Page:Meanwhile (1927).pdf/81

 He read the message again. More cogs were released. Business men were so monstrously terse. Monstrous, monstrous, monstrous!

Vales were only Aves turned hind-side-to. Everything went hind-side-to when the past turned into the future.

He rummaged a drawer for his cheque-book, but it wasn't there. Could he have left it on the work table? King Lear—Keyserling in two volumes—he carried them to the book-shelf. So many books to sort,—some to go back, some to be sold. And that bloody cheque-book staring him in the face all the time!

Somebody upstairs was playing jazz, and the door was ajar. He slammed it, for the news was grating on his nerves.

He had already put one pair of pyjamas into the bag; why in God's name put another! Why any? Why the bag? The thing was to get there, to get to a train.

Perhaps she would never know of his failure after all—

He would sell everything but the bust of Voltaire, and go into the wide world with that—armed with a terra cotta grin.

He darted back to examine the telegram once more. It hadn't occurred to him to see when it had been sent.

Eleven-thirty! Just as he was leaving for Concord—the beginning of forever—and the same day! It was now ten o'clock. A wave of sickness came over him.