Part 18 (1/2)
In the dim-lit first-floor front Mrs. Trimp started from her light doze like a deer in a park, which vibrates to the fall of a lady's feather fan. The criss-cross from the cane chair-back was imprinted on one sleep-flushed cheek, and her eyes, dim with the weariness of the night-watch, flew to the white-china door-k.n.o.b.
Reader, rest undismayed. Mr. Trimp entered on the banking-hour legs of a scholar and a gentleman. With a white carnation in his b.u.t.tonhole, his hat unbattered in the curve of his arm, and his blue eyes behind their curtain of black lashes, but slightly watery, like a thawing ice-pond with a film atop.
”h.e.l.lo, my little Goldie-eyes!”
Mr. Trimp flashed his double deck of girlish-pearlish teeth. When Mr.
Trimp smiled Greuze might have wanted to paint his lips for a child-study. Women tightened up about the throat and dared to wonder whether he wore a chest-protector and asafetida bag. Old ladies in street-cars regarded him through the mist of memories, and as if their motherly fingers itched to run through the heavy yellow hemp of his hair. There was that in his smile which seemed to provoke hand-painted sofa-pillows and baby-ribboned coat-hangers, knitted neckties, and cross-st.i.tch slippers. Once he had posed for an Adonis underwear advertis.e.m.e.nt.
”h.e.l.lo, baby! Did you wait up for your old man?”
Goldie regarded her husband with eyes that ten months of marriage had dimmed slightly. Her lips were thinner and tighter and silent.
”I think we landed a sucker to-night for fifty shares, kiddo. Ain't so bad, is it? And so you waited up for your tired old man, baby?”
”No!” she said, the words sparking from her lips like the hiss of a hot iron when you test it with a moist forefinger. ”No; I didn't wait up. I been out with you--painting the town.”
”I couldn't get home for supper, hon. Me and Cutty--”
”You and Cutty! I wasn't born yesterday!”
”Me and Cutty had a sucker out, baby. He'll bite for fifty shares sure!”
”Gee!” she flamed at him, backing round the rocker from his amorous advances. ”Gee! If I was low enough to be a crook--if I was low enough to try and make a livin' sellin' dead dirt for pay dirt--I'd be a successful crook, anyway; I'd--”
”Now, Goldie, hon! Don't--”
”I wouldn't leave my wife havin' heart failure every time McCasky pa.s.ses the door--I wouldn't!”
”Now, don't fuss at me, Goldie. I'm tired--dog-tired. I got some money comin' in to-morrow that'll--”
”That don't go with me any more!”
”Sure I have.”
”I been set out on the street too many times before on promises like that; and it was always after a week of one of these here slow jags. I know them and how they begin. I know them!”
”'Tain't so this time, honey. I been--”
”I know them and how they begin, with your sweet, silky ways. I'd rather have you come staggering home than like this--with your claws hid.
I--I'm afraid of you, I tell you. I ain't forgot the night up at Hinkey's. You haven't been out with Cutty no more than I have. You been up to the Crescent, where the Red Slipper is dancing this week, you--”
Mr. Trimp swayed ever so slightly--slightly as a silver reed in the lightest breeze that blows--and regained his balance immediately. His breath, redolent as a garden of spice and cloves, was close to his wife's neck.
”Baby,” he said, ”you better believe your old man. I been out with Cutty, Goldie. We had a sucker out!”
She sprang back from his touch, hot tears in her eyes.
”Believe you! I did till I learnt better. I believed you for four months, sittin' round waiting for you and your goings-on. You ain't been out with Cutty--you ain't been out with him one night this week. You been--you--”
Mrs. Trimp's voice rose to a hysterical crescendo. Her hair, yellow as corn-silk, and caught in a low chignon at her back, escaped its restraint of pins and fell in a whorl down her s.h.i.+rt-waist. She was like a young immortal eaten by the corroding acids of earlier experiences--raw with the vitriol of her deathless destiny.