Main Street (Barnes & Noble Classics Ser - Sinclair Lewis [141]
“Have you been clear to Cape Cod? Massachusetts? I knew you’d traveled, but I never realized you’d been that far!”
Made taller and younger by his interest she poured out, “Oh my yes. It was a wonderful trip. So many points of interest through Massachusetts—historical. There’s Lexington where we turned back the redcoats, and Longfellow’s home at Cambridge, and Cape Cod—just everything—fishermen and whaleships and sand-dunes and everything.”
She wished that she had a little cane to carry. He broke off a willow branch.
“My, you’re strong!” she said.
“No, not very. I wish there was a Y. M. C. A. here, so I could take up regular exercise. I used to think I could do pretty good acrobatics, if I had a chance.”
“I’m sure you could. You’re unusually lithe, for a large man.”
“Oh no, not so very. But I wish we had a Y. M. It would be dandy to have lectures and everything, and I’d like to take a class in improving the memory—I believe a fellow ought to go on educating himself and improving his mind even if he is in business, don’t you, Vida—I guess I’m kind of fresh to call you ‘Vida’!”
“I’ve been calling you ‘Ray’ for weeks!”
He wondered why she sounded tart.
He helped her down the bank to the edge of the lake but dropped her hand abruptly, and as they sat on a willow log and he brushed her sleeve, he delicately moved over and murmured, “Oh, excuse me—accident.”
She stared at the mud-browned chilly water, the floating gray reeds.
“You look so thoughtful,” he said.
She threw out her hands. “I am! Will you kindly tell me what’s the use of—anything! Oh, don’t mind me. I’m a moody old hen. Tell me about your plan for getting a partnership in the Bon Ton. I do think you’re right: Harry Haydock and that mean old Simons ought to give you one.”
He hymned the old unhappy wars in which he had been Achillesdl and the mellifluous Nestor,dm yet gone his righteous ways unheeded by the cruel kings.... “Why, if I’ve told ‘em once, I’ve told ’em a dozen times to get in a side-line of light-weight pants for gents’ summer wear, and of course here they go and let a cheap kike like Rifkin beat them to it and grab the trade right off’em, and then Harry said—you know how Harry is, maybe he don’t mean to be grouchy, but he’s such a sorehead—”
He gave her a hand to rise. “If you don’t mind. I think a fellow is awful if a lady goes on a walk with him and she can’t trust him and he tries to flirt with her and all.”
“I’m sure you’re highly trustworthy!” she snapped, and she sprang up without his aid. Then, smiling excessively, “Uh—don’t you think Carol sometimes fails to appreciate Dr. Will’s ability?”
III
Ray habitually asked her about his window-trimming, the display of the new shoes, the best music for the entertainment at the Eastern Star, and (though he was recognized as a professional authority on what the town called “gents’ furnishings”) about his own clothes. She persuaded him not to wear the small bow ties which made him look like an elongated Sunday School scholar. Once she burst out:
“Ray, I could shake you! Do you know you’re too apologetic? You always appreciate other people too much. You fuss over Carol Kennicott when she has some crazy theory that we all ought to turn anarchists or live on figs and nuts or something. And you listen when Harry Haydock tries to show off and talk about turnovers and credits and things you know lots better than he does. Look folks in the eye! Glare at ’em! Talk deep! You’re the smartest man in town, if you only knew it. You are!”
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’