The Complete Works of Stephen Crane (108 page)

“It’s just right,” said Grief.

“It isn’t quite cool enough,” said Wrinkles.

“Well, I guess I know the proper temperature for claret.”

“Well, I guess you don’t. If it was buttermilk, now, you would know, but you can’t tell anything about claret.”

Florinda ultimately decided the question. “It isn’t quite cool enough,” she said, laying her hand on the bottle. “Put it on the window ledge, Grief.”

“Hum! Splutter, I thought you knew more than — —”

“Oh, shut up!” interposed the busy Pennoyer from a remote corner. “Who is going after the potato salad? That’s what I want to know. Who is going?”

“Wrinkles,” said Grief.

“Grief,” said Wrinkles.

“There,” said Pennoyer, coming forward and scanning a late work with an eye of satisfaction. “There’s the three glasses and the little tumbler; and then, Grief, you will have to drink out of a mug.”

“I’ll be double-dyed black if I will!” cried Grief. “I wouldn’t drink claret out of a mug to save my soul from being pinched!”

“You duffer, you talk like a bloomin’ British chump on whom the sun never sets! What do you want?”

“Well, there’s enough without that — what’s the matter with you? Three glasses and the little tumbler.”

“Yes, but if Billie Hawker comes — —”

“Well, let him drink out of the mug, then. He — —”

“No, he won’t,” said Florinda suddenly. “I’ll take the mug myself.”

“All right, Splutter,” rejoined Grief meekly. “I’ll keep the mug. But, still, I don’t see why Billie Hawker — —”

“I shall take the mug,” reiterated Florinda firmly.

“But I don’t see why — —”

“Let her alone, Grief,” said Wrinkles. “She has decided that it is heroic. You can’t move her now.”

“Well, who is going for the potato salad?” cried Pennoyer again. “That’s what I want to know.”

“Wrinkles,” said Grief.

“Grief,” said Wrinkles.

“Do you know,” remarked Florinda, raising her head from where she had been toiling over the
spaghetti
, “I don’t care so much for Billie Hawker as I did once?” Her sleeves were rolled above the elbows of her wonderful arms, and she turned from the stove and poised a fork as if she had been smitten at her task with this inspiration.

There was a short silence, and then Wrinkles said politely, “No.”

“No,” continued Florinda, “I really don’t believe I do.” She suddenly started. “Listen! Isn’t that him coming now?”

The dull trample of a step could be heard in some distant corridor, but it died slowly to silence.

“I thought that might be him,” she said, turning to the
spaghetti
again.

“I hope the old Indian comes,” said Pennoyer, “but I don’t believe he will. Seems to me he must be going to see — —”

“Who?” asked Florinda.

“Well, you know, Hollanden and he usually dine together when they are both in town.”

Florinda looked at Pennoyer. “I know, Penny. You must have thought I was remarkably clever not to understand all your blundering. But I don’t care so much. Really I don’t.”

“Of course not,” assented Pennoyer.

“Really I don’t.”

“Of course not.”

“Listen!” exclaimed Grief, who was near the door. “There he comes now.” Somebody approached, whistling an air from “Traviata,” which rang loud and clear, and low and muffled, as the whistler wound among the intricate hallways. This air was as much a part of Hawker as his coat. The
spaghetti
had arrived at a critical stage. Florinda gave it her complete attention.

When Hawker opened the door he ceased whistling and said gruffly, “Hello!”

“Just the man!” said Grief. “Go after the potato salad, will you, Billie? There’s a good boy! Wrinkles has refused.”

“He can’t carry the salad with those gloves,” interrupted Florinda, raising her eyes from her work and contemplating them with displeasure.

“Hang the gloves!” cried Hawker, dragging them from his hands and hurling them at the divan. “What’s the matter with you, Splutter?”

Pennoyer said, “My, what a temper you are in, Billie!”

“I am,” replied Hawker. “I feel like an Apache. Where do you get this accursed potato salad?”

“In Second Avenue. You know where. At the old place.”

“No, I don’t!” snapped Hawker.

“Why — —”

“Here,” said Florinda, “I’ll go.” She had already rolled down her sleeves and was arraying herself in her hat and jacket.

“No, you won’t,” said Hawker, filled with wrath. “I’ll go myself.”

“We can both go, Billie, if you are so bent,” replied the girl in a conciliatory voice.

“Well, come on, then. What are you standing there for?”

When these two had departed, Wrinkles said: “Lordie! What’s wrong with Billie?”

“He’s been discussing art with some pot-boiler,” said Grief, speaking as if this was the final condition of human misery.

