Page:Micheaux - The Conquest, The Story of a Negro Pioneer (1913).djvu/339

 "And invite her over on pretense of accompanying you to a matinee."

"Yes, yes," and then, her face seemed to brighten with an idea, and she said: "Why not go to a matinee?"

"Why yes," I assented. "I had not thought of that, then, "Why sure, fine and dandy. We will all go, yes, indeed," I replied, with good cheer.

She went to the phone and called up the number. In a few minutes she returned, wearing a jubilant expression, and cried: "I've fixed it, she is coming over and we will all go to a matinee. Won't it be fine?" she continued, jumping up and down, and clapping her hands joyfully, beside herself with enthusiasm, and I joined her.

Two hours later, Mrs. Hite—the young lady that answered the door when I came that morning—called from the look-out, where she had been watching while Mrs. Arling was dressing, and I, too nervous to sit still, was walking to and fro across the room—that Orlean was coming. We had been uneasy for fear the Elder might hear of my being in the city, before Orlean got away. I rushed to the window and saw my wife coming leisurely along the walk, entirely ignorant of the anxious eyes watching her from the second-story window. I could see, at the first glance, she had grown fleshy; she had begun before she left South Dakota. It was a bay window and we watched her until she had come up the steps and pulled the bell.

Mrs. Arling had told me my wife did not have any gentleman company. I had not felt she had, for, in the first place, she was not that kind of a woman,