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Read Ebook: Rebellion by Patterson Joseph Medill Goldbeck Walter Dean Illustrator
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Ebook has 1397 lines and 50602 words, and 28 pages
"About three blocks, isn't it?"
"Three long ones."
"A nice walk."
"Yes, this time of year, but not so nice in winter when they don't clean the snow off the sidewalks."
He felt that it was a bit jerky. Perhaps he should first have asked her permission to call. What a goat he was not to think of that beforehand instead of now. He paused until the pause grew uncomfortable.
She tried to help him out, "We're out of the smoke belt, that's one thing."
He was seated in a rocking chair and began to rock violently, then suddenly he stopped and leaned toward her, his elbows on his knees.
"I've been slow getting to the point," he remarked abruptly, "but I came here on business."
"Oh, I wasn't just sure what."
Stevens took half a dozen life insurance advertising folders from his pocket. "You know this literature we're using," he said, running two or three through his fingers and indicating them by their titles, "'Do You Want Your Wife to Want When She's a Widow?' 'Friendship for the Fatherless,' 'Death's Dice Are Loaded.'"
"Oh, yes." She took them from him and read aloud. "'Over the Hills to the Poorhouse,' with a photograph of it, 'Will Your Little Girl Have to Scrub?' with thumbnail pictures of scrub ladies. Ugh, what a gloomy trade we're in, aren't we, Mr. Stevens?"
"This is the line of talk that gets the business." He spoke earnestly, tapping the folders. "You can't make papa dig up premiums for forty or fifty years unless you first scare him and scare him blue about his family."
"Yes, I suppose so."
"And what I came for is--well, will you--would you just as soon help me get up some more of these?"
"You mean work with you on them?" She was truly surprised.
"Exactly."
She hesitated and then she said it was impossible, but that she appreciated his kind compliment, was flattered by it and thanked him deeply, deeply. For, of course, she realized that Mr. Stevens was one of the very best men in town at that sort of work and she was afraid she couldn't possibly be of any real use to him.
"But--" she tried to interrupt.
"And ideas, that's the point, ideas. You're clever."
"What makes you think so?"
"I don't think so; I know."
"I'm flattered," she said firmly. "But no--really."
"Well, I won't take that for a definite answer yet." Of course not. He never did. "I want you to think it over. I have the utmost confidence in the scheme and your ability to carry it out. You can tell me Monday in the office what you decide."
"I can tell you now, Mr. Stevens."
He rose. "Think it over anyway. You may change your mind."
She rose, too, not encouraging him to stay.
"Miss Connor," he spoke gravely, "there was something else I came to ask you. I'd like to know you personally as well as in a business way, if you'd just as soon. May I come to see you now and then?"
She did not answer. She saw that it counted with him. He seemed really to care. She must not be brusque with him. He must not think her merely light-minded, unappreciative of the compliment of his interest. She must tell him of her marriage.
"Of course, if you'd rather not for any reason, why, that settles it," there was a check in his voice, "and we'll say no more about it." Still she did not answer. He held out his hand. "Well, good-bye, then."
"Good-bye."
He went to the door and opened it.
"Mr. Stevens."
"Yes, Miss Connor."
"I think you ought to know that isn't my name."
"What is it, then?"
"Mrs. Connor."
"Mrs. Connor? Missis Connor?"
"Yes."
He came down into the room. His glance traveled rapidly to the four corners, like a wild animal dodging men and dogs. He had one question left, one chance of escape.
"Are you a widow?" he said.
"No, a married woman."
Stevens went slowly out of the door without replying. The woman whom he loved belonged to another man. It was like the end of the world.
THE LIFE FORCE
As it was, he smoked all night and turned up at the office half an hour ahead of time in a voluble, erratic mood, brought about by suppressing so much excitement within himself. If he had known how to tell his troubles to a friend over a glass of beer he might have had an easier time of it in his life. But he wasn't that sort. He took things hard and kept them in.
He decided that the best thing to do with his sentiment for Georgia was to strangle it. Whenever he caught himself thinking of her, which would certainly be often at first, he must turn his mind away. He must avoid seeing her; if they met accidentally he would give no further sign than a curt nod.
He remembered the farmers used to say that there was one thing to do with Canada thistles--keep them under, never let the sun shine on them. His love for this other man's wife was like a thistle. He must keep it under, never let the sun shine on it.
He did it thoroughly. He nodded to her in the most indifferent way in the world when they happened to meet, but he found no occasion to stop at her desk to chat an instant. Two weeks of his change of manner began to pique her. He was acting in a rather absurd way, she thought. After all they weren't lovers who had quarreled, but simply acquaintances, friends after a fashion, fellow workers. Why shouldn't they continue to be friends? It would be amusing to have some one besides the family and the girls to talk to.
She would not let him treat her in this stiff way any longer, just because she had had the bad luck to marry a bad man years before. What rubbish that was. And what self-consciousness on his part. Men had a very guilty way of looking at things.
They met quite or almost quite by accident in front of the office building during the noon hour of the following day. He was about to pass without stopping.
"How do you do, Mr. Stevens?" Her voice was quite distinct.
So he turned and lifted his hat. "How do you do!"
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