“No, sir,” said Pennoyer. “It’s something connected with the now celebrated violets.”

Out in the corridor Florinda said, “What — what makes you so ugly, Billie?”

“Why, I am not ugly, am I?”

“Yes, you are — ugly as anything.”

Probably he saw a grievance in her eyes, for he said, “Well, I don’t want to be ugly.” His tone seemed tender. The halls were intensely dark, and the girl placed her hand on his arm. As they rounded a turn in the stairs a straying lock of her hair brushed against his temple. “Oh!” said Florinda, in a low voice.

“We’ll get some more claret,” observed Hawker musingly. “And some cognac for the coffee. And some cigarettes. Do you think of anything more, Splutter?”

As they came from the shop of the illustrious purveyors of potato salad in Second Avenue, Florinda cried anxiously, “Here, Billie, you let me carry that!”

“What infernal nonsense!” said Hawker, flushing. “Certainly not!”

“Well,” protested Florinda, “it might soil your gloves somehow.”

“In heaven’s name, what if it does? Say, young woman, do you think I am one of these cholly boys?”

“No, Billie; but then, you know — —”

“Well, if you don’t take me for some kind of a Willie, give us peace on this blasted glove business!”

“I didn’t mean — —”

“Well, you’ve been intimating that I’ve got the only pair of gray gloves in the universe, but you are wrong. There are several pairs, and these need not be preserved as unique in history.”

“They’re not gray. They’re — —”

“They are gray! I suppose your distinguished ancestors in Ireland did not educate their families in the matter of gloves, and so you are not expected to — —”

“Billie!”

“You are not expected to believe that people wear gloves only in cold weather, and then you expect to see mittens.”

On the stairs, in the darkness, he suddenly exclaimed, “Here, look out, or you’ll fall!” He reached for her arm, but she evaded him. Later he said again: “Look out, girl! What makes you stumble around so? Here, give me the bottle of wine. I can carry it all right. There — now can you manage?”

“Penny,” said Grief, looking across the table at his friend, “if a man thinks a heap of two violets, how much would he think of a thousand violets?”

“Two into a thousand goes five hundred times, you fool!” said Pennoyer. “I would answer your question if it were not upon a forbidden subject.”

In the distance Wrinkles and Florinda were making Welsh rarebits.

“Hold your tongues!” said Hawker. “Barbarians!”

“Grief,” said Pennoyer, “if a man loves a woman better than the whole universe, how much does he love the whole universe?”

“Gawd knows,” said Grief piously. “Although it ill befits me to answer your question.”

Wrinkles and Florinda came with the Welsh rarebits, very triumphant. “There,” said Florinda, “soon as these are finished I must go home. It is after eleven o’clock. — Pour the ale, Grief.”

At a later time, Purple Sanderson entered from the world. He hung up his hat and cast a look of proper financial dissatisfaction at the remnants of the feast. “Who has been — —”

“Before you breathe, Purple, you graceless scum, let me tell you that we will stand no reference to the two violets here,” said Pennoyer.

“What the — —”

“Oh, that’s all right, Purple,” said Grief, “but you were going to say something about the two violets, right then. Weren’t you, now, you old bat?”

Sanderson grinned expectantly. “What’s the row?” said he.

“No row at all,” they told him. “Just an agreement to keep you from chattering obstinately about the two violets.”

“What two violets?”

“Have a rarebit, Purple,” advised Wrinkles, “and never mind those maniacs.”

“Well, what is this business about two violets?”

“Oh, it’s just some dream. They gibber at anything.”

“I think I know,” said Florinda, nodding. “It is something that concerns Billie Hawker.”

Grief and Pennoyer scoffed, and Wrinkles said: “You know nothing about it, Splutter. It doesn’t concern Billie Hawker at all.”

“Well, then, what is he looking sideways for?” cried Florinda.

Wrinkles reached for his guitar, and played a serenade, “The silver moon is shining — —”

“Dry up!” said Pennoyer.

Then Florinda cried again, “What does he look sideways for?”

Pennoyer and Grief giggled at the imperturbable Hawker, who destroyed rarebit in silence.

“It’s you, is it, Billie?” said Sanderson. “You are in this two-violet business?”

“I don’t know what they’re talking about,” replied Hawker.

“Don’t you, honestly?” asked Florinda.

“Well, only a little.”

“There!” said Florinda, nodding again. “I knew he was in it.”

“He isn’t in it at all,” said Pennoyer and Grief.

