Almost their last conversation was a senseless quarrel
about the proper division of the income—at
a word either would have given it all to the other.
It was typical of the muddle and confusion of their
lives that on the October night when Anthony reported
at the Grand Central Station for the journey to camp,
she arrived only in time to catch his eye over the
anxious heads of a gathered crowd. Through the
dark light of the enclosed train-sheds their glances
stretched across a hysterical area, foul with yellow
sobbing and the smells of poor women. They must
have pondered upon what they had done to one another,
and each must have accused himself of drawing this
sombre pattern through which they were tracing tragically
and obscurely. At the last they were too far away
for either to see the other’s tears.
A MATTER OF CIVILIZATION
At a frantic command from some invisible source, Anthony
groped his way inside. He was thinking that for
the first time in more than three years he was to
remain longer than a night away from Gloria. The
finality of it appealed to him drearily. It was
his clean and lovely girl that he was leaving.
They had arrived, he thought, at the most practical
financial settlement: she was to have three hundred
and seventy-five dollars a month—not too
much considering that over half of that would go in
rent—and he was taking fifty to supplement
his pay. He saw no need for more: food,
clothes, and quarters would be provided—there
were no social obligations for a private.
The car was crowded and already thick with breath.
It was one of the type known as “tourist”
cars, a sort of brummagem Pullman, with a bare floor,
and straw seats that needed cleaning. Nevertheless,
Anthony greeted it with relief. He had vaguely
expected that the trip South would be made in a freight-car,
in one end of which would stand eight horses and in
the other forty men. He had heard the “hommes
40, chevaux 8” story so often that it had become
confused and ominous.
As he rocked down the aisle with his barrack-bag slung
at his shoulder like a monstrous blue sausage, he
saw no vacant seats, but after a moment his eye fell
on a single space at present occupied by the feet of
a short swarthy Sicilian, who, with his hat drawn over
his eyes, hunched defiantly in the corner. As
Anthony stopped beside him he stared up with a scowl,
evidently intended to be intimidating; he must have
adopted it as a defense against this entire gigantic
equation. At Anthony’s sharp “That
seat taken?” he very slowly lifted the feet as
though they were a breakable package, and placed them
with some care upon the floor. His eyes remained
on Anthony, who meanwhile sat down and unbuttoned the
uniform coat issued him at Camp Upton the day before.
It chafed him under the arms.
