And Herbert getting out his wallet, with the bills neatly laid inside, and carefully counting them out. "One, two, three, four, five"
She had stopped watching for the mail carrier long ago. She had stopped hoping. Sometimes she thought she had stopped living. Nothing really mattered. Some day there would be a divorce, probably. Tom had a right to his freedom. Then, if he still wanted her, she would marry Herbert. Herbert had a right to something, too.
On Sundays she and Henry took flowers to the cemetery after church. Henry would get out carefully and stand by her mother's grave, holding his silk hat in his hand; Hawkins would take out the old flowers, and put fresh water in the container; and then she would arrange the new ones. Sometimes, when they reached the car again, Henry would turn around and look back.
She felt at those times that she owed him something, also.
Then, one day, something happened to shock her back into life again. She was in town for some shopping, and suddenly there was the screech of a calliope ahead, and people ran out of stores or stopped on the street to line up against the curbing. Hawkins drew in to one side and stopped the car.
"Circus coming, miss." She was still "miss" to the servants.
But it was not the circus.
She was suddenly very cold. Just so, a year and a half ago, had Tom come back to her like a young knight, haughty and arrogant and wonderful to see. She had called out to him, and he had dug his spurs into his horse until it reared. And the next day
She sat twisting her ring while the procession passed; the cowboy band; the heavy-stepping elephants; the Indians in their war bonnets and buckskin clothes, their faces Oriental and inscrutable; the Cossacks, in their high astrakhan hats, their long tunics, their soft-soled boots.
There was no escape for her. She saw the cowboys coming, their bright neckerchiefs, their chaps and spurs, their
