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Show 371 floor were packed tight with his rolled-up canvases and his paint case and collapsed easel. It was too dark to get a good look at the neighborhood, but he didn't like the uncut grass he saw on several lawns, or the broken glass on the sidewalk. It was nearly ten o'clock when he found the house. Peering through the garage window he saw there was only one car, something low-slung with lights from the neighbors' back porch glittering off it, so she hadn't come home yet. He left his sleeping bag and overnight case on the retaining wall between the garage and the house so she would see them as she pulled in, in case he missed her. He walked slowly along the sidewalk toward the end of the block until he decided he had gone far enough-he didn't want to get out of range in case she came home and got into the house before he could run back-and then walked the other way, passing the house with its lit front window-curtain, and continued several doors to the south, until a curve in the street put him out of range again, and turned around. The pains in his stomach felt like blunt knives and if a mugger jumped out of a hedge at him now he would collapse and surrender everything. He worried that neighbors were watching him from their bedroom windows. Each time a car went by he felt a surge of hope that it was Gloriana and a horrible certainty that it was going to pull over to the curb and a policeman was going to get out of each door and tell him to stop where he was, please, and then to take three steps forward with his arms held out from his sides. By the time a pair of headlights turned from the street and bounced up the driveway he was sitting on the bottom step of the porch, leaning against the iron rail. The light in the living room had been out for some time, and he had concluded that Floyd must have gone to bed, but if he had come out and challenged him Lorin would not have moved from his spot. He |
