THE SENSIBLE THING
AT THE Great American Lunch Hour
young George O'Kelly
straightened his desk
deliberately and with an assumed air of inter-
est. No one in the office must know
that he was in a hurry, for suc-
cess is a matter of atmosphere,
and it is not well to advertise the fact
that your mind is separated from
your work by a distance of seven
hundred miles.
But once out of the building he
set his teeth and began to run,
glancing now and then at the gay
noon of early spring which filled
Times Square and loitered less
than twenty feet over the heads of
the crowd. The crowd all looked
slightly upward and took deep
March breaths, and the sun
dazzled their eyes so that scarcely any
one saw any one else but only
their own reflection on the sky.
George O'Kelly, whose mind was over
seven hundred miles away,
thought that all outdoors was
horrible. He rushed into the subway,
and for ninety-five blocks bent a
frenzied glance on a car-card which
showed vividly how he had only
one chance in five of keeping his
teeth for ten years. At i37th
Street he broke off his study of com-
mercial art, left the subway, and
began to run again, a tireless,
anxious run that brought him this
time to his home one room in a
high, horrible apartment-house in
the middle of nowhere.
There it was on the bureau, the
letter in sacred ink, on blessed
paper all over the city, people,
if they listened, could hear the
beating of George O'Kelly's
heart. He read the commas, the blots,
and the thumb-smudge on the
margin then he threw himself hope-
lessly upon his bed.
He was in a mess, one of those
terrific messes which are ordinary
incidents in the life of the
poor, which follow poverty like birds of
prey. The poor go under or go up
or go wrong or even go on, some-
how, in a way the poor have but
George O'Kelly was so new to
poverty that had any one denied
the uniqueness of his case he would
have been astounded.
Less than two years ago he had
been graduated with honors from
The Massachusetts Institute of
Technology and had taken a position
with a firm of construction
engineers in southern Tennessee. All his
life he had thought in terms of
tunnels and skyscrapers and great
squat dams and tall,
three-towered bridges, that were like dancers
holding hands in a row, with
heads as tall as cities and skirts of cable
strand. It had seemed romantic to
George O'Kelly to change the
sweep of rivers and the shape of
mountains so that life could flourish
in the old bad lands of the world
where it had never taken root be-
fore. He loved steel, and there
was always steel near him in his
dreams, liquid steel, steel in
bars, and blocks and beams and form-
less plastic masses, waiting for
him, as paint and canvas to his hand.
Steel inexhaustible, to be made
lovely and austere in his imaginative
fire ...
At present he was an insurance
clerk at forty dollars a week with
his dream slipping fast behind
him. The dark little girl who had made
this mess, this terrible and
intolerable mess, was waiting to be sent
for in a town in Tennessee.
In fifteen minutes the woman from
whom he sublet his room
knocked and asked him with
maddening kindness if, since he was
home, he would have some lunch. He
shook his head, but the inter-
ruption aroused him, and getting
up from the bed he wrote a tele-
gram.
"Letter depressed me have
you lost your nerve you are foolish and
just upset to think of breaking
off why not marry me immediately
sure we can make it all right
"
He hesitated for a wild minute,
and then added in a hand that
could scarcely be recognized as
his own: "In any case I will arrive
to-morrow at six o'clock."
When he finished he ran out of
the apartment and down to the
telegraph office near the subway
stop. He possessed in this world not
quite one hundred dollars, but
the letter showed that she was
"nervous" and this left
him no choice. He knew what "nervous"
meant that she was emotionally
depressed, that the prospect of
marrying into a life of poverty
and struggle was putting too much
strain upon her love.
George O'Kelly reached the
insurance company at his usual run,
the run that had become almost
second nature to him, that seemed
best to express the tension under
which he lived. He went straight
to the manager's office.
"I want to see you, Mr.
Chambers," he announced breathlessly.
"Well?" Two eyes, eyes
like winter windows, glared at him with
ruthless impersonality.
"I want to get four days'
vacation."
"Why, you had a vacation
just two weeks ago ! " said Mr. Cham-
bers in surprise.
"That's true," admitted
the distraught young man, "but now I've
got to have another."
"Where 'd you go last time?
To your home?"
"No, I went to a place in
Tennessee."
"Well, where do you want to
go this time?"
"Well, this time I want to
go to a place in Tennessee."
