PARTISAN REVIEW
would think they were and now, besides the sounds, she would be
rattled by hypothetical eyes spying upon her.
She was about to ring for the last time when out of the comer
of her eye, she saw the electric car coming cautiously down the gentle
slope of the street. Now there was no escaping. The great-aunt driving
the car and the bodiless procrastinator behind the door would catch
her there with the bleeding-heart and make her explain herself. "Just
a minute!" The voice, speaking this time of its own accord and not
in answer to the bell, startled her and the plant slipped in her hands.
The car disappeared in a driveway behind the house and in a little
while a distant door opened and closed and Rose firmly rang the
bell. This time the voice laughed mockingly up .and down an untrue
scale and she was in no doubt at all that it was the same one that
had sneered at her knock.
The mysterious house behind the black door was seized with spasms.
Someone screamed, "Tea!" and a stove was madly shaken down.
Heavy footsteps crossed a room and a man's voice, roared, "What?
What do you say?" "Tea! Toast!" the screamed reply rang clear
and the "s" in the toast was prolonged with hatred. "Give a person
a chance to turn around, Mother!" said the man and the laughing
voice near Rose chuckled high in its throat and mimicked itself, "Just
a minute!" and then mimicked the deep voice of the man, "Just a
minute!" She would have set the present down and run for dear life,
but she was too late for a light came .dimly on in the front hall and
feet approached the door.
"Well!" said the man in the yellow ascot with the same comforting
smile he gave her in the library when he came in from smoking. He
held the door wide open so that she saw a tall spooky staircase and
a room to the right where chairs were arranged in a circle as if for
a
fune~al
or a clergyman's tea. Rose took a step forward and held
out the bleeding-heart to him, unable to say a word.
"Well!" he said again. "What's this? A posy for my poor sick
mother?" He, for his part, was not in the least discomfited by this
meeting.
It
was clear that he recognized her but he was not surprised;
it was almost as if he had expected her all along. Now that she was
up close, she saw that the ascot was made of diapered foulard but
she saw, as well, that it was not clean .and had the uncleanliness that
accumulates over a period of weeks. She wondered if it hid something
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