330
PARTISAN REVIEW
neatly hung by the wash basin-the man must have put them there, and
it
was fortunate, at least, that he was such a shipshape character, for
the
dress would not he rumpled. On the floor she collected her stockings and
a pair of white crepe-de-chine pants, many times mended, with a button
off and a little brass pin in its place. Feeling herself blush for the pin,
she
sat down on the floor and pulled her stockings on. One garter was missing.
She put on the rest of her clothes, and then began to look for the garter,
hut though she groped her way over every inch of the compartment, she
could not find it. She sank to the floor again with one stocking hanging
loosely down, buried her head in her arms and cried. She saw herself
locked in an intolerable hut ludicrous dilemma: it was impossible to face
the rest of the train with one stocking hanging down; hut it was also
impossible to wait for the man to wake up and enlist him in retrieving
the garter; it was impossible to send the porter for it later in the morning,
and more impossible to call for it in person. But as the comic nature of
the problem grew plain to her, her head cleared. With a final sob she
stripped off her stockings and stuffed them into her purse. She stepped
barefooted into her shoes, and was fumbling in her purse for a comb when
the man turned over and groaned.
He remembers, she thought in terror, as she saw his arm reach out
dimly white and plump in the darkness. She stood very still, waiting.
Perhaps he would go ·hack to sleep. But there was a click, and the reading
light above the berth went on. The man looked at her in bewilderment
She realized that she had forgotten to buckle her belt.
"Dearest," he said, "what in the world are you doing?''
"I'm dressed," she said. "I've got to get out before they wake up.
Good-bye."
She bent over with the intention of kissing him on the forehead.
Politeness required something, hut this was the most she could bring her·
self to do. The man seized her arms and pulled her down, sitting up
himself beside her. He looked very fat and the short hair on his chest
was gray.
"You can't go," he said, quite simply and naturally, hut as
if
he had
been thinking about it all night long. "I love you. I'm crazy about you.
This is the most wonderful thing that's ever happened to me. You come
to San Francisco with me and we'll go to Monterey, and I'll fix it up
with
Leonie to get a divorce."
She stared at him incredulously, hut there was no doubt of it: he
was
serious. His body was trembling. Her heart sank as she saw that there
was no longer any question of her leaving; common decency forbade it.
Yet she was more frightened than flattered by his declaration of love. It
was as if some terrible natural force were loose in the compartment. His
seriousness, moreover, was a rebuke; her own squeamishness and sick
distaste, which a moment before had seemed virtuous in her, now appeared
heartless, even frivolous, in the face of his emotion.
"But Pm engaged," she said, rather thinly.
