Joan Thursday Part 24

For all her willingness she could accomplish little without cold cream.

When at length she gave it up, his jowls were only a few shades lighter.

She shrugged with despair, and threw away the greasy handkerchief.

"It's no use," she said. "It just _won't_ come off! You'll have to go as you are."

"Whash that? Go where?"

"Now listen, Charlie," she said imperatively: "see that drug-store on the corner? You go in there and ask the man to give you something to straighten you out."

Quard nodded solemnly, fixed the lighted show-window with a steadfast glare, and repeated: "So'thin' to straighten m' out."

"That's it. Go on, now. I'll wait here."

He wagged a playful forefinger at her. "Min' y' do," he mumbled, and wandered off.

"And--Charlie!--get him to let you wash your face," she called after the man.

Waiting in the friendly shadow of a tree, she watched him anxiously through the window; saw him turn to the soda-fountain and make his wants known to the clerk, who with a nod of comprehension and a smile of contempt began at once to juggle bottles and a gla.s.s.

Singularly enough, it never occurred to the girl to seize this chance to escape. She was now accepting the situation without question or resentment. Quard seemed to her little better than an overgrown, irresponsible child, requiring no less care. Somebody had to serve him instead of his aberrant wits. To leave him to himself would be sheer inhumanity.... But she reasoned about his case far less than she felt, and for the most part acted in obedience to simple instinct.

She saw him drain a long draught of some whitish, foaming mixture, pay and reel out of the store. He had, of course, forgotten (if he had heard) her plea to remove the remainder of his make-up. She was angry with him on that account, as angry as she might have been with a heedless youngster. But she did not let this appear. She moved quickly to his side.

"Come on," she said quietly, turning southward; "you've got to walk a lot more."

He checked, mumbled inarticulately, staring at her with glazed eyes, but in the end yielded pa.s.sively. In silence they continued to One-hundred-and-tenth Street, Joan watching him furtively but narrowly.

The drug worked more slowly than she had hoped. Primarily, in fact, it seemed only to thicken the cloud that befogged his wits. But by the time they had gained the last-named street, she noticed that he was beginning to walk with some little more confidence.

He now seemed quite ignorant of her company--strode on without a word or glance aside. They crossed to Central Park and, entering, began to thread a winding path up the wooded rises of its northwestern face.

Momentarily, now, there was an increasing a.s.surance apparent in the movements of the man. He trudged along steadily, but with evident effort, like one embarra.s.sed by a heavy weariness. His breathing was quick and stertorous.

The park seemed very quiet. Joan wondered at this, until she remembered that it must have been nearly midnight when they stopped at the drug-store. She had noticed idly that the clerk had interrupted preparations to close in order to wait on Quard.

They met n.o.body afoot, not even a policeman; but here and there, upon benches protected by umbrageous foliage, figures were vaguely discernible; men and women, a pair to a bench, sitting very near to one another when not locked in bold embraces. Joan heard their voices, gentle, murmurous, fond. These sights and sounds, the intimations they distilled, would at a previous time have moved the girl either to derision or to envy; now she felt only a profoundly sympathetic compa.s.sion, new and strange to her, quite inexplicable.

Near the top of the hill they found a bench set in the stark glare of an arc-light, and therefore unoccupied. Upon this Quard threw himself as if exhausted. He said nothing, seemed wholly oblivious of his companion.

Immediately he was seated his chin dropped forward on his chest, his hat fell off, his arms and legs dangled inertly. He appeared to sink at once into impregnable slumber; yet Joan was somehow intuitively aware that he wasn't asleep.

She herself was very weary, but she couldn't leave him now, at the mercy of any prowling vagabond of the park. Picking up his hat, she sat down beside him with it in her lap, glad of the chance to rest. She was at once and incongruously not sleepy and thoughtless. Convinced that Quard was coming to himself, she was no longer troubled by solicitude; her wits wandered in a vast vacuity, sensitive only to dull impressions. She felt the immense hush that brooded over the park, a hush that was rendered emphatic by the m.u.f.fled but audible and fast drumming of the man's over-stimulated heart, straining its utmost to pump and cleanse away the toxic stuff in his blood; the infrequent rumble and grinding of a surface-car on Central Park West seemed a little noise in comparison.

Now and again a long thin line of glimmering car-windows would wind snakily round the lofty curve of the Elevated structure at One-hundred-and-tenth Street. Beyond, the great bulk of the unfinished cathedral on Morningside Heights loomed black against a broken sky of clouds.

At one time a policeman pa.s.sed them, strolling lazily, helmet in hand while he mopped his brow. His stare was curious for the two silent and ill-a.s.sorted figures on the bench. Joan returned it with insolent and aggressive interest, as if to demand what business it was of his. He grinned indulgently, and pa.s.sed on.

She had lost track of time entirely when Quard stirred, sighed, lifted his head and sat up with a gesture of deep despondency. The movement roused her from a dull, lethargic, waking dream.

"Feeling better, Charlie?" she asked with a.s.sumed lightness.

He nodded and groaned, without looking at her.

"Able to go home yet?"

"In a minute," he said drearily.

"Where do you live?" she persisted.

He waved a hand indifferently westward. "Over there--Ninety-sixth Street."

"Think you'll be able to walk it?"

"Oh, I'm all right now." He groaned again, and leaned forward, elbow on knee, forehead in his hand. "I feel like h.e.l.l," he muttered.

"The best thing for you is to get to bed and get some sleep," said the girl, stirring restlessly.

He snapped crossly: "Wait a minute, can't you?"

She subsided.

"I guess you know I've gummed this thing all up, don't you?" he asked at length.

"Yes, I guess you have," she replied, listless.

"And, of course"--bitterly--"it's all _my_ fault...."

To this she answered nothing.

"Well, I'm sorry," he pursued in a sullen voice. "I guess I can't say any more'n that."

She sighed: "I guess it can't be helped."

He leaned back again, explored a pocket, brought to light a roll of money, with shaking hands stripped off four bills. "Well, anyway, there's your bit."

Taking the bills, she examined them carefully. "That's a whole week,"

she said, surprised.

"All right; it's coming to you."

With neither thanks nor further protest, she put the money away in her pocket-book.

"You've acted like a brick to me," he continued.

"Don't let's talk about that now--"

"I don't want you should think I don't appreciate it. If it hadn't been for you, I don't know when I'd've got home--chances are, not till tomorrow night, anyway. The old woman'd've been half crazy."

Joan kept silence.

"My mother," he amended, with a sidelong glance. "There's only the two of us."

"Well," said the girl rising, "if that's so, you'd better get home to her; she won't be any too happy until she sees you--and not then."