up, reached for his hat.
“You’re not going now, sir? They are waiting for these certificates.”
“Let them wait.”
“What shall I say when they call for them?”
“Anything you like. Ask them what it means.”
Up and down the money canyon people moved with absent gestures, some in haste, some running, some loitering, all with one look in their eyes. Bulls were bellowing on the Stock Exchange. Steel shares were rising. Sabath was in his highest form. To the strumming[350] of his lyre men of all shapes and conditions turned from their ways and came hither and wildly importuned brokers to exchange their money for bits of paper believed to represent steel mills they had never seen, would never see, had never heard of before. What did it mean?
As John gazed at the scene it became unreal and detached. He was alone, as one is in some dreams, there and not there, somehow concerned in the action but invisible to the actors and to oneself. It was like a dream of anxiety, full of confusion and grotesque matter.
He was lonely and very wretched and accused Agnes. He would accuse her to her face. That was what he was on his way to do, perhaps because there was no other excuse for seeing her in the middle of the day. He would tell her how selfish and unreasonable she was. They were two solitary beings in one world together. Their hours were running away. He loved her. He had always loved her. And at least she loved nobody else. Then why should they not join their lives?
Three times he had asked her that question. Each time she had said: “Let’s go on being friends. That’s very nice, isn’t it?”
A year had passed since the last time. He had watched for some sign of change. But she was always the same, except that after having been gently though firmly unwilling to say either yes or no she seemed to come nearer in friendship and baffled him all the more. If she had any feeling for him whatever beyond friendship[351] he had been unable to detect or surprise it, and fate would bear witness that the possibility was one he had stalked with all patience and subtlety. In fact, he really believed that if he pressed her to the point she would say no,—that she had not said it already only because she hated to hurt him. This notion tormented him exceedingly. It would be a relief to know.
She had been for some weeks in town, at the Savoy, where he detained her on the pretext that her presence was necessary in her own interest. It was only a little past twelve when he arrived there and called her on the telephone, from the desk, asking her down to lunch. She was surprised and pleased and answered him in a voice that had a ring of youth.
The sound of it echoing in his ears evoked memories and caused the years to fall away. He waited, not there in the hotel lobby, but in a boxwood hedge, surreptitiously, and saw her as a girl again, plucking flowers, pretending not to know he was there, yet coming nearer, always nearer, with a thoughtful air; and for a moment he forgot that anything had happened since.
“Business or pleasure at this time of day?” she asked, coming up behind him.
Instantly, at the provocation of her voice, an impish, youth-time impulse took possession of him. It provided its own idea complete and he did not stop to examine it. His mood seized it.
“Personal,” he said.
“But you look so serious.”
“It is serious—for me.”
[352]
They sat at a table in the far corner of the dining room.
“Out with it. Lucky it isn’t murder. You’d be suspected at first glance.”
“What shall we eat? Pompano. That ought to be good.... Don’t look at me like that. I’m so happy I can’t stand it. That’s all that’s the matter with me.... Filet of sole. How about that?”
“Anything to cure such happiness. Sole, salad and iced tea for me, please. Now then.”
“A sweet? Or shall we decide about that later?”
“Later. I may be too much surprised by that time to want a sweet.”
She was regarding him intently, with a very curious expression. He avoided her eyes.
“Yes, it may surprise you,” he said. “Here, waiter!... Of course you know—(Sole, hearts of lettuce and tomato salad, French dressing, iced tea for one, large coffee, sweets later)—what an emotional animal I am.—(Two salads, yes.)—Or romantic. Whatever you like to call it. (Sole for two.) After all, I don’t know why—(No, hot coffee for one.)—Why I should be so self-conscious about it. The fact is simple enough. I’m going to be married.”
“Oh! How exciting. When?”
“When? When, did you say? Why, right away. This evening perhaps.”
“Who is the lady?”
“I’d rather not tell you yet.”
“Yet? But it’s to be this evening, you say.”
“You would know her name at once and you might[353] be prejudiced in spite of yourself. I can’t very well explain it. But I want you to meet her first.”
“This afternoon?”
“Or this evening. I’m coming to that. I very much need your help. It’s an extraordinary thing to ask. I’m anxious to keep it very quiet, both on her account and my own. Not the fact............