"You're consistent,
anyhow," said the manager dryly. "But I
didn't realize you were employed
here as a travelling salesman."
"I'm not," cried George
desperately, "but I've got to go."
"All right," agreed Mr.
Chambers, "but you don't have to come
back. So don't ! "
"I won't." And to his
own astonishment as well as Mr. Chambers'
George's face grew pink with
pleasure. He felt happy, exultant for
the first time in six months he
was absolutely free. Tears of gratitude
stood in his eyes, and he seized
Mr. Chambers warmly by the hand.
"I want to thank you,"
he said with a rush of emotion, "I don't
want to come back. I think I'd
have gone crazy if you'd said that I
could come back. Only I couldn't
quit myself, you see, and I want
to thank you for for quitting for
me."
He waved his hand magnanimously,
shouted aloud, "You owe me
three days' salary but you can
keep it ! " and rushed from the office.
Mr. Chambers rang for his
stenographer to ask if O'Kelly had
seemed queer lately. He had fired
many men in the course of his
career, and they had taken it in
many different ways, but none of
them had thanked him ever before.
II
Jonquil Gary was her name, and to
George O'Kelly nothing had
ever looked so fresh and pale as
her face when she saw him and
fled to him eagerly along the
station platform. Her arms were raised
to him, her mouth was half parted
for his kiss, when she held him
off suddenly and lightly and,
with a touch of embarrassment, looked
around. Two boys, somewhat
younger than George, were standing
in the background.
"This is Mr. Craddock and
Mr. Holt," she announced cheerfully.
"You met them when you were
here before."
Disturbed by the transition of a
kiss into an introduction and sus-
pecting some hidden significance,
George was more confused when he
found that the automobile which
was to carry them to Jonquil's house
belonged to one of the two young
men. It seemed to put him at a dis-
advantage. On the way Jonquil
chattered between the front and
back seats, and when he tried to
slip his arm around her under cover
of the twilight she compelled him
with a quick movement to take
her hand i
"Is this street on the way
to your house? 17 he whispered. "I don't
recognize it."
"It's the new boulevard.
Jerry just got this car to-day, and he
wants to show it to me before he
takes us home."
When, after twenty minutes, they
were deposited at Jonquil's
house, George felt that the first
happiness of the meeting, the joy he
had recognized so surely in her
eyes back in the station, had been
dissipated by the intrusion of
the ride. Something that he had looked
forward to had been rather
casually lost, and he was brooding on
this as he said good night
stiffly to the two young men. Then his ill-
humor faded as Jonquil drew him
into a familiar embrace under the
dim light of the front hall and
told him in a dozen ways, of which
the best was without words, how
she had missed him. Her emotion
reassured him, promised his
anxious heart that everything would be
all right.
They sat together on the sofa,
overcome by each other's presence,
beyond all except fragmentary
endearments. At the supper hour
Jonquil's father and mother
appeared and were glad to see George.
They liked him, and had been
interested in his engineering career
when he had first come to
Tennessee over a year before. They had
been sorry when he had given it
up and gone to New York to look
for something more immediately
profitable, but while they deplored
the curtailment of his career
they sympathized with him and were
ready to recognize the
engagement. During dinner they asked about
his progress in New York.
"Everything's going
fine," he told them with enthusiasm. "I've
been promoted better
salary."
He was miserable as he said this
but they were all so glad.
"They must like you,"
said Mrs. Gary, "that's certain or they
wouldn't let you off twice in
three weeks to come down here."
"I told them they had
to," explained George hastily; "I told them
if they didn't I wouldn't work
for them any more."
"But you ought to save your
money," Mrs. Gary reproached him
gently. "Not spend it all on
this expensive trip."
Dinner was over he and Jonquil
were alone and she came back
into his arms.
"So glad you're here,"
she sighed. "Wish you never were going
away again, darling."
"Do you miss me?"
"Oh, so much, so much."
"Do you do other men come to
see you often? Like those two
kids?"
The question surprised her. The
dark velvet eyes stared at him.
"Why, of course they do. All
the time. Why IVe told you in let-
ters that they did,
dearest."
This was true when he had first
come to the city there had been
already a dozen boys around her,
responding to her picturesque
fragility with adolescent worship,
and a few of them perceiving that
her beautiful eyes were also sane
and kind.
