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.”He sounded weary, hurt.“Of course I’m alone.My God, Helen, how low have I fallen in your opinion?”“I told you what was going on at this end.Up to a minute ago my mother was still in the room.”“I’m sorry, I forgot.”“It’s all right now.”“Look, girl,” he said affectionately, “the telephone is no place to hash out our personal relations.What do you say if I run upstairs and see you right away? We got to come to some kind of a sensible understanding.I’m not exactly a pig, Helen.What you don’t want is your privilege, if I may be so frank.So you don’t want, but at least let’s be friends and go out once in a while.Let me come up and talk to you.”“Some other time, Nat, I have to do something now.”“For instance?”“Some other time,” she said.“Why not?” Nat answered amiably.When he had hung up, Helen stood at the phone, wondering if she had done right.She felt she hadn’t.Ida entered the kitchen.“What did he want—Nat?”“Just to talk.”“He asked you to go out?”She admitted it.“What did you answer him?”“I said I would some other time.”“What do you mean ‘some other time?’” Ida said sharply.“What are you already, Helen, an old lady? What good is it to sit so many nights alone upstairs? Who gets rich from reading? What’s the matter with you?”“Nothing’s the matter, Mama.” She left the store and went into the hall.“Don’t forget you’re twenty-three years old,” Ida called after her.“I won’t.”Upstairs her nervousness grew.When she thought what she had to do she didn’t want to, yet felt she must.They had met, she and Frank, last night at the library, the third time in eight days.Helen noticed as they were.leaving that he clumsily carried a package she took to contain some shirts or underwear, but on the way home Frank flung away his cigarette, and under a street lamp handed it to her.“Here, this is for you.”“For me? What is it?”“You’ll find out.”She took it half-willingly, and thanked him.Helen carried it awkwardly the rest of the way home, neither of them saying much.She had been caught by surprise.If she had given herself a minute to think, she would have refused it on grounds that it was wise just to stay friends; because, she thought, neither of them really knew the other.But once she had the thing in her hands she hadn’t the nerve to ask him to take it back.It was a medium-sized box of some sort with something heavy in it—she guessed a book; yet it seemed too big for a book.As she held it against her breast, she felt a throb of desire for Frank and this disturbed her.About a block from the grocery, nervously saying good night, she went on ahead.This was how they parted when the store window was still lit.Ida was downstairs with Morris when Helen came into the house, so no questions were asked.She shivered a little as she unwrapped the box on her bed, ready to hide it the minute she heard a footstep on the stairs.Lifting the carton lid, she found two packages in it, each wrapped in white tissue paper and tied with red ribbons with uneven bows, obviously by Frank.When she had untied the first present, Helen gasped at the sight of a long, hand-woven scarf—rich black wool interlaced with gold thread.She was startled to discover that the second present was a red leather copy of Shakespeare’s plays.There was no card.She sat weakly down on the bed.I can’t, she told herself.They were expensive things, probably had cost him every penny of the hard-earned money he was saving for college.Even supposing he had enough for that, she still couldn’t take his gifts.It wasn’t right, and coming from him, it was, somehow, less than not right.She wanted then and there to go up to his room and leave them at the door with a note, but hadn’t the heart to the very night he had given them to her.The next evening, after a day of worry, she felt she must return them; and now she wished she had done it before Nat had called, then she might have been more relaxed on the phone.Helen got down on her hands and knees and reached under the bed for the carton with Frank’s scarf and book in it.It touched her that he had given her such lovely things—so much nicer than anyone else ever had.Nat, at his best, had produced a half-dozen small pink roses.For gifts you pay, Helen thought.She drew a deep breath, and taking the box went quietly up the stairs.She tapped hesitantly on Frank’s door.He had recognized her step and was waiting behind the door.His fists were clenched, the nails cutting his palms.When he opened the door and his glance fell on what she was carrying, he frowned as though struck in the face.Helen stepped awkwardly into the little room, quickly shutting the door behind her.She suppressed a shudder at the smallness and barrenness of the place.On his unmade bed lay a sock he had been trying to mend.“Are the Fusos home?” she asked in a low voice.“They went out.” He spoke dully, his eyes hopelessly stuck to the things he had given her.Helen handed him the box with the presents.“Thanks so much, Frank,” she said, trying to smile, “but I really don’t think I ought to take them.You’ll need every cent for your college tuition in the fall.”“That’s not the reason you mean,” he said.Her face reddened.She was about to explain that her mother would surely make a scene if she saw his gifts, but instead said, “I can’t keep them.”“Why not?”It wasn’t easy to answer and he didn’t make it easier, just held the rejected presents in his big hands as if they were living things that had suddenly died.“I can’t,” she got out.“Your taste is so nice, I’m sorry.”“Okay,” he said wearily.He tossed the box on the bed and the Shakespeare fell to the floor.She stooped quickly to pick it up and was unnerved to see it had opened to “Romeo and Juliet.”“Good night.” She left his room and went hastily downstairs.In her room she thought she heard the distant sound of a man crying.She listened tensely, her hand on her throbbing throat, but no longer heard it.Helen took a shower to relax, then got into a nightgown and housecoat.She picked up a book but couldn’t read.She had noticed before signs he might be in love with her, but now she was almost sure of it.Carrying his package as he had walked with her last night, he had been somebody different, though the hat and overcoat were the same.There seemed to be about him a size and potentiality she had not seen before.He did not say love but love was in him.When the insight came to her, at almost the minute he was handing her the package, she had reacted with gooseflesh.That it had gone this far was her own fault.She had warned herself not to get mixed up with him but hadn’t obeyed her warning.Out of loneliness she had encouraged him.What else, going so often to the library, knowing he would be there? And she had stopped off with him, on their walks, for pizzas and coffee; had listened to his stories, discussed with him plans for college, talked at length about books he was reading; at the same time she had been concealing these meetings from her father and mother.He knew it, no wonder he had built up hopes.The strange thing was there were times she felt she liked him very much
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