The hands of the station clock seemed fixed and immovable.The hour between eleven and twelve was endless.She was on the train.It was almost morning.It was morning.Dawn was breaking.She was home! She had the house key clutched tightly in her hand long before she turned Schroeder's corner.Suppose he had come home! Suppose he had jumped a town and come home ahead of his schedule.They had quarreled once before, and he had done that.
Up the front steps.Into the house.Not a sound.She stood there a moment in the early-morning half-light.She peered into the dining room.The table, with its breakfast debris, was as she had left it.In the kitchen the coffeepot stood on the gas stove.She was home.She was safe.She ran up the stairs, got out of her clothes and into gingham morning things.She flung open windows everywhere.Downstairs once more she plunged into an orgy of cleaning.Dishes, table, stove, floor, rugs.She washed, scoured, swabbed, polished.By eight o'clock she had done the work that would ordinarily have taken until noon.The house was shining, orderly, and redolent of soapsuds.
During all this time she had been listening, listening, with her subconscious ear.Listening for something she had refused to name definitely in her mind, but listening, just the same; waiting.
And then, at eight o'clock, it came.The rattle of a key in the lock.The boom of the front door.Firm footsteps.
He did not go to meet her, and she did not go to meet him.They came together and were in each other's arms.She was weeping.
"Now, now, old girl.What's there to cry about? Don't, honey; don't.It's all right." She raised her head then, to look at him.How fresh and rosy and big he seemed, after that little sallow restaurant rat.
"How did you get here?How did you happen----?""Jumped all the way from Ashland.Couldn't get a sleeper, so I sat up all night.I had to come back and square things with you, Terry.Mymind just wasn't on my work.I kept thinking how I'd talked--how I'd talked----""Oh, Orville, don't!I can't bear---- Have you had your breakfast?" "Why, no.The train was an hour late.You know that Ashlandtrain."
But she was out of his arms and ****** for the kitchen."You go and clean up.I'll have hot biscuits and everything in no time.You poor boy.No breakfast!"She made good her promise.It could not have been more than half an hour later when he was buttering his third feathery, golden-brown biscuit.But she had eaten nothing.She watched him, and listened, and again her eyes were somber, but for a different reason.He broke open his egg.His elbow came up just a fraction of an inch.Then he remembered, and flushed like a schoolboy, and brought it down again, carefully.And at that she gave a tremulous cry, and rushed around the table to him.
"Oh, Orville!" She took the offending elbow in her two arms, and bent and kissed the rough coat sleeve.
"Why, Terry!Don't, honey.Don't!" "Oh, Orville, listen----""Yes."
"Listen, Orville----" "I'm listening, Terry.""I've got something to tell you.There's something you've got to know.""Yes, I know it, Terry.I knew you'd out with it, pretty soon, if I just waited."She lifted an amazed face from his shoulder then, and stared at him."But how could you know? You couldn't! How could you?"He patted her shoulder then, gently."I can always tell.When you have something on your mind you always take up a spoon of coffee, and look at it, and kind of joggle it back and forth in the spoon, and then dribble it back into the cup again, without once tasting it.It used to get me nervous, when we were first married, watching you.But now I knowit just means you're worried about something, and I wait, and pretty soon----"
"Oh, Orville!" she cried then."Oh, Orville!""Now, Terry.Just spill it, hon.Just spill it to Daddy.And you'll feel better."
