Root of His Evil Read Online Free PDF

reached Second Avenue by that time. He looked at me hard and I could see his mouth twitching. Then he turned around with his back to me and stood at the curb. I waited and still he stood there. “I thought we were taking a walk.”
    “We were. Now we’re waiting for a cab.”
    “For what purpose, may I ask?”
    “To send you home. Or to a gentleman at his hotel. Or wherever you want.”
    “Very well.”
    We stood there a long time, and still no cab came by, for it must have been getting on toward three o’clock. He lit a cigarette and something about the fierce way he blew the smoke out made me want to laugh. But I merely remarked: “If anything had happened I hardly think I’d be out here at this hour and under these circumstances— at least not this night.”
    “Why not?”
    “I don’t do things by halves.”
    I couldn’t help saying it, he looked so silly. He sucked at his cigarette and the light came up very bright. Down the street a cab appeared and when it got near us it cut in quickly and slowed down. He threw away his cigarette and waved the cab on. “We were taking a walk, did you say?”
    We got over to Sutton Place and stood at the rail watching the sign come on and off, across the river. A fish flopped and we waited a long time hoping to see another. It was so still you could hear the water lapping out there. But no other fish appeared, and we started back. He hooked his little finger in mine and we swung hands, and it wasn’t at all expert, but it was sweet and there was something about it that was exactly what hadn’t been there on the sofa with Mr. Holden. A cop came around a corner, and we broke hands, but he said: “Don’t mind me, chilluns,” and we laughed and hooked fingers again. We came to a place where the sidewalk was barricaded over a water pipe or something, with two red lanterns on each end. Grant let go my hand, put both feet together and jumped over, then turned around to see what I was going to do. I pulled my handbags up over my wrist, took hold of my dress and held it away from me so it wouldn’t fly up over my head, and then did a kind of one-hand cartwheel over the barricade. I came up right in front of Grant and made a little bow. He stared at me, then took me by the arms and pulled me toward him, and I thought he was going to kiss me but he didn’t. He just kept looking down at me and his voice was shaky when he spoke. “Gee, you’re swell.”
    “Am I? Why?”
    “I don’t know. Nobody else could have done that. Coming up cool as a cucumber that way with no foolish squealing or anything. And you’ve got no idea how pretty you looked—going over, I mean.”
    “That was nothing. I can turn back flips.”
    “I believe it.”
    We got to the Hutton and there was no doorman out there or anything, at that hour, and we stood there under the marquee for a minute. He took my arms again and seemed to be thinking about something. “Are you going to be down there today—for lunch, I mean?”
    “Yes, of course.”
    “Can I come in?”
    “It’s a public restaurant.”
    “There’s something that bothers me.”
    “What is it?”
    “I want a certain half dollar back.”
    “Why?”
    “I want it back. I—don’t want to feel that we started with me giving you a half dollar.”
    “Have we started?”
    “I don’t know what we’ve done. But I want it back.”
    Now that half dollar was much on my mind up there in the room with Mr. Holden. Because when I made out the slips for the union money I also made out the slip for my own regular deposit, and ordinarily that half dollar would have gone right in the pile with the rest of it. But for some reason I had kept it in the coin purse of my handbag. “How do you know I still have it?”
    “Well, then—if you still have it.”
    “All right, then, I kept it. But I want it.”
    “Is that why you kept it?”
    “It might be.”
    “All right, then, we’ll make an agreement. I’ll keep it. But I want it back.”
    “Very