Lora was speechless. She knew nothing of all this save that it was totally unexpected. But she had a feeling about it, and she was now so aroused that nothing but feelings counted; accordingly she looked straight at her father’s shockingly pale face, and said clearly and deliberately:
“I don’t believe that. Not a word of it.”
That brought the pink spots back! He was out of his chair on the instant, towering above her, glaring down at her, his fists upraised, trembling from head to foot. He was speaking too, shouting rather, but Lora did not get the words. Ha, she was thinking, now I’ll find out what would have happened if I’d held my ground that time on the porch. She didn’t budge; and the result was that she soon found herself alone on the field; for abruptly her father turned, his fists still upraised, his face purple, shaking as if in an ague, and rushed from the room. From the house also; for Lora heard the front door open and bang to, and even the pounding of his footsteps on the porch.
Not till those sounds had gone did she realize how rigid she was, how she had fastened herself to that spot, head up, hands clenched at her sides. She let the muscles go, hunched her shoulders up and released them again, and turned and made her way upstairs to her mother’s room. Her mother had heard it all, it appeared, from the stairs, through the open hall door. She was already weeping, and as Lora patted her arm and told her not to worry the flow increased. She implored Lora not to go, declaring that it would be unbearable to be left alone with him; she couldn’t stand it. To avoid being betrayed into a promise Lora made her escape as soon as she could, to her own room, where she threw herself on the bed to get her mind straight.
Of course, she reflected, there was no use tearing her hair out. All girls had trouble with their fathers, good lord she knew that well enough — look at Bess Updegraff for instance, who had to be home at ten o’clock absolutely, no exceptions if the house burned down. Still Bess knew what to expect at least, whereas she, Lora, never knew anything; her father was just plain crazy and besides he was a damn liar. That wasn’t true about the business. How did she know? No matter, it wasn’t true. And her mother was a pill, no good to herself or anyone else. Afraid to ask him to pass the butter at the table. It was painful and shameful, enough to give you the creeps. As for herself, she would show him. She felt a lump as big as a potato at the entrance of her throat as she made the resolution that she would show him. She would go. She would live somehow — not with Cecelia probably, for Cece would have plenty of money, but she would live. There were just two things she could do, play the piano and drive a car; neither seemed to offer great possibilities, but there were plenty of girls as stupid as her who weren’t starving.
A long while later — she thought it must have been hours, but the clock on her dressing-table said only eleven — she undressed and went to bed. Her father had not returned. She determined to work out her plans to the last detail; she would not close her eyes until everything was arranged and settled in her mind; but as it happened her head had rested on the pillow scarcely long enough to hollow out its nest so that the tip of her nose touched the smooth white muslin, before she was sound asleep.
In the morning she awoke to the sound of her name. She heard it twice before she got her eyes open; then, blinking, she saw the early October sun slanting through the open window, the curtains shivering in the chill breeze; and, all at once, became aware that her father was standing at the foot of her bed with his eyes on her. “Hello,” she said, sleepily astonished, for she could not remember when he had last thus entered her room, it had been so long ago. There was something distinctly strange about his face, she thought confusedly, but decided that impression was caused by the window and sunlight at his back which made it impossible for her to see clearly. He did look peculiar, though. He uttered a few brief sentences, in a dry quiet tone, and then turned and abruptly departed without waiting for a reply.
She sat up in bed and stared in amazement at the door through which he had disappeared, now fully awake. Good lord, had she dreamed it? No; he really had been there, and he really had said that having carefully considered the project of which she had spoken the evening before he had come to the conclusion that it was desirable and wise, and that she could count on his support, financial of course, and moral if need be.
“See that, he’s crazy any way you look at it,” said Lora to the sunbeam, shaking her hair back out of her eyes. She wished the light had been the other way so she could have seen his face.
XII
“Come on,” said Pete, “immerse yourself, for god’s sake give these miserable plebeian waters a treat; let them taste divinity.”
“I can’t, really I can’t,” Lora protested.
“What do you mean you can’t?”
“Well then — I don’t want to.”
“I know what it is,” he declared, “but it’s superstition. Its birth was doubtless similar to that of a million other fond lunatic beliefs of old homo. This one is older than most — a billion years probably. When some strange four- or six-legged creature first discovered it could live out of water it began to think up excuses for not going back in. It’s bad for the fur, it takes the gloss off, was probably one of the first. We never shake off a habit; we haven’t got rid of that one yet, though its utility vanished before homo began. Look at you, convinced that the internal flow prescribes a dry exterior, afraid I’ll bet even to take a sponge bath until nature’s dam has closed the gates again...”
“It’s not that,” Lora smiled. “I just don’t want to.”
“But you love it. I like to see you too, you swim like a dolphin — though I’ve never seen one.”
“Not today.”
She was minded to tell him. Already it was obvious that it could not have been kept forever a secret — this incident alone proved it. For that matter why had she not done so at once? She would be proud to tell him! But she had been silent. She sat now laughing at him as he plunged again into the water of the lake, staying under for thirty feet or more, then coming to the surface and lying flat on his back, wiggling his toes at her. And the next day but one he would be gone. As he turned over on his belly and with slow steady strokes headed for the center of the lake she lay back on the pebbly sand, drowsy in the hot July sunshine, drowsy too with sadness.
The middle of July. June, May, April, March — she had known him only four months, then. Just think of that — over nineteen years up to the day she met Pete Halliday, and only four months since! That was nonsense, no matter how many calendars verified it.
Even the very first meeting had been memorable. She and Cecelia had gone to an evening party at the home of Mrs. Ranley, the old friend of Cecelia’s mother who had helped them get settled in Chicago, and as usual had been somewhat bored. There was no dancing at Mrs. Ranley’s gatherings — the nearest thing to it was when someone played Tales of the Vienna Woods or the Hungarian Rhapsody on the victrola, and even this was frowned upon in the next room where the bridge tables were. There had been the usual crowd, mostly middle-aged business and professional men and their wives, a daughter or son here and there, a few friends, both sexes, of Grace Ranley, whose mother believed in a pleasant mingling of the generations — because, Cece Harper declared pointedly, she herself, a widow, liked to have young men about. At any rate, there they all were, as usual, and as usual Lora had begun to look for Cece at an early hour to persuade her to go home, when she found herself suddenly confronted, and her progress blocked, by a tall white-faced bony young man whom she had never seen before. Looking up, for he was a good nine inches above her level, she found his deep-set restless brown eyes regarding her approvingly. As she looked the eyes smiled.