PARTISAN REVIEW
"I don't know," she said miserably, and to the woman on the
bed she said, "Goodbye. I am glad to have met you," although this
was a double lie for she was not glad and there had been no proper
meeting.
"Oh, you must have tea!" cried the man and he fingered his
yellow ascot nervously as if he could not bear to have her leave.
"You must! It isn't often that Mother and I have such a pretty
guest." She shivered and buttoned the top button of her coat. "It
will only take a minute," he wheedled. "It's on the tray and I just
plug in the electric kettle thing and we're all set." He gave himself a
private smile and said, "All set and rarin' to go."
She was about to be very firm and cutting if necessary to this
tiresome old child by whom she had been so foolishly taken in in the
library, but she thought of Miss Talmadge and was afraid if she were
discourteous there might be trouble. It could not last long and he
could not do anything improper to her in front of his mother and
the parrot whose sagacious gaze missed nothing. So she gave in and
he drew a rocking chair to the center of the room and beside it he
put a bench. "The tray goes here," he said, "and you can pour." And
then he left the room, walking out backwards to unnerve her all
the more.
The ten minutes he was gone were for Rose a bizarre and
separate experience. The old woman and the parrot clucked at one
another over the sinister meal of bleeding-hearts and but for this there
was silence in the darkening room. She was forced to accept the
reality of the afternoon, that the man in the yellow ascot lived here
and that he drove the electric car and that in no particular did he
resemble the image of her foster-father. And it was quite possible to
accept it now, but she was apprehensive of the evening to come and
the next afternoon when she would meet him again in the Samuel
Sewell. There were only two flowers left on the plant and for some
reason she hoped that tea would be here before they were gone. She
glanced toward the bed; the headboard was just opposite her desk
and she knew that she could never again write there with the picture
in her mind of the old woman feeding the evil bird. A good deal
in
her quiet life would be changed. She doubted
if
she would ever go
again to the library on the customary afternoons, for example. She
would be free, it is true, to walk once again in the parts of the town
990
