Marie Takes a Desperate Chance

Fortified by these, groomed and perfumed and as prosperous looking as a
tobacco salesman with a generous expense account may be, he went to San
Jose on an early evening train that carried a parlor car in which Joe
made himself comfortable. He fooled even the sophisticated porter
into thinking him a millionaire, wherefore he arrived in a glow of
self-esteem, which bred much optimism.

Marie was impressed--at least with his assurance and the chrysanthemums,
over which she was sufficiently enthusiastic to satisfy even Joe. Since
he had driven to the house in a hired automobile, he presently had the
added satisfaction of handing Marie into the tonneau as though she were
a queen entering the royal chariot, and of ordering the driver to take
them out around the golf links, since it was still very early. Then,
settling back with what purported to be a sigh of bliss, he regarded
Marie sitting small and still and listless beside him. The glow of the
chrysanthemums had already faded. Marie, with all the girlish prettiness
she had ever possessed, and with an added charm that was very elusive
and hard to analyze, seemed to have lost all of her old animation.

Joe tried the weather, and the small gossip of the film world, and a
judiciously expurgated sketch of his life since he had last seen her.
Marie answered him whenever his monologue required answer, but she was
unresponsive, uninterested--bored. Joe twisted his mustache, eyed her
aslant and took the plunge.

"I guess joy-ridin' kinda calls up old times, ay?" he began insidiously.
"Maybe I shouldn't have brought you out for a ride; maybe it brings back
painful memories, as the song goes."