lance, laughing, “that I would have thought that a man who was expecting to come into a fortune on the next day would be feeling pretty easy and quiet.”
“It’s a funny business,” philosophized Ide, “about the way people take things, anyhow. Here’s your bench, Dawson, right next to mine. The light don’t shine in your eyes here. Say, Dawson, I’ll get the old man to give you a letter to somebody about a job when I get back home. You’ve helped me a lot tonight. I don’t believe I could have gone through the night if I hadn’t struck you.”
“Thank you,” said Vallance. “Do you lie down or sit up on these when you sleep?”
For hours Vallance gazed almost without winking at the stars through the branches of the trees and listened to the sharp slapping of horses’ hoofs on the sea of asphalt to the south. His mind was active, but his feelings were dormant. Every emotion seemed to have been eradicated. He felt no regrets, no fears, no pain or discomfort. Even when he thought of the girl, it was as of an inhabitant of one of those remote stars at which he gazed. He remembered the absurd antics of his companion and laughed softly, yet without a feeling of mirth. Soon the daily army of milk wagons made of the city a roaring drum to which they marched. Vallance fell asleep on his comfortless bench.
[102]