"Do you expect me never to
go anywhere" Jonquil demanded,
leaning back against the
sofa-pillows until she seemed to look at him
from many miles away "and
just fold my hands and sit still for-
ever?"
"What do you mean ?" he
blurted out in a panic. "Do you mean
you think 111 never have enough
money to marry you?"
"Oh, don't jump at
conclusions so, George."
"I'm not jumping at
conclusions. That's what you said."
George decided suddenly that he
was on dangerous grounds. He
had not intended to let anything
spoil this night. He tried to take
her again in his arms, but she
resisted unexpectedly, saying :
"It's hot. I'm going to get
the electric fan."
When the fan was adjusted they
sat down again, but he was in a
supersensitive mood and
involuntarily he plunged into the specific
world he had intended to avoid.
"When will you marry
me?"
"Are you ready for me to
marry you?"
All at once his nerves gave way,
and he sprang to his feet.
"Let's shut off that damned
fan," he cried, "it drives me wild.
It's like a clock ticking away
all the time I'll be with you. I came
here to be happy and forget
everything about New York and
time "
He sank down on the sofa as
suddenly as he had risen. Jonquil
turned off the fan, and drawing
his head down into her lap began
stroking his hair.
"Let's sit like this,"
she said softly, "just sit quiet like this, and
111 put you to sleep. You're all
tired and nervous and your sweet-
heart'll take care of you."
"But I don't want to sit
like this," he complained, jerking up sud-
denly, "I don't want to sit
like this at all. I want you to kiss me.
That's the only thing that makes
me rest. And anyways I'm not
nervous it's you that's nervous.
I'm not nervous at all."
To prove that he wasn't nervous
he left the couch and plumped
himself into a rocking-chair
across the room.
"Just when I'm ready to
marry you you write me the most nervous
letters, as if you're going to
back out, and I have to come rushing
down here "
"You don't have to come if
you don't want to."
"But I do want to!"
insisted George.
It seemed to him that he was
being very cool and logical and that
she was putting him deliberately
in the wrong. With every word
they were drawing farther and
farther apart and he was unable to
stop himself or to keep worry and
pain out of his voice.
But in a minute Jonquil began to
cry sorrowfully and he came
back to the sofa and put his arm
around her. He was the com-
forter now, drawing her head
close to his shoulder, murmuring old
familiar things until she grew
calmer and only trembled a little,
spasmodically, in his arms. For
over an hour they sat there, while the
evening pianos thumped their last
cadences into the street outside.
George did not move, or think, or
hope, lulled into numbness by the
premonition of disaster. The
clock would tick on, past eleven, past
twelve, and then Mrs. Gary would
call down gently over the banister
beyond that he saw only to-morrow
and despair.
Ill
In the heat of the next day the
breaking-point came. They had
each guessed the truth about the
other, but of the two she was the
more ready to admit the
situation.
"There's no use going
on," she said miserably, "you know you
hate the insurance business, and
you'll never do well in it."
"That's not it," he
insisted stubbornly; "I hate going on alone.
If you'll marry me and come with
me and take a chance with me, I
can make good at anything, but
not while I'm worrying about you
down here."
She was silent a long time before
she answered, not thinking
for she had seen the end but only
waiting, because she knew that
every word would seem more cruel
than the last. Finally she spoke :
"George, I love you with all
my heart, and I don't see how I can
ever love any one else but you.
If you'd been ready for me two
months ago I'd have married you
now I can't because it doesn't
seem to be the sensible
thing."
He made wild accusations there
was some one else she was
keeping something from him !
"No, there's no one
else."
This was true. But reacting from
the strain of this affair she had
found relief in the company of
young boys like Jerry Holt, who had
the merit of meaning absolutely
nothing in her life.
George didn't take the situation
well, at all. He seized her in his
arms and tried literally to kiss
her into marrying him at once. When
this failed, he broke into a long
monologue of self-pity, and ceased
only when he saw that he was
making himself despicable in her
sight. He threatened to leave
when he had no intention of leaving,
and refused to go when she told
him that, after all, it was best that
he should.
For a while she was sorry, then
for another while she was merely
kind.
"You'd better go now,"
she cried at last, so loud that Mrs. Gary
came down-stairs in alarm.
"Is something the
matter?"
"I'm going away, Mrs.
