When he appeared in them a little later they were wrinkled and there was an obvious scarcity of room at the waist. He looked doubtfully at himself in the mirror. Then suddenly he smiled. “I’ve had them ever since we were married,” said he. “Their style looks rather quaint, doesn’t it? But I’ve had some very happy minutes inside the old coat. Do you remember this tie, Alice?”
She examined it critically and then smiled. “Why, for mercy’s sake! That was the first thing I ever made you,” said she, happily.
“I hadn’t forgotten,” he answered, and Edith followed him to the door with her hand thrust into his arm.
”Crawling out of my hole!” he muttered so that only his own ears heard it. As he went slowly out into the hallway and down the noisy wooden stairs his wife and his daughter leaned over the banisters, looking at him anxiously.
The night was so soft and alluring that many people, driven from the breathless warmth of indoors, had come out to perch on their steps; through open windows came the rattle of pianos or the sound of phonographs. Those whom Clews met on the street hardly could be said to be walking; their gait was always a contented amble. Vigorous hurdy-gurdies were playing in the light from the show-windows of drug stores; policemen stopped on corners to take off their helmets and wipe their foreheads. Clews was the only one in a hurry.
At last he turned the corner into the avenue, and beyond the rows of houses, many of which were dark and deserted for the summer, shone the gay lights of the hotel. As he looked he saw a little group of laughing men going up the steps, and although he knew he was already late, he walked over into the mall and seated himself on a park bench in the shadow of a statue erected to some public man. He nodded to this statue as if it were a former acquaintance, and after a few moments he got up again, squared his shoulders, and walked briskly across the street and up the steps into the lobby.
The clerk leaned over the desk toward him. “Seventy-six?” he asked. Clews nodded, and then said, in a strong, carrying voice, “Yes, my class — seventy-six.”
“Just down at the end of that corridor,” directed the other, and Clews drew off his coat as he walked.
There were others standing with him at the checkroom who nodded to him. “Did you go to the game?” asked one.
“No,” said Clews, guiltily. ”How did it come out?”
“Great guns! don’t you know how it came out? Why, we beat ’em! My boy plays first base. I go to all the games.”
“I wish I could—I wish I’d gone to-day. But my work is rather confining,” explained Clews. “I have a daughter,” he added, as if to even accounts. “And of course if I had a son he’d be out there at the University too.”
“There are several prominent members of the class here to-night,” returned the other, changing the subject. “Drowson is here, and Crane is toastmaster. We’re late, I think.”
“Yes,” answered Clews. He could hear the clinking and the confused clamor of many voices beyond the reception-room. With his new acquaintance he followed a knot of men who opened the door, exposing the two large tables filled with diners. The noise within burst out as if impatient of confinement, and drew the attention of several guests of the hotel, who peered down the corridor with mild curiosity.
When the man who was with Clews hesitated for a moment, looking for a vacant seat, a dozen voices rose up to greet him, and several men stood up to shout to him boyishly, “Oh, Billy, here’s a seat!” or, “Here you are, Lawton!”
Clews was dazed for a moment with the brilliance of the lights, the white linen, the black suits, and the flowers upon the tables. At that moment it seemed to him that he would give up all hope of other happiness to hear some one shout his name and call him to them. But their eyes were upon him merely to see who had come in, and he hurried to a vacant place to escape their stare.
