THE LAST LAUGH
There was a little snow on the ground, and the church clock had juststruck midnight. Hampstead in the night of winter for once was lookingpretty, with clean, white earth and lamps for moon, and dark sky abovethe lamps.
A confused little sound of voices, a gleam of hidden yellow light.And then the garden door of a tall, dark Georgian house suddenly opened,and three people confusedly emerged. A girl in a dark-blue coat and furturban, very erect; a fellow with a little dispatch case, slouching; athin man with a red beard, bareheaded, peering out of the gateway downthe hill that swung in a curve downward toward London.
“Look at it! A new world!” cried the man in the beard ironically, ashe stood on the step and peered out.
“No, Lorenzo! It’s only whitewash!” cried the young man in theovercoat. His voice was handsome, resonant, plangent, with a weary,sardonic touch.
As he turned back, his face was dark in shadow.
The girl with the erect, alert head, like a bird, turned back to thetwo men.
“What was that?” she asked, in her quick, quiet voice.
“Lorenzo says it’s a new world. I say it’s only whitewash,” cried theman in the street.
She stood still and lifted her woolly, gloved finger. She was deafand was taking it in.
Yes, she had got it. She gave a quick, chuckling laugh, glanced veryquickly at the man in the bowler hat, then back at the man in the stuccogateway, who was grinning like a satyr and waving good-by.
“Good-by, Lorenzo!” came the resonant, weary cry of the man in thebowler hat.
“Good-by!” came the sharp, night-bird call of the girl.
The green gate slammed, then the inner door. The two were alone inthe street, save for the policeman at the corner. The road curvedsteeply downhill.
“You’d better mind how you step!” shouted the man in thebowler hat, leaning near the erect, sharp girl, and slouching in hiswalk. She paused a moment, to make sure what he had said.
“Don’t mind me, I’m quite all right. Mind yourself!” she saidquickly. At that very moment he gave a wild lurch on the slippery snow,but managed to save himself from falling. She watched him, on tiptoes ofalertness. His bowler hat bounced away in the thin snow. They were undera lamp near the curve. As he ducked for his hat he showed a bald spot,just like a tonsure, among his dark, thin, rather curly hair. And whenhe looked up at her, with his thick, black brows sardonically arched,and his rather hooked nose self-derisive, jamming his hat on again, heseemed like a satanic young priest. His face had beautiful lines, like afaun, and a doubtful, martyred expression. A sort of faun on the cross,with all the malice of the complication.
“Did you hurt yourself?” she asked, in her quick, cool, unemotionalway.
“No!” he shouted derisively.
“Give me the machine, won’t you?” she said, holding out her woollyhand. “I believe I’m safer.”
“Do you want it?” he shouted.
“Yes, I’m sure I’m safer.”
He handed her the little brown dispatch case, which was really aMarconi listening machine for her deafness. She marched erect as ever.He shoved his hands deep in his overcoat pockets and slouched alongbeside her, as if he wouldn’t make his legs firm. The road curved downin front of them, clean and pale with snow under the lamps. A motor carcame churning up. A few dark figures slipped away into the dark recessesof the houses, like fishes among rocks above a sea be