Gary," said George brokenly. Jonquil had
left the room.
"Don't feel so badly,
George." Mrs. Gary blinked at him in helpless
sympathy sorry and, in the same
breath, glad that the little tragedy
was almost done. "If I were
you I'd go home to your mother for a
week or so. Perhaps after all
this is the sensible thing "
"Please don't talk," he
cried. "Please don't say anything to me
now!"
Jonquil came into the room again,
her sorrow and her nervousness
alike tucked under powder and
rouge and hat.
"I've ordered a
taxicab," she said impersonally. "We can drive
around until your train
leaves."
She walked out on the front
porch. George put on his coat and hat
and stood for a minute exhausted in
the hall he had eaten scarcely
a bite since he had left New
York. Mrs. Gary came over, drew his
head down and kissed him on the
cheek, and he felt very ridiculous
and weak in his knowledge that
the scene had been ridiculous and
weak at the end. If he had only
gone the night before left her for
the last time with a decent
pride.
The taxi had come, and for an
hour these two that had been lovers
rode along the less-frequented
streets. He held her hand and grew
calmer in the sunshine, seeing
too late that there had been nothing
all along to do or say.
"I'll come back," he
told her.
"I know you will," she
answered, trying to put a cheery faith into
her voice. "And we'll write
each other sometimes."
"No," he said, "we
won't write. I couldn't stand that. Some day I'll
come back."
"I'll never forget you,
George."
They reached the station, and she
went with him while he bought
his ticket. . . .
"Why, George O'Kelly and
Jonquil Gary!"
It was a man and a girl whom George
had known when he had
worked in town, and Jonquil
seemed to greet their presence with
relief. For an interminable five
minutes they all stood there talking ;
then the train roared into the
station, and with ill-concealed agony in
his face George held out his arms
toward Jonquil. She took an un-
certain step toward him,
faltered, and then pressed his hand quickly
as if she were taking leave of a
chance friend.
"Good-by, George," she
was saying, "I hope you have a pleasant
trip.
"Good-by, George. Come back
and see us all again."
Dumb, almost blind with pain, he
seized his suitcase, and in some
dazed way got himself aboard the
train.
Past clanging street-crossings,
gathering speed through wide sub-
urban spaces toward the sunset.
Perhaps she too would see the sunset
and pause for a moment, turning,
remembering, before he faded
with her sleep into the past.
This night's dusk would cover up forever
the sun and the trees and the
flowers and laughter of his young world.
IV
On a damp afternoon in September
of the following year a young
man with has face burned to a
deep copper glow got off a train at a
city in Tennessee. He looked
around anxiously, and seemed relieved
when he found that there was no
one in the station to meet him. He
taxied to the best hotel in the
city where he registered with some
satisfaction as George O'Kelly,
Cuzco, Peru.
Up in his room he sat for a few
minutes at the window looking
down into the familiar street
below. Then with his hand trembling
faintly he took off the telephone
receiver and called a number.
"Is Miss Jonquil in?"
"This is she."
"Oh " His voice after
overcoming a faint tendency to waver went
on with friendly formality.
"This is George O'Kelly. Did
you get my letter?"
"Yes. I thought you'd be in
to-day."
Her voice, cool and unmoved,
disturbed him, but not as he had
expected. This was the voice of a
stranger, unexcited, pleasantly glad
to see him that was all. He
wanted to put down the telephone and
catch his breath.
"I haven't seen you for a
long time." He succeeded in making
this sound offhand. "Over a
year."
He knew how long it had been to
the day.
"It'll be awfully nice to
talk to you again."
"I'll be there in about an
hour."
He hung up. For four long seasons
every minute of his leisure had
been crowded with anticipation of
this hour, and now this hour was
here. He had thought of finding
her married, engaged, in love he
had not thought she would be
unstirred at his return.
There would never again in his
life, he felt, be another ten months
like these he had just gone
through. He had made an admittedly re-
markable showing for a young
engineer stumbled into two unusual
opportunities, one in Peru,
whence he had just returned, and another,
consequent upon it, in New York,
whither he was bound. In this short
time he had risen from poverty
into a position of unlimited oppor-
tunity.
