How Like a God

XIV

In his overcoat pocket the fingers of his right hand, closed tight around the butt of the revolver, released their hold and tried to straighten themselves out, stretching within the confines of the pocket; then clutched the butt again, tight, tighter. Again the fingers opened, and they felt moist and sticky; he took his hand out and rubbed the palm up and down on his overcoat, several times, then brought it close to his eyes and looked at it; it seemed very white, and the fingers very short, in the dim light. He thrust it back in his pocket, and it stayed there beside the revolver, touching it, without taking hold of it.

You’re afraid, that’s what’s the matter, he told himself. Timid vengeless hell! You’re just plain scared...

And not only because you’re standing here on the stairs with a gun in your pocket, either. You’re always afraid when it comes to doing something. You’re even afraid of words if they’re the kind that make things happen. Bloodless rhetoric. Bunk. “I hope I see hell before I see this place again.” Surely you didn’t think it up all alone?

The next day at the office there was no word from her; you thought there might not ever be any; you hoped not. But you were worried about your clothes and things; and a little after five you left the office and took a taxi straight to Eighty-fifth Street. Held up more than you expected by the traffic, you didn’t get there till a quarter to six and were afraid you might arrive too late to see her go out, but to your relief there was a light in the front windows. You had the taxi stop almost directly across the street, and sat there in its comer, in the dark. Only a few minutes had passed when the light in the windows was extinguished, and a few moments later the street door opened and she came out and down the stoop, alone, and started west toward Broadway. She looked droopy.

As soon as she was out of sight you rapidly crossed the street and ran up the stoop and the stairs and let yourself in. You called out, “Hello, anybody here?” and went to the bedroom. The beds were neatly made; you approached yours and pulled the blankets and coverlet back and saw that the sheets and pillowslip were clean and fresh; and from under the pillow peeped the edge of your folded pajamas.

“The hell you say!” you remarked aloud.

To save time, so as to get in and out as quickly as possible, you had written the note at the office on the typewriter: I’m taking everything I want. The enclosed five hundred is my going away present. I don’t want to hear from you. Goodbye. You glanced in the envelope to make sure the bills were there, then slipped it under her pillow. On the floor you spread the newspaper you had brought along, and hurriedly made a bundle of the few articles you decided to take. Then you took the envelope from under the pillow and added a postscript to the note: You can have William the Conqueror. Let him sleep in the guest bed when there’s room. You put on your hat and coat and gathered the bundle under your arm.

A minute later you were down the stairs and in the cab on your way to Park Avenue.

“Well that’s that,” you said aloud, and repeated it, “That’s that.”

The first call was the next afternoon. “Mrs. Lewis on the telephone.”

“Mrs. — Tell her I’m not in. Gone for the day.”

The following morning she phoned twice.

When a third call came shortly after lunch you decided it wouldn’t do; you took the call.

“Well.”

“Oh — is it you, Will?”

“Yes. What do you want?”

“Why I just want to know if you’re coming tonight—”

“Forget it. And cut out the telephoning.”

“But I have to telephone if you—”

You took the receiver from your ear and with her voice still faintly buzzing in it slowly hung it on the hook. After a minute or two you removed it again and spoke to Mrs. Carroll:

“Please tell the operators that if that Mrs. Lewis calls me again I’m not in. Or a Mrs. Green — Green. At any time. And don’t bother to send me a slip on it.”

Surely that was final enough you thought. That was the way to do it. Erma would say, you should fold your arms and look masterful.

You and Erma spent New Year’s with friends at Dobbs Ferry and the next day you didn’t get back to town in time to go to the office.

The day after that, about the middle of the afternoon, the phone rang and you heard:

“Mrs. Lewis is calling.”

You were momentarily confused and replied, “I thought I told you if she phoned I wasn’t in.”

“No, not on the telephone, Mr. Sidney; she’s here, in the reception room.”

“Oh. Well. Tell her I’m out, gone for the day.”

“Yes, sir.”

So. She was there in the reception room just a few feet away... sitting there... in a minute she’d be gone...

But presently the phone rang again; this time it was your secretary, Miss Malloy, speaking from her little room back of yours.

“That woman, Mrs. Lewis, told Miss Dietrich in the reception room that she saw you come up in the elevator and knows you’re here and that she’s going to wait till you see her.”

“Yes. Thank you. All right.”

You were going over some figures with two accountants at the time. It dragged along for another hour. When at length they had gathered up their papers and departed you pressed the buzzer, and Miss Malloy came in at once.

“I have to ask a favor of you,” you said. “Will you please go to the reception room and tell Mrs. Lewis I will not see her, now or at any other time, and escort her to the elevator.”

“If she won’t go?”

“She will. Don’t make a scene. Just tell her that.”

“Yes, sir.”

Matter of fact and business-like, with no sign of a knowing look in her intelligent brown eyes, she went. Almost immediately the door opened again and she reappeared.

“She is talking to Mr. Carr,” Miss Malloy said, “so I thought I’d better wait.”

“What! To Mr. Carr!”

