Coming back to Marie and Joe--it was not at all certain that they would
meet; or that Joe would mention him, even if they did. A wrecked home is
always a touchy subject, so touchy that Joe had never intimated in his
few remarks to Bud that there had ever been a Marie, and Bud, drunk
as he had been, was still not too drunk to hold back the question that
clamored to be spoken.
Whether he admitted it to himself or not, the sober Bud Moore who lay on
his bunk nursing a headache and a grouch against the world was ashamed
of the drunken Bud Moore who had paraded his drunkenness before the man
who knew Marie. He did not want Marie to hear what Joe might tell There
was no use, he told himself miserably, in making Marie despise him as
well as hate him. There was a difference. She might think him a brute,
and she might accuse him of failing to be a kind and loving husband; but
she could not, unless Joe told of his spree, say that she had ever heard
of his carousing around. That it would be his own fault if she did hear,
served only to embitter his mood.
He rolled over and glared at Cash, who had cooked his supper and was
sitting down to eat it alone. Cash was looking particularly misanthropic
as he bent his head to meet the upward journey of his coffee cup, and
his eyes, when they lifted involuntarily with Bud's sudden movement, had
still that hard look of bottled-up rancor that had impressed itself upon
Bud earlier in the day.
Neither man spoke, or made any sign of friendly recognition. Bud would
not have talked to any one in his present state of self-disgust, but for
all that Cash's silence rankled. A moment their eyes met and held; then
with shifted glances the souls of them drew apart--farther apart than
they had ever been, even when they quarreled over Pete, down in Arizona.
When Cash had finished and was filing his pipe, Bud got up and reheated
the coffee, and fried more bacon and potatoes, Cash having cooked just
enough for himself. Cash smoked and gave no heed, and Bud retorted by
eating in silence and in straightway washing his own cup, plate, knife,
and fork and wiping clean the side of the table where he always sat. He
did not look at Cash, but he felt morbidly that Cash was regarding him
with that hateful sneer hidden under his beard. He knew that it was
silly to keep that stony silence, but he kept telling himself that if
Cash wanted to talk, he had a tongue, and it was not tied. Besides,
Cash had registered pretty plainly his intentions and his wishes when he
excluded Bud from his supper.