The Game | Page 7

his entrance,
being busy with one other customer, an urchin of six or seven who
gravely analyzed his desires before the show-case wherein truly
generous and marvellous candy creations reposed under a cardboard
announcement, "Five for Five Cents."
She had heard, "Ice-cream soda, please," and had herself asked, "What
flavor?" without seeing his face. For that matter, it was not a custom of
hers to notice young men. There was something about them she did not
understand. The way they looked at her made her uncomfortable, she
knew not why; while there was an uncouthness and roughness about
them that did not please her. As yet, her imagination had been
untouched by man. The young fellows she had seen had held no lure
for her, had been without meaning to her. In short, had she been asked
to give one reason for the existence of men on the earth, she would
have been nonplussed for a reply.

As she emptied the measure of ice-cream into the glass, her casual
glance rested on Joe's face, and she experienced on the instant a
pleasant feeling of satisfaction. The next instant his eyes were upon her
face, her eyes had dropped, and she was turning away toward the soda
fountain. But at the fountain, filling the glass, she was impelled to look
at him again--but for no more than an instant, for this time she found
his eyes already upon her, waiting to meet hers, while on his face was a
frankness of interest that caused her quickly to look away.
That such pleasingness would reside for her in any man astonished her.
"What a pretty boy," she thought to herself, innocently and instinctively
trying to ward off the power to hold and draw her that lay behind the
mere prettiness. "Besides, he isn't pretty," she thought, as she placed the
glass before him, received the silver dime in payment, and for the third
time looked into his eyes. Her vocabulary was limited, and she knew
little of the worth of words; but the strong masculinity of his boy's face
told her that the term was inappropriate.
"He must be handsome, then," was her next thought, as she again
dropped her eyes before his. But all good-looking men were called
handsome, and that term, too, displeased her. But whatever it was, he
was good to see, and she was irritably aware of a desire to look at him
again and again.
As for Joe, he had never seen anything like this girl across the counter.
While he was wiser in natural philosophy than she, and could have
given immediately the reason for woman's existence on the earth,
nevertheless woman had no part in his cosmos. His imagination was as
untouched by woman as the girl's was by man. But his imagination was
touched now, and the woman was Genevieve. He had never dreamed a
girl could be so beautiful, and he could not keep his eyes from her face.
Yet every time he looked at her, and her eyes met his, he felt painful
embarrassment, and would have looked away had not her eyes dropped
so quickly.
But when, at last, she slowly lifted her eyes and held their gaze steadily,
it was his own eyes that dropped, his own cheek that mantled red. She
was much less embarrassed than he, while she betrayed her

embarrassment not at all. She was aware of a flutter within, such as she
had never known before, but in no way did it disturb her outward
serenity. Joe, on the contrary, was obviously awkward and delightfully
miserable.
Neither knew love, and all that either was aware was an overwhelming
desire to look at the other. Both had been troubled and roused, and they
were drawing together with the sharpness and imperativeness of uniting
elements. He toyed with his spoon, and flushed his embarrassment over
his soda, but lingered on; and she spoke softly, dropped her eyes, and
wove her witchery about him.
But he could not linger forever over a glass of ice-cream soda, while he
did not dare ask for a second glass. So he left her to remain in the shop
in a waking trance, and went away himself down the street like a
somnambulist. Genevieve dreamed through the afternoon and knew
that she was in love. Not so with Joe. He knew only that he wanted to
look at her again, to see her face. His thoughts did not get beyond this,
and besides, it was scarcely a thought, being more a dim and
inarticulate desire.
The urge of this desire he could not escape. Day after day it worried
him, and the candy shop and the girl behind the counter continually
obtruded themselves. He fought off the desire. He was afraid and
ashamed to go