JOHNTOWN, TENN.
415
He stopped, and bowed. He didn't have any hat on to take off,
but she saw that his thick, somewhat unruly black hair had been
thoroughly wetted and brushed ferociously into submission. "Good
evening," he said, and added in a sly way, as though it were some
joke he had on her "-Miss Hornby." No names had passed between
them on the previous encounters, not even on the walk to the door
of the Baptist Church.
"Good evening," she now said, and lifting her head with a
little air of defiance-defiance of what, she didn't quite know–
added: "Mr. Harrick."
She was wearing a low-necked dress, her first of the season, in
honor of the mild evening, with a blue cashmere cardigan around
her shoulders, blue in honor of her eyes. He looked into her eyes, but
only for a second, and not at all down at the low neck of the dress,
at the place where he had made her feel shameful, and shamefully
happy, in the post office. Now, in fact, he looked off down the street,
as he began to speak.
"If
you've got a minute, Miss Hornby," he
began.
She said she did, but looked, not too secretly, at her watch.
"That moving picture,
The Big Parad.e,"
he said, "the one
everybody is so het up about. It is coming to Knoxville again." He
stopped, then, with a tone of apology proceeded. "It's not I'm one
for moving pictures," he said, "and I missed it then, four years ago
when it came. But I had the notion-" And he stopped again, then
picked up: "But it's about the war. About the AEF, and over there
in France. Well-well, I was sort of- over there, and-"
Yes, she knew he had been there, though she didn't say so, let–
ting him suffer it out. She knew he had been there and had the Con–
gressional Medal to prove it. She knew the Governor of the State had
met him at the train when he got to Nashville on the way home.
"You know, a fellow likes to see some place he's been, and how
it was. I thought I'd go, and-" He hesitated, then plunged on. "Mr.
and Mrs. Blunden, and Mrs. Blunden's mother, she's an old lady,"
-emphasizing the word
old-"and
it's in their car,"-emphasizing
the word
their-"and
I sort of had the notion, it being a fine picture
and sort of educational, they say-"
He stopped dead. He brought his eyes back to her, and looked
at her face, with a saddening lack of expectation.
