A Rose for Emily by William Faulkner Read Free Book Online

peopled here and there where a movie was giving out its crowd or where consumptive or pugilistic youth lounged in front of pool halls. The clink of glasses and the slap of hands on the bars issued from saloons, cloisters of glazed glass and dirty yellow light.

    She was watching him closely and the silence was embarrassing, yet in this crisis he could find no casual word with which to profane the hour. At a convenient turning he began to zigzag back toward the University Club.

    "Have you missed me?" she asked suddenly.

    "Everybody missed you."

    He wondered if she knew of Irene Scheerer. She had been back only a day--her absence had been almost contemporaneous with his engagement.

    "What a remark!" Judy laughed sadly--without sadness. She looked at him searchingly. He became absorbed in the dashboard.

    "You're handsomer than you used to be," she said thoughtfully. "Dexter, you have the most rememberable eyes."

    He could have laughed at this, but he did not laugh. It was the sort of thing that was said to sophomores. Yet it stabbed at him.

    "I'm awfully tired of everything, darling." She called every one darling, endowing the endearment with careless, individual comraderie. "I wish you'd marry me."

    The directness of this confused him. He should have told her now that he was going to marry another girl, but he could not tell her. He could as easily have sworn that he had never loved her.

    "I think we'd get along," she continued, on the same note, "unless probably you've forgotten me and fallen in love with another girl."

    Her confidence was obviously enormous. She had said, in effect, that she found such a thing impossible to believe, that if it were true he had merely committed a childish indiscretion-- and probably to show off. She would forgive him, because it was not a matter of any moment but rather something to be brushed aside lightly.

    "Of course you could never love anybody but me," she continued. "I like the way you love me. Oh, Dexter, have you forgotten last year?"

    "No, I haven't forgotten."

    "Neither have I! "

    Was she sincerely moved--or was she carried along by the wave of her own acting?

    "I wish we could be like that again," she said, and he forced himself to answer:

    "I don't think we can."

    "I suppose not. . . . I hear you're giving Irene Scheerer a violent rush."

    There was not the faintest emphasis on the name, yet Dexter was suddenly ashamed.

    "Oh, take me home," cried Judy suddenly; "I don't want to go back to that idiotic dance--with those children."

    Then, as he turned up the street that led to the residence district, Judy began to cry quietly to herself. He had never seen her cry before.

    The dark street lightened, the dwellings of the rich loomed up around them, he stopped his coup_ in front of the great white bulk of the Mortimer Joneses house, somnolent, gorgeous, drenched with the splendor of the damp moonlight. Its solidity startled him. The strong walls, the steel of the girders, the breadth and beam and pomp of it were there only to bring out the contrast with the young beauty beside him. It was sturdy to accentuate her slightness--as if to show what a breeze could be generated by a butterfly's wing.

    He sat perfectly quiet, his nerves in wild clamor, afraid that if he moved he would find her irresistibly in his arms. Two tears had rolled down her wet face and trembled on her upper lip.

    "I'm more beautiful than anybody else," she said brokenly, "why can't I be happy?" Her moist eyes tore at his stability--her mouth turned slowly downward with an exquisite sadness: "I'd like to marry you if you'll have me, Dexter. I suppose you think I'm not worth having, but I'll be so beautiful for you, Dexter."

    A million phrases of anger, pride, passion, hatred, tenderness fought on his lips. Then a perfect wave of emotion washed over him, carrying off with it a sediment of wisdom, of convention, of doubt, of honor. This was his girl who was speaking, his own, his beautiful, his