He looked at himself in the
dressing-table mirror. He was almost
black with tan, but it was a
romantic black, and in the last week,
since he had had time to think
about it, it had given him consider-
able pleasure. The hardiness of
his frame, too, he appraised with a
sort of fascination. He had lost
part of an eyebrow somewhere, and
he still wore an elastic bandage
on his knee, but he was too young
not to realize that on the
steamer many women had looked at him
with unusual tributary interest.
His clothes, of course, were
frightful. They had been made for
him by a Greek tailor in Lima in
two days. He was young enough,
too, to have explained this
sartorial deficiency to Jonquil in his
otherwise laconic note. The only
further detail it contained was a
request that he should not be met
at the station.
George O'Kelly, of Cuzco, Peru,
waited an hour and a half in the
hotel, until, to be exact, the
sun had reached a midway position in
the sky. Then, freshly shaven and
talcum-powdered toward a some-
what more Caucasian hue, for
vanity at the last minute had over-
come romance, he engaged a
taxicab and set out for the house he
knew so well.
He was breathing hard he noticed
this but he told himself that
it was excitement, not emotion.
He was here ; she was not married
that was enough. He was not even
sure what he had to say to her.
But this was the moment of his life
that he felt he could least easily
have dispensed with. There was no
triumph, after all, without a girl
concerned, and if he did not lay
his spoils at her feet he could at least
hold them for a passing moment
before her eyes.
The house loomed up suddenly
beside him, and his first thought
was that it had assumed a strange
unreality. There was nothing
changed only everything was
changed. It was smaller and it seemed
shabbier than before there was no
cloud of magic hovering over its
roof and issuing from the windows
of the upper floor. He rang the
door-bell and an unfamiliar
colored maid appeared. Miss Jonquil
would be down in a moment. He wet
his lips nervously and walked
into the sitting-room and the
feeling of unreality increased. After
all, he saw, this was only a
room, and not the enchanted chamber
where he had passed those
poignant hours. He sat in a chair, amazed
to find it a chair, realizing
that his imagination had distorted and
colored all these simple familiar
things.
Then the door opened and Jonquil
came into the room and it was
as though everything in it
suddenly blurred before his eyes. He had
not remembered how beautiful she
was, and he felt his face grow
pale and his voice diminish to a
poor sigh in his throat.
She was dressed in pale green,
and a gold ribbon bound back her
dark, straight hair like a crown.
The familiar velvet eyes caught his
as she came through the door, and
a spasm of fright went through
him at her beauty's power of
inflicting pain.
He said "Hello," and
they each took a few steps forward and
shook hands. Then they sat in
chairs quite far apart and gazed at
each other across the room.
"You've come back," she
said, and he answered just as tritely : "I
wanted to stop in and see you as
I came through."
He tried to neutralize the tremor
in his voice by looking anywhere
but at her face. The obligation
to speak was on him, but, unless he
immediately began to boast, it seemed
that there was nothing to say.
There had never been anything
casual in their previous relations
it didn't seem possible that
people in this position would talk about
the weather.
"This is ridiculous,"
he broke out in sudden embarrassment. "I
don't know exactly what to do.
Does my being here bother you?"
"No." The answer was
both reticent and impersonally sad. It
depressed him.
"Are you engaged?" he
demanded.
"No."
"Are you in love with some
one?"
She shook her head.
"Oh." He leaned back in
his chair. Another subject seemed ex-
hausted the interview was not
taking the course he had intended.
"Jonquil," he began,
this time on a softer key, "after all that's
happened between us, I wanted to
come back and see you. Whatever
I do in the future I'll never
love another girl as I've loved you."
This was one of the speeches he
had rehearsed. On the steamer it
had seemed to have just the right
note a reference to the tenderness
he would always feel for her
combined with a non-committal atti-
tude toward his present state of
mind. Here with the past around
him, beside him, growing minute
by minute more heavy on the air,
it seemed theatrical and stale.
She made no comment, sat without
moving, her eyes fixed on him
with an expression that might
have meant everything or noth-
ing.
"You don't love me any more,
do you?" he asked her in a level
voice.
"No."
When Mrs. Gary came in a minute
later, and spoke to him about
his success there had been a half-column
about him in the local
paper he was a mixture of
emotions. He knew now that he still
wanted this girl, and he knew
that the past sometimes comes back
that was all. For the rest he
must be strong and watchful and he
would see.
