Mildred Pierce - James M. Cain [27]
"I know it. I can't, and yet I've got to."
"Then if you've got to, you've got to, so quit bawling."
"Promise me one thing, Lucy."
"Anything."
"Don't tell anybody."
"I wouldn't even tell Ike."
"I don't care about Ike, or any of these people, what they think. It's on account of the children, and I don't want anybody at all to know it, for fear somebody'll say something to them. They mustn't know it—and specially not Veda."
"That Veda, if you ask me, has some funny ideas."
"I respect her ideas."
"I don't."
"You don't understand her. She has something in her that I thought I had, and now I find I haven't. Pride, or whatever it is. Nothing on earth could make Veda do what I'm going to do."
"That pride, I wouldn't give a snap of my finger for it. You're quite right about her. Veda wouldn't do it herself, but she's perfectly willing to let you do it and eat the cake."
"I want her to have it. Cake—not just bread."
During the six weeks Mildred had been looking for work, she had seen quite a little of Wally. He had dropped around one night, after the children had gone to bed, and was quite apologetic about what he had said, and penitently asserted' he had made a sap of himself. She said there were no hard feelings, and brought him into the den, though she didn't bother to light a fire or serve a drink. But when he sat down beside her and put his arm around her, she got up and made one of her little speeches. She said she would be glad to see him any time, she wanted him as a friend. However, it must be distinctly understood that what was past was past, not to be brought up again under any circumstances. If he wanted to see her on that basis, she would try to make him welcome, and she really wanted him to come. He said gee that was swell of her, and if she really meant it, it was okey-doke by him.
Thereafter he dropped by rather often, arriving usually around nine, for she didn't want the children to know quite how much she was seeing him. Once, when they were spending a weekend at the Pierces', he came on Saturday evening and "took her out." She expressed a preference for a quiet place, for she was afraid the print dress wouldn't pass muster anywhere else, so they took a drive and ate in a roadside inn near Ventura. But one night, when her affairs were beginning to get desperate, he happened to sit beside her on the sofa again, and she didn't move. When he put his arm around her, in a casual, friendly kind of way, she didn't resist, and when he pulled her head on his shoulder she let it stay there. They sat a long time without speaking. So, with the door tightly locked, the shades pulled down, and the keyhole stuffed up, they resumed their romance, there in the den. Romance, perhaps, wasn't quite the word, for of that emotion she felt not the slightest flicker. Whatever it was, it afforded two hours of relief, of forgetfulness.
This evening, she found herself hoping that Wally might come, so she wouldn't have to think about the uniform she would have to buy in the morning, or the sentence she would begin serving. But when the bell rang she was a little surprised, for it was only a few minutes after seven. She went to the door, and instead of Wally standing there, it was Bert. "Oh. Why—hello, stranger."
"Mildred, how are you?"
"Can't complain. How's yourself?"
"O.K. Just thought I'd drop around for a little visit, and maybe pick up a couple of things I left in the desk, while I'm about it."
"Well eome in."
But suddenly there were such whoops from the back of the house that any further discussion of his business had to be postponed indefinitely. Both children came running, and were swept into his arms, and solemnly measured, to determine how much they had grown since he saw them. His verdict