86
PARTISAN REVIEW
like blankets while they and the men from the studio watched for a
rift in the sky.
Scotty, who had a date with a client at three, decided to call it
a day and got up, yawning, and stretched, and said to Mr. Ennis:
"Better put out some smudge pots yonder, Pops; that's delicate, that
is, and it freezes fast." Then, as if in pantomime, he drew his white
silk scarf across his neck and let it slither down on either side in
rapid, rustling folds, and put on his topcoat, lifting the collar just
under the turn of the scarf and set his homburg straight on his head,
stuck a cigarette into the corner of his mouth, and nodded to Mr.
Ennis. It ought to be sunny, he thought, sunny and sharp with good
shadows on things, and, standing in the doorway, looked at the
window.
The day had turned a warm yellow again, so surprisingly that
Scotty said to Mr. Ennis: "By Jesus, it did!" before he saw the
first few flakes of snow whirl slowly from the gauzy sky.
As
Scotty stood there, the snow fell faster, until, in the time it
took him to strike a match for his cigarette, the room was darkened
and the world outside the window flecked with white and gray. Silvery
and shadowed in the streaks of light, the flakes came thicker now.
Snow drifted lightly down the windless gulf between the buildings,
blurring the fractured outline of the roofs.
Scotty stepped to the window to look down at the girls and
there they were, still stretched out on the beach chairs under the
gaudy green, red and white umbrellas, their coats on the floor beside
them, gazing up at the sky with such utter amazement that Scotty
thought he could see the snowflakes meet on their wide open mouths.
It
looked as if snow would be falling forever and the girls in their
flimsy suits forever gaping at snow. Scotty turned to Mr. Ennis,
and Mr. Ennis for the first time in weeks was laughing, laughing so
hard that he shook and the water ran out of his eyes and he clung
helplessly to the frame of the window pointing to the girls on the
terrace.
Scotty sighed with relief, and bowing low to Mr. Ennis, twice,
with his hands behind him, said : «1 thank you, my father thanks
you, my cousins thank you, and hope you will catch us again,"
and giving his homburg a little tap walked out of the office.
