"
A tiny indentation appeared in the metal under the Jelly-bean's
fingers.
"Married?"
"Sure enough. Nancy sobered up and rushed back into town, crying and
frightened to death--claimed it'd all been a mistake. First Doctor
Lamar went wild and was going to kill Merritt, but finally they got it
patched up some way, and Nancy and Merritt went to Savannah on the
two-thirty train."
Jim closed his eyes and with an effort overcame a sudden sickness.
"It's too bad," said Clark philosophically. "I don't mean the
wedding--reckon that's all right, though I don't guess Nancy cared a
darn about him. But it's a crime for a nice girl like that to hurt her
family that way."
The Jelly-bean let go the car and turned away. Again something was
going on inside him, some inexplicable but almost chemical change.
"Where you going?" asked Clark.
The Jelly-bean turned and looked dully back over his shoulder.
"Got to go," he muttered. "Been up too long; feelin' right sick."
"Oh."
* * * * *
The street was hot at three and hotter still at four, the April dust
seeming to enmesh the sun and give it forth again as a world-old joke
forever played on an eternity of afternoons. But at half past four a
first layer of quiet fell and the shades lengthened under the awnings
and heavy foliaged trees. In this heat nothing mattered. All life was
weather, a waiting through the hot where events had no significance
for the cool that was soft and caressing like a woman's hand on a
tired forehead.
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