They turned, following a street.
There was a corner, beneath an arc light.
“I’ll get out here,” Horace said.
“I’ll take you on to the door,” the driver said.
“I’ll get out here,” Horace said.
“Save you having to turn.”
“Suit yourself,” the driver said.
“You’re paying for it, anyway.”
Horace got out and lifted out his suit case; the driver did not offer to touch it.
The car went on.
Horace picked up the suit case, the one which had stayed in the closet at his sister’s home for ten years and which he had brought into town with him on the morning when she had asked him the name of the District Attorney.
His house was new, on a fairish piece of lawn, the trees, the poplars and maples which he had set out, still new.
Before he reached the house, he saw the rose colored shade at his wife’s windows.
He entered the house from the back and came to her door and looked into the room.
She was reading in bed, a broad magazine with a colored back.
The lamp had a rose colored shade.
On the table sat an open box of chocolates.
“I came back,” Horace said.
She looked at him across the magazine.
“Did you lock the back door?” she said.
“Yes, I knew she would be,” Horace said.
“Have you tonight.……”
“Have I what?”
“Little Belle.
Did you telephone.……”
“What for?
She’s at that house party.
Why shouldn’t she be?
Why should she have to disrupt her plans, refuse an invitation?”
“Yes,” Horace said. “I knew she would be.
Did you.……”
“I talked to her night before last.
Go lock the back door.”
“Yes,” Horace said.
“She’s all right.
Of course she is.
I’ll just.……” The telephone sat on a table in the dark hall.
The number was on a rural line; it took some time.
Horace sat beside the telephone.
He had left the door at the end of the hall open.
Through it the light airs of the summer night drew, vague, disturbing.
“Night is hard on old people,” he said quietly, holding the receiver.
“Summer nights are hard on them.
Something should be done about it.
A law.”
From her room Belle called his name, in the voice of a reclining person.
“I called her night before last.
Why must you bother her?”
“I know,” Horace said.
“I wont be long at it.”