She took dictation swiftly, her typing was perfect, but Babbitt became jumpy when he tried to work with her.
She made him feel puffy, and at his best-beloved daily jokes she looked gently inquiring.
He longed for Miss McGoun’s return, and thought of writing to her.
Then he heard that Miss McGoun had, a week after leaving him, gone over to his dangerous competitors, Sanders, Torrey and Wing.
He was not merely annoyed; he was frightened.
“Why did she quit, then?” he worried.
“Did she have a hunch my business is going on the rocks?
And it was Sanders got the Street Traction deal.
Rats—sinking ship!”
Gray fear loomed always by him now.
He watched Fritz Weilinger, the young salesman, and wondered if he too would leave.
Daily he fancied slights.
He noted that he was not asked to speak at the annual Chamber of Commerce dinner.
When Orville Jones gave a large poker party and he was not invited, he was certain that he had been snubbed.
He was afraid to go to lunch at the Athletic Club, and afraid not to go.
He believed that he was spied on; that when he left the table they whispered about him.
Everywhere he heard the rustling whispers: in the offices of clients, in the bank when he made a deposit, in his own office, in his own home.
Interminably he wondered what They were saying of him.
All day long in imaginary conversations he caught them marveling,
“Babbitt?
Why, say, he’s a regular anarchist!
You got to admire the fellow for his nerve, the way he turned liberal and, by golly, just absolutely runs his life to suit himself, but say, he’s dangerous, that’s what he is, and he’s got to be shown up.”
He was so twitchy that when he rounded a corner and chanced on two acquaintances talking—whispering—his heart leaped, and he stalked by like an embarrassed schoolboy.
When he saw his neighbors Howard Littlefield and Orville Jones together, he peered at them, went indoors to escape their spying, and was miserably certain that they had been whispering—plotting—whispering.
Through all his fear ran defiance.
He felt stubborn.
Sometimes he decided that he had been a very devil of a fellow, as bold as Seneca Doane; sometimes he planned to call on Doane and tell him what a revolutionist he was, and never got beyond the planning.
But just as often, when he heard the soft whispers enveloping him he wailed,
“Good Lord, what have I done?
Just played with the Bunch, and called down Clarence Drum about being such a high-and-mighty sodger.
Never catch ME criticizing people and trying to make them accept MY ideas!”
He could not stand the strain.
Before long he admitted that he would like to flee back to the security of conformity, provided there was a decent and creditable way to return.
But, stubbornly, he would not be forced back; he would not, he swore, “eat dirt.”
Only in spirited engagements with his wife did these turbulent fears rise to the surface.
She complained that he seemed nervous, that she couldn’t understand why he did not want to “drop in at the Littlefields’” for the evening.
He tried, but he could not express to her the nebulous facts of his rebellion and punishment.
And, with Paul and Tanis lost, he had no one to whom he could talk.
“Good Lord, Tinka is the only real friend I have, these days,” he sighed, and he clung to the child, played floor-games with her all evening.
He considered going to see Paul in prison, but, though he had a pale curt note from him every week, he thought of Paul as dead.
It was Tanis for whom he was longing.
“I thought I was so smart and independent, cutting Tanis out, and I need her, Lord how I need her!” he raged.
“Myra simply can’t understand.
All she sees in life is getting along by being just like other folks.
But Tanis, she’d tell me I was all right.”
Then he broke, and one evening, late, he did run to Tanis.
He had not dared to hope for it, but she was in, and alone.
Only she wasn’t Tanis.
She was a courteous, brow-lifting, ice-armored woman who looked like Tanis.
She said,