Joan Thursday: A Novel

"Dja? Glad to hear it. Will you go again – next week? I guess I can work som'other show, all right."

Compunction smote as memory reminded her. "But – Ben – didn't you have to pay for those tickets?"

"Oh, that's all right. I couldn't find the fella I was lookin' for, round back."

"I'm so sorry – "

"Gwan! It wasn't nothin'. Cheap at the price, if you liked it, little girl."

"I liked it awfully! But I won't go again, unless you show me the pass first."

"Wel-l, we'll see about that." He edged a pace nearer.

Suddenly self-conscious, Joan drew back and offered her hand. "Good night and – thank you so much, Ben."

He took the hand, but retained it. "Ah, say! is this all I get? I thought you kinda liked me…"

"I do, Ben, but – "

"Well, a kiss won't cost you nothin'. It's your turn now."

"But, Ben – but, Ben – "

"Oh, well, if that's the way you feel about it – "

He made as if to relinquish her hand. But to be thought lacking in generosity had stung her beyond endurance. Without stopping to think – blindly and quickly, so that she might not think – she gave herself to his arms.

"Well," she breathed in a soft voice, "just one…"

"Just one, eh?" He pressed his lips to hers. "Oh, I don't know about that!"

He tightened his embrace. Her heart was hammering madly. His mouth hurt her lips, his beard rasped her tender skin. She wanted frantically to get away, to regain possession of herself; and wanted it the more because, dimly through the tumult of thought and emotion, she was conscious of the fact that she rather liked it.

"Joan…" Austin murmured in a tone that, soft with the note of wooing, was yet vibrant with the elation of the conqueror, "Joan…"

One arm shifted up from her waist and his big hand rested heavily over her heart.

For a breath she seemed numb and helpless, suffocating with the tempest of her senses. Then like lightning there pierced her confusion the memory of the knee that had driven her from the car, only that afternoon: symbolic of the bedrock beastliness of man. With a quick twist and wrench she freed herself and reeled a pace or two away.

"Ben!" she cried, in a voice hoarse with anger. "You – you brute – !"

"Why, what's the matter?"

"What right had you to – to touch me like that?" she panted, retreating as he advanced.

He paused, realizing that he had made a false move which bade fair to lose him his prey entirely. Only by elaborate diplomacy would he ever be able to reëstablish a footing of friendship; weeks must elapse now before he would gain the advantage of another kiss from her lips. He swore beneath his breath.

"I didn't mean nothin'," he said in a surly voice. "I don't see as you got any call to make such a fuss."

"Oh, don't you?.. Don't you!" She felt as if she must choke if she continued to parley with him. "Well, I do!" she flashed; and turning, ran up the fourth flight of steps.

He swung on his heel, muttering; and she heard him slam the door to his flat.

She continued more slowly, panting and struggling to subdue the signs of her emotion. But she was poisoned to the deeps of her being with her reawakened loathing of Man. On the top landing she paused, blinking back her tears, digging her nails into her palms while she fought down a tendency to sob, then drew herself up, took a deep breath, and advancing to the dining-room, turned the knob with stealth, to avoid disturbing her family.

To her surprise and dismay, as the first crack widened between the door and jamb, she saw that the room was lighted.

Wondering, she walked boldly in.

Her father was seated at the dining-table, a cheap pipe gripped between his teeth. Contrary to his custom, when he sat up late, he was not thumbing his dope. His fat, hairy arms were folded upon the oilcloth, his face turned squarely to the door. Instinctively Joan understood that he had waited up for her, that inexplicably a crisis was about to occur in her relations with her family.

In a chair tilted back against the wall, near the window opening upon the air-shaft, Butch sat, his feet drawn up on the lower rung, purple lisle-thread socks luridly displayed, hands in his trouser-pockets, a cigarette drooping from his cynical mouth, a straw hat with brilliant ribbon tilted forward over his eyes.

Closing the door, Joan put her back to it, eyes questioning her parent. Butch did not move. Thursby sagged his chin lower on his chest.

"Where have you been?" he demanded in deep accents, with the incisive and precise enunciation which she had learned to associate only with his phases of bad temper.

"Where've I been?" she repeated, stammering. "Where… Why – out walking – "

"Street-walking?" he suggested with an ugly snarl.

She sank, a limp, frightened figure, into a chair near the door.

"Why, pa – what do you mean?"

"I mean I'm going to find out the why and wherefore of the way you're behaving yourself. You're my daughter, and not of age yet, and I have a right to know what you do and where you go. Keep still!" he snapped, as she started to interrupt. "Speak when you're spoken to… I'm going to have a serious talk with you, young woman… What's all this I hear about your losing your job and going on the stage?"

IV

For a brief moment Joan sat agape, meeting incredulously the keen, contemptuous gaze of her father. Then she pulled herself together with determination to be neither browbeaten nor overborne.

"Where'd you hear that about me?" she demanded ominously.

Thursby shook his ponderous head: "It makes no difference – "

"It makes a lot of difference to me!" she cut in, sharply contentious. "You might's well tell me, because I won't talk to you if you don't."

Butch brushed the brim of his hat an inch above his eyes and threw her a glance of approbation. Thursby hesitated, his large, mottled face sullen and dark in the bluish illumination provided by the single gas-jet wheezing above the table. Then reluctantly he gave in.

"Old Inness was in the store this evening. He said – "

"Never mind what he said! I guess I know. Gussie's been shooting off her face about me at home. And of course old Inness hadn't nothing better to do than to run off and tell you everything he knew!"

"Then you don't deny it?" Thursby insisted.

"I don't have to. It's true. No, I don't deny it," she returned, aping his manner to exasperation.

"How'd you come to lose your job?"