"And now," Mrs. Gary
was saying, "I want you two to go and see
the lady who has the
chrysanthemums. She particularly told me she
wanted to see you because she'd
read about you in the paper."
They went to see the lady with
the chrysanthemums. They walked
along the street, and he
recognized with a sort of excitement just
how her shorter footsteps always
fell in between his own. The lady
turned out to be nice, and the
chrysanthemums were enormous and
extraordinarily beautiful. The
lady's gardens were full of them, white
and pink and yellow, so that to
be among them was a trip back into
the heart of summer. There were
two gardens full, and a gate between
them; when they strolled toward
the second garden the lady went
first through the gate.
And then a curious thing
happened. George stepped aside to let
Jonquil pass, but instead of
going through she stood still and stared
at him for a minute. It was not
so much the look, which was not a
smile, as it was the moment of
silence. They saw each other's eyes,
and both took a short, faintly
accelerated breath, and then they
went on into the second garden.
That was all.
The afternoon waned. They thanked
the lady and walked home
slowly, thoughtfully, side by
side. Through dinner, too, they were
silent. George told Mr. Gary
something of what had happened in
South America, and managed to let
it be known that everything
would be plain sailing for him in
the future.
Then dinner was over, and he and
Jonquil were alone in the
room which had seen the beginning
of their love affair and the end.
It seemed to him long ago and
inexpressibly sad. On that sofa he had
felt agony and grief such as he
would never feel again. He would
never be so weak or so tired and
miserable and poor. Yet he knew
that that boy of fifteen months
before had had something, a trust, a
warmth that was gone forever. The
sensible thing they had done
the sensible thing. He had traded
his first youth for strength and
carved success out of despair.
But with his youth, life had carried
away the freshness of his love.
"You won't marry me, will
you?" he said quietly.
Jonquil shook her dark head.
"I'm never going to
marry," she answered.
He nodded.
"I'm going on to Washington
in the morning," he said.
"Oh "
"I have to go. I've got to
be in New York by the first, and mean-
while I want to stop off in
Washington."
"Business!"
"No-o," he said as if
reluctantly. "There's some one there I must
see who was very kind to me when
I was so down and out."
This was invented. There was no
one in Washington for him to see
but he was watching Jonquil
narrowly, and he was sure that she
winced a little, that her eyes
closed and then opened wide again.
"But before I go I want to
tell you the things that happened to
me since I saw you, and, as maybe
we won't meet again, I wonder
if if just this once you'd sit in
my lap like you used to. I wouldn't
ask except since there's no one
else yet perhaps it doesn't matter."
She nodded, and in a moment was
sitting in his lap as she had sat
so often in that vanished spring.
The feel of her head against his
shoulder, of her familiar body,
sent a shock of emotion over him.
His arms holding her had a
tendency to tighten around her, so he
leaned back and began to talk thoughtfully
into the air.
He told her of a despairing two
weeks in New York which had
terminated with an attractive if
not very profitable job in a construc-
tion plant in Jersey City. When
the Peru business had first presented
itself it had not seemed an extraordinary
opportunity. He was to be
third assistant engineer on the
expedition, but only ten of the Ameri-
can party, including eight rodmen
and surveyors, had ever reached
Cuzco. Ten days later the chief
of the expedition was dead of yellow
fever. That had been his chance,
a chance for anybody but a fool, a
marvellous chance
"A chance for anybody but a
fool?" she interrupted innocently.
"Even for a fool," he
continued. "It was wonderful. Well, I wired
New York "
"And so," she
interrupted again, "they wired that you ought to
take a chance?"
"Ought to ! " he
exclaimed, still leaning back. "That I had to. There
was no time to lose "
"Not a minute?"
"Not a minute."
"Not even time for "
she paused.
"For what?"
"Look."
He bent his head forward
suddenly, and she drew herself to him in
the same moment, her lips half
open like a flower.
"Yes," he whispered
into her lips. "There's all the time in the
world. . . ."
All the time in the world his
life and hers. But for an instant as
he kissed her he knew that though
he search through eternity he
could never recapture those lost
April hours. He might press her
close now till the muscles
knotted on his arms she was something
desirable and rare that he had fought
for and made his own but
never again an intangible whisper
in the dusk, or on the breeze of
night. . . .
Well, let it pass, he thought ;
April is over, April is over. There are
all kinds of love in the world,
but never the same love twice.