The Waterbury Democrat., 1938-06-11
CAST OF CHARACTERS
CHAPTER XII

He moistened his lips, rocking a little on the seat, looking at her. She watched his face, fascinated. He did not say anything.
 "Joe!" she said suddenly.
 'Let's get out of here!" he snap ped, and got up abruptly.
 She followed him outside the shop. She stood in uncertainty on the sidewalk beside him while he looked up the street and down the street, rocking a little, omi- nously rocking, his face unread able.
 Then he heard her make a queer sound, and he looked at her sharply. She was crying as she stood there quietly almost sound- lessly crying. He did not make a move, staring at her. She did not look at him, but she slowly turned and walked off down the street, alone.
 He had never seen her cry. She looked forlorn and alone to an intensity of loneliness such as he had never seen either. He knew what loneliness was. He knew what happiness was. He knew what it was to have happiness snatched from your grasp, wan- tonly, by needless life.
 Loneliness was creeping over him as he stood there and she drew farther and farther away not looking back. Once he would not have recognized it; now he knew it all too well, clammy and cold. The anger drained out of him, down through his evry feet into the insensate earth.
 He set out after her at quick pace.
 When he caught up with her and fell into stride he gripped her hand hard. Cut it!" he told her. "stop that"
 Obediently, abruptly, the sob ping ceased. She walked by his side, very still He went on, hold ing the hand hard.
 "All right" he said. T think you're nuts and I'm no better. I'll take it on"
 The small hand in his gave a convulsive start and gripped him hard in return. You mean you'll marry me?"
 q think we're out of our heads. So we might as well get mar ried."
 And there was sudden quiver- inR breathless radiance in the dusk beside him.
 They walked together long time. Neither one went home. They walk ed through the dusk into the dark ness of the night. They stopped at lunch wagon and perched on stools and ate hamburger sandwiches while a tenor voice came over the radio singing a song that shook them strangely and that they would al- ways associate with just that mo- ment. The announcer said 1t was the "Barcarolle" from "The Tales of Hoffman"
 It was not with difficulty that Joe was shaken; his entire being trembled with tension. He was afraid, nightly afraid; he was haunted by poignancy, by the ghosts of an old passion that trooped invisibly around. And he was humbled,. He was humbled by the clear, calm abiding joy that he had unwittingly called into being, that walked and sat and dreamed beside him, wanting nothing more forever.
 That happiness was so cruel! He was responsible for it, and it mastered him, and its mastery was like a clutching of his flesh with barbs. He had known happiness, and he had known grief and deso- Iation, and they had unnamed him. so that the only desire left was peace. Peace, if he could ind it and there is no place in abiding with an ecstasy he could never share.
 He was humbled, haunted, tor mented; he was seized by the ter TOT of life. And when human creatures come to a certain point iii life suddenly, point where the prospect is appalling and over whelming for mortals to look upon, nature provides for them, that life may never halt. Life cannot halt. Nature makes them little drunk, drunk with too much sensation. so that they no longer mind, being without voli- tion while life sweeps them on, into an unknown
 They walked together in the night, the two of them, and they talked little. They made no plans. Terry needed none; Joe had spoken, and that was all that mat tered. When she addressed him it was about things quite irrele- want and trivial; the gay song someone was singing inside an open window, the look on girls face as she talked in a doorway with boy, the frantic friendli- ness of a puppy that came stum- bling and galloping up to greet them, the majesty of an airway beacon in the night sky. The night was full of many things, and she walked among them together with her man.
 It was late when they arrived at her home. All was dark and quiet,