“I believe I will,” she whispered.
“Have you got a cigarette?”
He gave her his package; she stood up to receive the flame he nursed in his cupped hands.
She leaned her heavy body against him as, with puckered face and closed eyes, she held her cigarette to the fire.
She grasped his shaking hands to steady the light, holding them for a moment after.
“What,” said “Miss Brown,” with a cunning smile, “what if your mother should see us?
You’d catch it!”
“She’ll not see us,” he said.
“Besides,” he added generously, “why shouldn’t women smoke the same as men?
There’s no harm in it.”
“Yes,” said “Miss Brown,”
“I believe in being broad-minded about these things, too.”
But he grinned in the dark, because the woman had revealed herself with a cigarette.
It was a sign — the sign of the province, the sign unmistakable of debauchery.
Then, when he laid his hands upon her, she came very passively into his embrace as he sat before her on the rail.
“Eugene!
Eugene!” she said in mocking reproof.
“Where is your room?” he said.
She told him.
Later, Eliza came suddenly and silently out upon them, on one of her swift raids from the kitchen.
“Who’s there?
Who’s there?” she said, peering into the gloom suspiciously.
“Huh?
Hah?
Where’s Eugene?
Has any one seen Eugene?”
She knew very well he was there.
“Yes, here I am,” he said.
“What do you want?”
“Oh!
Who’s that with you?
Hah?”
“‘Miss Brown’ is with me.”
“Won’t you come out and sit down, Mrs. Gant?” said “Miss Brown.”
“You must be tired and hot.”
“Oh!” said Eliza awkwardly, “is that you, ‘Miss Brown’?
I couldn’t see who it was.”
She switched on the dim porch light.
“It’s mighty dark out here.
Some one coming up those steps might fall and break a leg.
I tell you what,” she continued conversationally, “this air feels good.
I wish I could let everything go and just enjoy myself.”
She continued in amiable monologue for another half hour, her eyes probing about swiftly all the time at the two dark figures before her.
Then hesitantly, by awkward talkative stages, she went into the house again.
“Son,” she said before she went, troubled, “it’s getting late.
You’d better go to bed.
That’s where we all ought to be.”
“Miss Brown” assented gracefully and moved toward the door.
“I’m going now.
I feel tired.