She looked up at him. And abruptly, and with no warning, it seemed to the Inger as they walked there together, and he looking down at her, that he _was_ she. He seemed to move as she moved, to be breathing as she breathed, to be looking from her eyes at that storm-cloud of a city lying in wait for her. For an instant of time, he seemed to cease to exist of himself, and to be wholly Lory. Then she looked away, and he lifted his eyes to the flat green and brown, and was striding on, himself again.
“I never thought of it before,” he burst out. “It _is_ a job to be a woman. And alone in Chicago—Lord!”
“I can get along just as well there, or anywhere else, as you can,” she challenged.
Going back on the car, he argued it with her. Why should they not go on to Washington. His bank was to telegraph him funds—these were probably waiting for him now. Why should she not find work with her aunt, in Washington as well as in Chicago—and be that much farther from Bunchy in the bargain?
She listened, imperturbably bought a newspaper, and looked out an employment agency; and ended by being left at the agency while the Inger went off to the telegraph office.
He had gone but a step or two when he felt her touch on his arm.
“And oh, listen!” she said. “If the money ain’t come, don’t _kill_ the man!”
He laughed, a great ringing laugh that made the passers-by on Wabash Avenue look amusedly after him. Then he strode off among them. At intervals, all the way to the telegraph office, he cursed the town. The noise confused him, the smoke blinded and choked him, he understood nobody’s talk of “east” and “west.” Unmercifully he jostled people who got in his way, and he pushed by them, unmindful of remonstrance. At a corner a traffic policeman roared out at him to halt. He stared at the officer, then leaped on the running board of a motor that was making a left-hand turn, and dropped off on the other side of the causeway.
“Get a grown man’s job, little fellow!” he yelled in derision.
He could find neither the signs nor the numbers. The beat of the traffic made indistinguishable the voices of those who tried to reply to his questions. To the fifth or sixth man whom he sought to understand, he roared out in a terrible voice: