He could not believe it. He kept coming back to her for confirmation. He
practised glaring and talking deep, but he circuitously hinted to Vida
that when he had tried to look Harry Haydock in the eye, Harry had
inquired, "What's the matter with you, Raymie? Got a pain?" But
afterward Harry had asked about Kantbeatum socks in a manner which, Ray
felt, was somehow different from his former condescension.

They were sitting on the squat yellow satin settee in the boarding-house
parlor. As Ray reannounced that he simply wouldn't stand it many more
years if Harry didn't give him a partnership, his gesticulating hand
touched Vida's shoulders.

"Oh, excuse me!" he pleaded.

"It's all right. Well, I think I must be running up to my room.
Headache," she said briefly.


IV


Ray and she had stopped in at Dyer's for a hot chocolate on their way
home from the movies, that March evening. Vida speculated, "Do you know
that I may not be here next year?"

"What do you mean?"

With her fragile narrow nails she smoothed the glass slab which formed
the top of the round table at which they sat. She peeped through the
glass at the perfume-boxes of black and gold and citron in the hollow