“Yes, sir. They are sitting on one of the settees, talking.”

“The dirty little — I beg your pardon.”

“Yes, sir,” Miss Malloy smiled.

You walked to the window, and to your desk and sat down, and then got up and went to the window again. Finally you turned to her:

“Please tell Miss Dietrich to send Mrs. Lewis in here as soon as she gets through with Mr. Carr.”

“Yes, sir.” She went to her room.

Many minutes passed; were they going to talk all afternoon? On the phone you asked Miss Malloy if she had delivered the message to Miss Dietrich. Yes, she had done so at once. At that moment the door opened and Millicent entered; from without the blue uniformed arm of the attendant silently closed the door behind her. She came directly across to where you sat at the desk.

“You made me wait a long time,” she said.

For a moment you gazed at her speechless, helpless. Then suddenly your temples contracted and you savagely demanded:

“What did you tell Dick?”

“I didn’t tell him anything,” she replied.

“You were talking to him for an hour.”

“Why no, I don’t think so. Only a few minutes. I was sitting there and he came through and I saw him glance at me and I stopped him and said, pardon me, aren’t you the Mule? He guessed who I was right away.”

So that was it, an accident. Fine piece of luck. He didn’t pass through that room more than once or twice a day. Was she lying? You could find out.

“So he sat down and we talked about old times. I don’t think he’s changed a bit. He’s very handsome.”

“What did you tell him you were here for?”

She chuckled. “I told him I was having a hard time, and I happened to meet you and I thought you were going to help me out.”

“If you need some money, anything within reason, you can have it.”

“I don’t want any money.”

“Then what do you want?”

“Well, of course I’ve got to have a little money. I’ve got to have something to live on.” She paused. “We ought to have a long talk about it.”

“What about your alimony?”

“He’s quit paying it.”

“How much do you need?”

“We ought to have a talk,” she repeated. “Can you come uptown tonight?”

“No. Not tonight or any other night.”

She raised her shoulders and dropped them; deep in her eyes you saw a momentary flash like a point of white fire.

“You’d better come,” she said quietly. “You might as well come — you know you’re going to come.” She added in a tone of deadly finality that overwhelmed you: “What’s the use of fighting about it?”

What had she really told Dick? you asked yourself. If you did go up there... well, there was no way out of it. If you didn’t go, what would she do?

“I’ll be up after dinner,” you said. “Around nine.”

You had said you would be there around nine; it was a quarter to when you dismissed the taxi and started up the stoop. There was no plan in your head; you were floundering in a jelly of indecision.

In the blue chair, under the reading-lamp, she sat. It was your first view of the blazing purple cheap velvet negligee, with the white ostrich feathers around the neck and cuffs and down the front hems, the dark brown felt slippers.

“Why don’t you let me alone, Mil?”

She returned your look without replying, and you went on, “Having a man here was stupid and indecent, but it’s not only that. I was ready to quit anyway. We’ve never really cared for each other. So why don’t you let me alone? If it’s more money why don’t you be honest enough to say so—”

“I don’t want any money,” she said.

“You said you did at the office. You said you had to have something to live on.”

“Well, I was just trying to scare you.”

“Then what do you want?”

She chuckled. “You’re very funny, Will. I’m sorry about that man — truly it was the first time anyone was ever here and he said it was Christmas Day and he didn’t want to go home and Grace was out in Jersey to her aunt’s. He’s no good anyway. It was Mr. Martin — don’t you remember, he sells insurance, I told you about him one day.”

“I don’t care who he was. You haven’t answered my question: what do you want?”

In a new tone she said all at once, in a breath:

“I want my big brother.”

Startled, you looked at her, uncomprehending; then in a sudden swift flash you remembered that she had said to you one day, long ago in your room at college, “Most of the time we’re just like a brother and sister. You’re my big brother.”

You meant to say ironically, “So you’re in love with me,” but the words wouldn’t come, they seemed too absurd and incongruous. Instead you said, “So it’s me you want?”

She nodded. “And it’s me you want.” She said it not as a challenge or a claim; she just said it, calmly, a fact.

“Like hell I do!” you shouted. “Listen, Mil, we may as well be frank. I can’t stand you any more. Now I’m done. I was done before I found that man here; you were driving me crazy. I was getting so that when you touched me, it made my flesh creep.” You tried to keep your voice calm, but gradually it had raised until you ended with a shout, “I’m done, do you hear! I’m done!”

She gazed up at you, steadily, without saying anything, and again you shouted, shouted that you had never wanted her. You bellowed at her, pacing up and down the room. At last you stopped.

Her voice was quite steady, with all its usual thin dullness:

“You’ve said some awful things.”

“Well... I’ve felt some awful things.”

“It’s not me that’s awful.”

“Oh yes it is. It’s both of us.”

She shook her head. “You’re just afraid. I don’t mind what you say. I know you can’t ever really leave me, I know how you act, I know what you think.” The deep, veiled flash came and went in her eyes. “I know how you feel, too, when—” She chuckled, and added, “Big brother!”