You're All Alone (illustrated) Read Online Free PDF Page B

most people’s foreheads but blackness? Do they really think and act, or are they just mindless parts of a mindless pattern?” His voice grew stronger. “Do you think that all that—” (He swept his hand along the boulevard and the towering buildings and the darkness) “—is really alive, or contains life? Or is all Chicago just a big machine, with people for parts?”
    SHE FAIRLY sprang at him from the shadows. The next instant her hands were gripping his together and her strained and apprehensive face was inches from his own.
    “Never think that!” she told him rapidly. “Don’t even toy with such crazy ideas!”
    “Why not?” he demanded, his prisoned hands throbbing as if from an electric shock. “If you’d seen what I’ve seen today—”
    Without warning she laughed gayly, loosed his tingling hands, and spun away from him. “Idiot!” she said in a voice that rippled with laughter, “I know what’s happened to you. You’ve been scared by life. You’ve magnified a few funny things into a morbid idea.”
    “A few funny things?” he demanded, confused by her startling change of behavior. “Why, if you’d seen—”
    “I don’t care!” she interrupted with triumphant gayety. “Whatever it is, it’s foolishness.” Her eyes, dancing with an infectious excitement, fixed on his. “Come with me,” she said, “and I’ll show you that all that—” (She swept her hand, as he had, at the boulevard) “—is safe and warm and friendly.”
    “But—” he began.
    She danced toward him. “Is it a date?” she asked.
    “Well—”
    “Is it, Mr. Serious?”
    He couldn’t stop a big grin. “Yes,” he told her.
    She held up a finger. “You’ve got to remember that this is my date, that I pick the places we go and that whatever I do, you fall in with it.”
    “Like follow-the-leader?”
    “Exactly like follow-the-leader. Tonight I’m showing you Chicago. That’s the agreement.”
    “All right,” he said.
    “Then come on.”
    “What’s your name?” he said, catching her elbow.
    “Jane,” she told him.
    “Jane what?”
    “You don’t need to know,” she replied impishly.
    “Wait a minute,” he said, pulling them to a stop. “Is it Jane Gregg?” He couldn’t tell from her face whether that question meant anything to her. “I won’t tell you,” she said, pulling at him.
    “Do you know Tom Elvested?” he continued.
    “I won’t answer foolish questions like that,” she assured him. “Oh come on, you’ve got to get in the spirit of the thing, what’s-your-name.”
    “Carr. Two R’s,” he told her. “Then we turn north here, Carr,” she told him.
    . “Where to?” he asked.
    She looked at him severely. “Follow the leader,” she reminded him and laughed and raced ahead. He had to run to keep up with her, and by that time he was laughing too.
    They were a block from the Institute when Carr asked, “What about your friend, though—the small dark man with glasses?”
    “I don’t care,” she said. “If he comes now, he can have a date with the five sisters.”
    “Incidently,” Carr asked, “‘what’s his real name?”
    “I honestly don’t know.”
    “Are they after him too?” Carr persisted, his voice growing somber. “Who?”
    “Those three people you warned me against.”
    “I don’t want to talk about them.” Her voice was suddenly flat. “They’re obscene and horrible and I don’t want to think about them at all.”
    “But look, Jane, what sort of hold do they have on you? Why did you let that big blonde slap you without doing anything?”
    “I tell you I won’t talk about them! If you go on like this, there won’t be any date.” She turned on him, gripping hi§ arm. “Oh Carr, you’re spoiling everything,” she told him, close to tears. “Do get in the spirit, like you promised.”
    “All right,” he said gently, “I will, really.” He linked his arm through hers and for a while they walked in silence. The wind and the gloom and