Seed on the Wind

The middle of July. June, May, April, March — she had known him only four months, then. Just think of that — over nineteen years up to the day she met Pete Halliday, and only four months since! That was nonsense, no matter how many calendars verified it.

Even the very first meeting had been memorable. She and Cecelia had gone to an evening party at the home of Mrs. Ranley, the old friend of Cecelia’s mother who had helped them get settled in Chicago, and as usual had been somewhat bored. There was no dancing at Mrs. Ranley’s gatherings — the nearest thing to it was when someone played Tales of the Vienna Woods or the Hungarian Rhapsody on the victrola, and even this was frowned upon in the next room where the bridge tables were. There had been the usual crowd, mostly middle-aged business and professional men and their wives, a daughter or son here and there, a few friends, both sexes, of Grace Ranley, whose mother believed in a pleasant mingling of the generations — because, Cece Harper declared pointedly, she herself, a widow, liked to have young men about. At any rate, there they all were, as usual, and as usual Lora had begun to look for Cece at an early hour to persuade her to go home, when she found herself suddenly confronted, and her progress blocked, by a tall white-faced bony young man whom she had never seen before. Looking up, for he was a good nine inches above her level, she found his deep-set restless brown eyes regarding her approvingly. As she looked the eyes smiled.

“It must be that this is what I was dragged here for,” he said.

“Oh,” said Lora.

“I have always had a theory,” he continued — the “always” somewhat rhetorical, since he could not have been more than twenty-one or two at the most — “that dark hair renders grey eyes insipid. Here in the midst of this den of pseudogentility—”

“Mine are yellow.”

“They might be in a different light. I speak subjectively. Come.” He put his hand on her arm, gently but not at all timidly, and started to turn, turning her with him, toward the large inner room she thought.

She stood fast. “I don’t play bridge. I’m going home.”

“Bridge, my god!” He threw up his hands, releasing her arm to do so. “We’re going somewhere to talk about eyes. I’ll go home with you if that’s feasible. Better yet, I know a place down in the Loop—”

“I don’t know you.”

“Easy. Pete Halliday. You’re Lora Winter.”

“How did you know that?”

“Easy again. It was Stubby Mallinson that dragged me here. Directly I saw you I demanded details. Come, let’s get out of this.”

She shook her head. “I’m here with a friend — I was just looking for her to get her to go home — really I must go — I’m awfully tired and I have to get up in the morning — I’m a working girl.”

“What do you work at?”

“I run the telephone switchboard in a candy factory.”

“Preposterous! You shouldn’t submit to it!”

“No, it’s fun,” Lora declared. “I don’t mind it, except that I have to get up at seven o’clock. That’s pretty bad. But if I didn’t do that I’d stay in bed till noon, and that’s worse. I’m lazy.”

“I’ll take you home.”

“It isn’t necessary. Cece — my friend — will come. You can help me find her.”

He went with her through the various rooms, but Cecelia was not to be found. At length, about ready to give it up and trying the porch as a last resort, they discovered her there on a rug in a corner with six or eight others, laughing and giggling, huddled together to keep warm in the cold and darkness. Cecelia didn’t want to go home, she said, she was having a good time, she was going to stay.

“All right, I’ll go along,” said Lora.

“Alone?”

“Mr. Halliday will take me.”

She hadn’t intended to say that; she wasn’t at all sure she liked Mr. Halliday; but it was out before she knew it. They went back in to get their wraps.

As they reached the sidewalk and turned north toward the nearest traffic street, Pete Halliday suddenly asked, “Have you got money for a taxi? If not we’ll take a car.”

“Yes. I’ve plenty. But I’d just as soon take a car—”

“By no means.” He drew her hand through his arm. “I hate the damn cars.” After a moment he went on, “To avoid confusion you should know at once that the one thing I never have is money. It is simply astonishing how little money I have.”

“You live, apparently.”

“I doubt it. I must owe enormous sums, and yet that doesn’t seem plausible, for no living soul would lend me a cent. It’s a mystery.”

At the corner, after waiting a little, they hailed a taxi. It’s nice, Lora thought as he helped her in, that I can do this, since he hates cars so.

He sprawled in a corner as they rattled along, with his legs extended and his feet up on the little folding seat in front.