“Did you think I was dead in my sleep?” and was relieved by the throaty chuckling which told him the laboured jest had at least seemed natural.
“Why, Mizr Johnson!” The chuckling went on through this; then was turned off at an unseen faucet. “No, Mizr Johnson, what’s been atroublin’ me an’ Miz Clare’s your frien’ that’s comin’. An’ before your breakfast an’ washin’ up too if we ain’t mighty careful!”
It was Altinger. He had telephoned from Fresno. He was breakfasting there and would like to detour on his way to San Francisco and see Mr. Jorgensen if that were convenient to Mr. Jorgensen’s hosts.
He gathered this much from Lena—and let himself be quickly washed and fed and waited for Clare and any more news he could gather from her. But she had not come before Lena left him, and, alone, he reached out an apprehensive hand for the newspaper and unfolded it and braced himself to meet what was there.
It covered the front page. The headlines screamed at him, huge and black.
‘Texas Disaster!’ they roared. ‘Frightful Fire Rages. . . . Explosion Causes Havoc . . . Flames Two Hundred Feet High. . . . Countless Lives Lost in Refinery Holocaust. . . . Rumoured Sabotage. Washington Sends Aid . . .’
He heard a quick light footstep outside his room and hurriedly folded the paper and was going to thrust it out of sight, but was too late.
She said: “I was going to tell Lena not to bring that to you.” She was looking at the crumpled paper. “It’s . . . unthinkable!” She was speaking faster than usual, and her voice was taut. Beneath its golden tan her face showed pallor, and there were faint, dark lines beneath her eyes. She said:
“I suppose Lena told you—your Mr. Altinger called from Fresno. He wanted to drive by and see you. You weren’t awake, so I said to come. I hope that was all right?”
He could see that she had not slept, and a compassion he had never known moved in him He said:
“Yes. Yes, of course. That was quite right. I . . . I am sorry that I give you this trouble. I . . .”
She smiled at him. “Don’t be meek,” she said. She busied herself about the room and spoke as she moved. “I thought you were going to have a relapse last night. But you look better.” Her voice was elaborately matter-of-fact. “Would you like us to give your friends lunch?”
His aching mind seized upon the plural word. “Friends? He has others with him?” His voice was sharper than he knew, and she turned momentarily to look at him.
“I gathered he had.” She spoke with her back to him again “He said ‘we’ all the time, so he can’t be alone.”
He was not. There were two others with him. In her father’s absence Clare received them. Above, Otto could hear voices and knew that Altinger was not alone, but could not tell who were his companions until they were shepherded upstairs by Lena and shown in to him. He had braced himself for the meeting, but was taken shockingly aback by the utterly unexpected presence of Carolyn Van Teller. He hardly noticed that the third of his visitors was the ancient, improbable Gunnar Bjornstrom, to whom, in the room of the Mark Hopkins, he had made his first report on Altinger.
Altinger was all spasmodic, breezy kindness, Bjornstrom was placidly benign—and the woman was gracious and sympathetic and more strikingly beautiful than he had remembered her. She was also—and it increased somehow his fear and distress and confusion—faintly and personally proprietorial.
“Nice place!” said Altinger. “Nice place!” He was not still a moment, walking up and down and around the room, looking at books, glancing out of the windows, inspecting furnishing and ornament with quick and knowledgeable glances. “You had a lucky landing young Jorgensen!”
“They say you are mending rapidly?” asked Bjornstrom, and took a delicate pinch of snuff.
“Nils, my poor boy!” said Carolyn Van Teller from the chair by the bed. “You must have had a simply dreadful time!”
Otto felt a dull, sick aching in his stomach: the newspaper, neatly folded now, lay upon the table near his hand. He could not see the headlines, nor the pictures which he knew would be upon the inner pages—but he could feel them. He said:
“Yes, I was very lucky. . . . I think that is right, Mr. Bjornstrom. . . . It was bad, yes. But it might have been worse.”
Altinger was standing in the bay window now, staring out through the trees. He drew a deep breath of the soft air and exhaled it noisily. He said:
“Great country! Wonderful country!”
“God’s country,” said old Bjornstrom—and suddenly, dreadfully, giggled.
“These people have been good to you, Nils?” Carolyn Van Teller took a cigarette from her case and lit it and watched him through the smoke.
“Yes,” Otto said. “Yes. Very good.” He had himself well in hand now, and his tone was correct—neither flat nor enthusiastic.
Altinger crossed the room with his lunging walk and stood by the foot of the bed.
“How long before you’re fit for work?” he said. “We miss you. You’ve done a good job. Too bad you got yourself involved in that smash-up.”
Old Bjornstrom giggled again, and Carolyn Van Teller said: “Gunnar! You’re like a child!”
The old man took out his snuff-box and was silent.
Otto was increasingly conscious of the sick aching in his stomach. He had to do something, anything to break the spell of growing horror which, if he lay inert and let it, would betray him. He reached out an arm, with a gesture whose violence he tried desperately to conceal, towards the table beside the bed. His hand, groping for cigarettes, struck against the folded newspaper and sent it toppling to the floor, carrying with it the little vase of flowers which just now Clare had set there.
“Clumsy!” said Carolyn Van Teller, and smiled at him.
“Oops there!” said Altinger, and came quickly to retrieve.
“Tsk-tsk!” From his chair, old Bjornstrom made distressful clucking noises. “Too bad, too bad!”
Otto closed his eyes. He was suddenly afraid that one of them—that the woman—would see the hatred which was bubbling inside him. And he must not let it show. He had not known how violent it would be. He must not let it show. He felt the woman lean nearer to him, and her hand gentle upon his arm. She said:
“Headache?” Her voice was very low. “Poor Nils!”
“There!” said Altinger, and set the vase back upon the table and rubbed the spilt water from it into the thickness of the carpet with his shoe.
Otto opened his eyes: he was ready. He looked at Carolyn Van Teller and smiled. He said, as if he had forgotten there were others in the room:
“Your hair is beautiful. I had forgotten.”
She looked at him and her eyes were soft. Altinger stooped to pick up the newspaper and as he did so it came open in his hand and the black headlines stared out. He said:
“Amazing thing, that Texas oil fire! Can’t understand it!” His tone, natural enough to pass muster with any outsider, rang in Otto’s ears with a deep and self-laudatory undertone of triumph.
“A dreadful thing!” said Bjornstrom. His squeaky voice was hushed but the faded eyes were bright.
“Why talk about it, then?” The woman’s voice was imperious, and all three men looked at her and were silent. She picked her handbag from the table and opened it. She said:
“We must be moving on—mustn’t we, Rudolph?”
Altinger looked at his watch and uttered a sound of surprise which was very slightly overdone. He was resenting an order, however much disguised. He said:
“I’d no idea it was so late!” He moved nearer to the bed and leaned over it, holding out his hand to Otto. “Well—so long, young Jorgensen, hurry and come back to the office: business is booming!”