K. had yielded to Anna's insistence, and was boarding as well as rooming at
the Page house. The Street, rather snobbish to its occasional floating
population, was accepting and liking him. It found him tender, infinitely
human. And in return he found that this seemingly empty eddy into which he
had drifted was teeming with life. He busied himself with small things,
and found his outlook gradually less tinged with despair. When he found
himself inclined to rail, he organized a baseball club, and sent down to
everlasting defeat the Linburgs, consisting of cash-boys from Linden and
Hofburg's department store.
The Rosenfelds adored him, with the single exception of the head of the
family. The elder Rosenfeld having been "sent up," it was K. who
discovered that by having him consigned to the workhouse his family would
receive from the county some sixty-five cents a day for his labor. As this
was exactly sixty-five cents a day more than he was worth to them free,
Mrs. Rosenfeld voiced the pious hope that he be kept there forever.
K. made no further attempt to avoid Max Wilson. Some day they would meet
face to face. He hoped, when it happened, they two might be alone; that
was all. Even had he not been bound by his promise to Sidney, flight would
have been foolish. The world was a small place, and, one way and another,
he had known many people. Wherever he went, there would be the same
chance.
And he did not deceive himself. Other things being equal,--the eddy and
all that it meant--, he would not willingly take himself out of his small
share of Sidney's life.
She was never to know what she meant to him, of course. He had scourged
his heart until it no longer shone in his eyes when he looked at her. But
he was very human--not at all meek. There were plenty of days when his
philosophy lay in the dust and savage dogs of jealousy tore at it; more
than one evening when he threw himself face downward on the bed and lay
without moving for hours. And of these periods of despair he was always
heartily ashamed the next day.
The meeting with Max Wilson took place early in September, and under better
circumstances than he could have hoped for.
Sidney had come home for her weekly visit, and her mother's condition had
alarmed her for the first time. When Le Moyne came home at six o'clock, he
found her waiting for him in the hall.
"I am just a little frightened, K.," she said. "Do you think mother is
looking quite well?"