Later, when the cigarettes had become exhausted, Hawker volunteered to go after a further supply, and as he arose, a question seemed to come to the edge of Florinda’s lips and pend there. The moment that the door was closed upon him she demanded, “What is that about the two violets?”

“Nothing at all,” answered Pennoyer, apparently much aggrieved. He sat back with an air of being a fortress of reticence.

“Oh, go on — tell me! Penny, I think you are very mean. — Grief, you tell me!”

“The silver moon is shining;
Oh, come, my love, to me!
My heart — —”

“Be still, Wrinkles, will you? — What was it, Grief? Oh, go ahead and tell me!”

“What do you want to know for?” cried Grief, vastly exasperated. “You’ve got more blamed curiosity —— It isn’t anything at all, I keep saying to you.”

“Well, I know it is,” said Florinda sullenly, “or you would tell me.”

When Hawker brought the cigarettes, Florinda smoked one, and then announced, “Well, I must go now.”

“Who is going to take you home, Splutter?”

“Oh, anyone,” replied Florinda.

“I tell you what,” said Grief, “we’ll throw some poker hands, and the one who wins will have the distinguished honour of conveying Miss Splutter to her home and mother.”

Pennoyer and Wrinkles speedily routed the dishes to one end of the table. Grief’s fingers spun the halves of a pack of cards together with the pleased eagerness of a good player. The faces grew solemn with the gambling solemnity. “Now, you Indians,” said Grief, dealing, “a draw, you understand, and then a show-down.”

Florinda leaned forward in her chair until it was poised on two legs. The cards of Purple Sanderson and of Hawker were faced toward her. Sanderson was gravely regarding two pair — aces and queens. Hawker scanned a little pair of sevens. “They draw, don’t they?” she said to Grief.

“Certainly,” said Grief. “How many, Wrink?”

“Four,” replied Wrinkles, plaintively.

“Gimme three,” said Pennoyer.

“Gimme one,” said Sanderson.

“Gimme three,” said Hawker. When he picked up his hand again Florinda’s chair was tilted perilously. She saw another seven added to the little pair. Sanderson’s draw had not assisted him.

“Same to the dealer,” said Grief. “What you got, Wrink?”

“Nothing,” said Wrinkles, exhibiting it face upward on the table. “Good-bye, Florinda.”

“Well, I’ve got two small pair,” ventured Pennoyer hopefully. “Beat ‘em?”

“No good,” said Sanderson. “Two pair — aces up.”

“No good,” said Hawker. “Three sevens.”

“Beats me,” said Grief. “Billie, you are the fortunate man. Heaven guide you in Third Avenue!”

Florinda had gone to the window. “Who won?” she asked, wheeling about carelessly.

“Billie Hawker.”

“What! Did he?” she said in surprise.

“Never mind, Splutter. I’ll win sometime,” said Pennoyer. “Me too,” cried Grief. “Good night, old girl!” said Wrinkles. They crowded in the doorway. “Hold on to Billie. Remember the two steps going up,” Pennoyer called intelligently into the Stygian blackness. “Can you see all right?”

Florinda lived in a flat with fire-escapes written all over the front of it. The street in front was being repaired. It had been said by imbecile residents of the vicinity that the paving was never allowed to remain down for a sufficient time to be invalided by the tramping millions, but that it was kept perpetually stacked in little mountains through the unceasing vigilance of a virtuous and heroic city government, which insisted that everything should be repaired. The alderman for the district had sometimes asked indignantly of his fellow-members why this street had not been repaired, and they, aroused, had at once ordered it to be repaired. Moreover, shopkeepers, whose stables were adjacent, placed trucks and other vehicles strategically in the darkness. Into this tangled midnight Hawker conducted Florinda. The great avenue behind them was no more than a level stream of yellow light, and the distant merry bells might have been boats floating down it. Grim loneliness hung over the uncouth shapes in the street which was being repaired.

“Billie,” said the girl suddenly, “what makes you so mean to me?”

A peaceful citizen emerged from behind a pile of
débris
, but he might not have been a peaceful citizen, so the girl clung to Hawker.

“Why, I’m not mean to you, am I?”

“Yes,” she answered. As they stood on the steps of the flat of innumerable fire-escapes she slowly turned and looked up at him. Her face was of a strange pallour in this darkness, and her eyes were as when the moon shines in a lake of the hills.

He returned her glance. “Florinda!” he cried, as if enlightened, and gulping suddenly at something in his throat. The girl studied the steps and moved from side to side, as do the guilty ones in country schoolhouses. Then she went slowly into the flat.

There was a little red lamp hanging on a pile of stones to warn people that the street was being repaired.