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Winter Dreams
by
He went East in February with the intention of selling out his laundries and settling in New York–but the war came to America in March and changed his plans. He returned to the West, handed over the management of the business to his partner, and went into the first officers’ training-camp in late April. He was one of those young thousands who greeted the war with a certain amount of relief, welcoming the liberation from webs of tangled emotion.
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VI
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This story is not his biography, remember, although things creep into it which have nothing to do with those dreams he had when he was young. We are almost done with them and with him now. There is only one more incident to be related here, and it happens seven years farther on.
It took place in New York, where he had done well–so well that there were no barriers too high for him. He was thirty-two years old, and, except for one flying trip immediately after the war, he had not been West in seven years. A man named Devlin from Detroit came into his office to see him in a business way, and then and there this incident occurred, and closed out, so to speak, this particular side of his life.
“So you’re from the Middle West,” said the man Devlin with careless curiosity.”That’s funny–I thought men like you were probably born and raised on Wall Street. You know–wife of one of my best friends in Detroit came from your city. I was an usher at the wedding.”
Dexter waited with no apprehension of what was coming.
“Judy Simms,” said Devlin with no particular interest; “Judy Jones she was once.”
“Yes, I knew her.” A dull impatience spread over him. He had heard, of course, that she was married–perhaps deliberately he had heard no more.
“Awfully nice girl,” brooded Devlin meaninglessly, “I’m sort of sorry for her.”
“Why?” Something in Dexter was alert, receptive, at once.
“Oh, Lud Simms has gone to pieces in a way. I don’t mean he ill-uses her, but he drinks and runs around–“
“Doesn’t she run around?”
“No. Stays at home with her kids.”
“Oh.”
“She’s a little too old for him,” said Devlin.
“Too old!” cried Dexter.”Why, man, she’s only twenty-seven.”
He was possessed with a wild notion of rushing out into the streets and taking a train to Detroit. He rose to his feet spasmodically.
“I guess you’re busy,” Devlin apologized quickly.”I didn’t realize–“
“No, I’m not busy,” said Dexter, steadying his voice.”I’m not busy at all. Not busy at all. Did you say she was–twenty-seven? No, I said she was twenty-seven.”
“Yes, you did,” agreed Devlin dryly.
“Go on, then. Go on.”
“What do you mean?”
“About Judy Jones.”
Devlin looked at him helplessly.
“Well, that’s–I told you all there is to it. He treats her like the devil. Oh, they’re not going to get divorced or anything. When he’s particularly outrageous she forgives him. In fact, I’m inclined to think she loves him. She was a pretty girl when she first came to Detroit.”
A pretty girl! The phrase struck Dexter as ludicrous.
“Isn’t she–a pretty girl, any more?”
“Oh, she’s all right.”
“Look here,” said Dexter, sitting down suddenly, “I don’t understand. You say she was a ‘pretty girl’ and now you say she’s ‘all right.’ I don’t understand what you mean–Judy Jones wasn’t a pretty girl, at all. She was a great beauty. Why, I knew her, I knew her. She was–“
Devlin laughed pleasantly.
“I’m not trying to start a row,” he said.”I think Judy’s a nice girl and I like her. I can’t understand how a man like Lud Simms could fall madly in love with her, but he did.” Then he added: “Most of the women like her.”