"Meaning me?" Jim demanded, apoplectic.
"The remark was a general one," Mr. Harbison retorted, "but if you wish
to make a concrete application--!"
Dal had gone up just then, and found them glaring at each other, Jim
with his hands clenched at his sides, and Mr. Harbison with his arms
folded and very erect. Dal took Jim by the elbow and led him downstairs,
muttering, and the situation was saved for the time. But Dal was not
optimistic.
"You can do a bit yourself, Kit," he finished. "Look more cheerful,
flirt a little. You can do that without trying. Take Max on for a day or
so; it would be charity anyhow. But don't let Tom Harbison take into his
head that you are grieving over Jim's neglect, or he's likely to toss
him off the roof."
"I have no reason to think that Mr. Harbison cares one way or the other
about me," I said primly. "You don't think he's--he's in love with me,
do you, Dal?" I watched him out of the corner of my eye, but he only
looked amused.
"In love with you!" he repeated. "Why bless your wicked little heart,
no! He thinks you're a married woman! It's the principle of the thing
he's fighting for. If I had as much principle as he has, I'd--I'd put it
out at interest."
Max interrupted us just then, and asked if we knew where Mr. Harbison
was.
"Can't find him," he said. "I've got the telephone together and have
enough left over to make another. Where do you suppose Harbison hides
the tools? I'm working with a corkscrew and two palette knives."
I heard nothing more of the trouble that night. Max went to Jim about
it, and Jim said angrily that only a fool would interfere between a man
and his wife--wives. Whereupon Max retorted that a fool and his wives
were soon parted, and left him. The two principals were coldly civil
to each other, and smaller issues were lost as the famine grew more and
more insistent. For famine it was.
They worked the rest of the evening, but the telephone refused to revive
and every one was starving. Individually our pride was at low ebb, but
collectively it was still formidable. So we sat around and Jim played
Grieg with the soft stops on, and Aunt Selina went to bed. The weather
had changed, and it was sleeting, but anything was better than the
drawing room. I was in a mood to battle with the elements or to cry--or
both--so I slipped out, while Dal was reciting "Give me three grains
of corn, mother," threw somebody's overcoat over my shoulders, put on a
man's soft hat--Jim's I think--and went up to the roof.
It was dark in the third floor hall, and I had to feel my way to the
foot of the stairs. I went up quietly, and turned the knob of the door
to the roof. At first it would not open, and I could hear the wind
howling outside. Finally, however, I got the door open a little and
wormed my way through. It was not entirely dark out there, in spite of
the storm. A faint reflection of the street lights made it possible to
distinguish the outlines of the boxwood plants, swaying in the wind, and
the chimneys and the tent. And then--a dark figure disentangled itself
from the nearest chimney and seemed to hurl itself at me. I remember
putting out my hands and trying to say something, but the figure caught
me roughly by the shoulders and knocked me back against the door frame.
From miles away a heavy voice was saying, "So I've got you!" and then
the roof gave from under me, and I was floating out on the storm, and
sleet was beating in my face, and the wind was whispering over and over,
"Open your eyes, for God's sake!"