I’m much better, thank you,” she responded with the quiet dignity that seemed suited to her role.
They stood there in the hall awkwardly, each reconstructing the half-facetious, half-sentimental occasion on which they had last met. It seemed such an irreverent prelude to such a somber disaster. There was no common ground for them now, no gap that could be bridged by a slight reference to their mutual past, and there was no foundation on which he could adequately pretend to share her sorrow.
“Won’t you come in?” she said, biting her lip nervously. He followed her to the sitting room and sat beside her on the lounge. In another minute, simply because he was there and alive and friendly, she was crying on his shoulder.
“There, there!” he said, putting his arm behind her and patting her shoulder idiotically. “There, there, there!”
He was wise enough to attribute no ulterior significance to her action. She was overstrained with grief and loneliness and sentiment; almost any shoulder would have done as well. For all the biological thrill to either of them he might have been a hundred years old. In a minute she sat up.
“I beg your pardon,” she murmured brokenly. “But it’s—it’s so dismal in this house today.”
“I know just how you feel, Yanci.”
“Did I—did I—get—tears on your coat?”
In tribute to the tenseness of the incident they both laughed hysterically, and with the laughter she momentarily recovered her propriety.
“I don’t know why I should have chosen you to collapse on,” she wailed. “I really don’t just go round doing it in-indiscriminately on anyone who comes in.”
“I consider it a—a compliment,” he responded soberly, “and I can understand the state you’re in.” Then, after a pause, “Have you any plans?”
She shook her head.
“Va-vague ones,” she muttered between little gasps. “I tho-ought I’d go down and stay with my aunt in Chicago awhile.”
“I should think that’d be best—much the best thing.” Then, because he could think of nothing else to say, he added, “Yes, very much the best thing.”
“What are you doing—here in town?” she inquired, taking in her breath in minute gasps and dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief.
“Oh, I’m here with—with the Rogerses. I’ve been here.”
“Hunting?”
“No, I’ve just been here.”
He did not tell her that he had stayed over on her account. She might think it fresh.
“I see,” she said. She didn’t see.
“I want to know if there’s any possible thing I can do for you, Yanci. Perhaps go downtown for you, or do some errands—anything. Maybe you’d like to bundle up and get a bit of air. I could take you out to drive in your car some night, and no one would see you.”
He clipped his last word short as the inadvertency of this suggestion dawned on him. They stared at each other with horror in their eyes.
“Oh, no, thank you!” she cried. “I really don’t want to drive.”
To his relief the outer door opened and an elderly lady came in. It was Mrs. Oral. Scott rose immediately and moved backward toward the door.
“If you’re sure there isn’t anything I can do——”
Yanci introduced him to Mrs. Oral; then leaving the elder woman by the fire walked with him to the door. An idea had suddenly occurred to her.
“Wait a minute.”
She ran up the front stairs and returned immediately with a slip of pink paper in her hand.
“Here’s something I wish you’d do,” she said. “Take this to the First National Bank and have it cashed for me. You can leave the money here for me any time.”
Scott took out his wallet and opened it.
“Suppose I cash it for you now,” he suggested.
“Oh, there’s no hurry.”
“But I may as well.” He drew out three new one-hundred-dollar bills and gave them to her.
“That’s awfully sweet of you,” said Yanci.
“Not at all. May I come in and see you next time I come West?”
“I wish you would.”
“Then I will. I’m going East tonight.”
The door shut him out into the snowy dusk and Yanci returned to Mrs. Oral. Mrs. Oral had come to discuss plans.
“And now, my dear, just what do you plan to do? We ought to have some plan to go by, and I thought I’d find out if you had any definite plan in your mind.”
Yanci tried to think. She seemed to herself to be horribly alone in the world.
“I haven’t heard from my aunt. I wired her again this morning. She may be in Florida.”
“In that case you’d go there?”
“I suppose so.”
“Would you close this house?”
“I suppose so.”
Mrs. Oral glanced around with placid practicality. It occurred to her that if Yanci gave the house up she might like it for herself.
“And now,” she continued, “do you know where you stand financially?”
“All right, I guess,” answered Yanci indifferently. And then with a rush of sentiment, “There was enough for t-two; there ought to be enough for o-one.”
“I didn’t mean that,” said Mrs. Oral. “I mean, do you know the details?”
“No.”
“Well, I thought you didn’t know the details. And I thought you ought to know all the details—have a detailed account of what and where your money is. So I called up Mr. Haedge, who knew your father very well personally, to come up this afternoon and glance through his papers. He was going to stop in your father’s bank, too, by the way, and get all the details there. I don’t believe your father left any will.”
Details! Details! Details!
“Thank you,” said Yanci. “That’ll be—nice.”
Mrs. Oral gave three or four vigorous nods that were like heavy periods. Then she got up.
“And now if Hilma’s gone out I’ll make you some tea. Would you like some tea?”
“Sort of.”
