The Swing of the Pendulum by Adriana Spadoni

Jerome Stuart grinned at the red-cap who rushed forward for his bag, at the transfer man to whom he gave his checks, to the taxi driver whom he beckoned, and finally, when he found himself sitting on the very edge of the seat as if, by so doing, he could force the vehicle more quickly through the traffic, at himself.

For a little over two weeks he had managed to stay away. And, although from the moment he had entered the train to return, he could not have told why he ever went, still less why he had stayed, he was proud of the achievement. He felt that he had acquired a power of self-control that no emergency of life could ever shake. He had fished and tramped and played tennis and, one evening, alone in his room, he had even tried to do some serious reading. At the memory of that evening, Jerome leaned against the cushions and laughed aloud.

"You poor, besotted idiot."

He might be fifty, sixty, a hundred. He might have a dozen daughters and a score of grandchildren. None of it had anything to do with his love for Jean Herrick. He had run away in a kind of perverted modesty, just as a child might refuse a longed-for present beyond its just expectations,

"It would serve you right if she had gone away and you couldn't find her."

But at the thought, Jerome perched on the edge of the seat again.

"Steady, old top, steady. If you go at things like this, you'll bungle the whole business. And then you will be in a fix. Besides, you know, you can't dash in and ask a lady to marry you, when she hasn't even the least idea you're in love. Cool down, grandpa, cool down."

Nevertheless when the elevator did not instantly answer his summons, Jerome ran up the four flights to his office.

In the middle of her dictation to Minnie, Jean heard his step and stopped. She sat, arrested, for what seemed an endless time, while Minnie chewed her pencil and stared at her own new patent leather pumps.

"The usual ending -- to those three last -- and that will be all for the present."

"Yes'm. " Still chewing, Minnie went.

Jerome Stuart was back. In a few moments perhaps he would come in. He would come in with no memory of that last moment on the sidewalk in his manner, because that was the only way the old relations could go on. And she would meet him, with careless surprise at this return, two weeks sooner than he had expected. He would tell her of his vacation and she would report the lack of any exciting developments while he had been away. Perhaps he would suggest finishing the piers.

He would sit in that chair where she would have to face him, unless she deliberately turned her back. She would listen while he talked. Outwardly they would be the good comrades they had always been. But the man who had desired her would be there, too, and the woman who had sat on the roof and cried, who had appraised her flesh and estimated her power to rouse again his desire, would be there, too. Jean shuddered. She wished he would come now, instantly, and then decided to go before he could.

She had changed her mind for the tenth time, when Jerome's door opened, and her choice was gone. He was in the outer office, saying good morning to Minnie. He knocked and Jean rose, forced by some inner need, to meet him standing. "Come in."

"Back on the job, you see. How's the world got along in my absence?"

He was coming towards her, the outer man and the other, shifting places dizzily, coming straight towards her, lit by the glare of those moments when she had considered living with him in closest intimacy.

"You certainly do look like all outdoors. " She had managed to say it.

"I feel like it. I'm afraid to breathe in case I use up all the air in poor old Manhattan at one swoop."

He took his usual place without offering to shake hands. Jean continued to stand. If she relaxed her muscles, the poise she had summoned would relax too, and Jerome Stuart would know that she had weighed her power to waken again his momentary passion.

Jerome wished that Jean would sit down. It made him feel that he had interrupted her in an important piece of work and that she was waiting for him to go. Besides, standing so, the strong sweep of body disturbed him, and his resolve to proceed slowly and carefully was shaken almost beyond control.