Joe Kaplanwas walking up lower Broadway, hugging himself within an expensive overcoat. Catching sight of his shining eyes and wreathed lips in a mirror, he thought: Picture of a man who enjoys life! Well, everything was going fine with him. He put down his feet deliberately, for it suited his humor to affect the solid air of an established man of thirty-five—but his heels were light.
Passing the Union Trust Building, his attention was attracted by a slender figure, who, with self-consciously averted head, sought to hurry by him unseen. Joe caught the man’s shoulder and swung him around.
“Bristed!” he cried. “How are you!”
The other, held in Joe’s grip, showed his teeth painfully; scowled; turned red; said nothing. Joe saw that he would have liked to strike him, but was too civilized. Six or seven years older than me, thought Joe; but a child in my hands! One of those white-headed boys with rich blue eyes like a picture—and like a picture, with nothing behind it. But this pup had one merit; he had not yelped when he was held up by his tail.
“Come and have lunch with me,” said Joe.
“Thanks, I don’t care to,” said Bristed stiffly.
“What the hell!” said Joe. “That’s ancient history. . . . I was just thinking about you. Or rather, I was casting about in my mind for somebody like you. You lost out through me once; well, now you got a chance to make through me.”
“I’ve had quite enough of you,” said Bristed bitterly.
“Don’t be a fool. Come and have a good lunch with me at the Savarin. That commits you to nothing.”
Bristed’s blue eyes sought out Joe’s black ones. “You know I think you’re a scoundrel,” he said quietly.
Joe was not in the least put out. “That’s all right,” he said laughing. “Now you’ve put yourself on record, there’s no reason you shouldn’t take a lunch off me.”
“All right. I’ll come,” said Bristed.
They continued up the street together. Joe warmed on the outside by the overcoat; and inside, by the sense of well-being, discussed the morning’s news of the Street. Bristed said nothing. Joe, without ever looking at him, was aware how he was biting his lip, and darting painful and envious looks like adders’ tongues at Joe’s profile. Joe had that effect on young men. It stimulated him. This young man gave Joe no concern. A slack-twisted skein, he was thinking; I could sell him out twice over, and still he wouldn’t be able to stand out against me, if I wanted to use him again.
Once inside the expensive restaurant, Bristed began to lose something of his pinched air. This is like coming home to him, thought Joe. Themaître-d’hotelremembered him. “How do you do, Mr. Bristed. It is a long time since we have had the pleasure of seeing you.”
“Yes, I’ve been travelling,” said Bristed carelessly.
Joe rubbed his upper lip to hide a grin.
Joe ordered a choice little meal, and a bottle of Johannisberger. Bristed was impressed, but would not show it. Joe was becoming an adept in menu cards; and was prouder of this accomplishment than of his greatest coup on the Street. He himself, never over-ate; there were too many swollen paunches surrounding him down-town. He liked too well, the feeling of being twenty-three and on his toes. Besides, he went in for other pleasures.
When at last they lighted up their Eden perfectos, Joe said: “Gosh! when I was a brat in Sussex street, I never expected to be burning these!”
Bristed betrayed no interest in his reminiscences. “What do you want of me this time?” he asked bluntly.
“Keep your shirt on,” said Joe coolly. “This is not financial. I’m already making money faster than I can hire safety-deposit boxes.”
“What is it then?”
“I’m going into society.”
Bristed laughed unpleasantly.
Joe did not mind, because it was not assured laughter. Bristed knew quite well that Joecouldgo into society if he wanted to. “There’s plenty of society already open to me,” Joe went on; “but I’ll have nothing short of the best. The real top-notch. I’ve got money enough already to support the position; and in a few years, if I live, I’ll be one of the big half dozen of this burg.”
“I don’t doubt it,” said Bristed bitterly. “You’re marked for it. . . . Do you think I am able to help you get into society?”
“None better,” said Joe. “Your father, and his father before him were in the forefront.”
“Sure!” said Bristed. “My grandfather had the distinction of making money, and my father of spending it. But what have I got?”
“The family name,” suggested Joe.
“Sure! And an old house on Thirty-sixth street that we can’t afford to heat properly in the winter; and where my mother and sister do their own housework.”
“But the best society in New York is open to you, if you had the money to take your place in it. The old society. That’s what I have my eye on.”
“And where are we going to get the money?” asked Bristed.
“From me.”
“No! by God!” said Bristed. “We haven’t fallen as low as that!”
“Go ahead!” said Joe smiling. “Shoot off your fine sentiments, and then we’ll get down to business.”
Bristed became incoherent in his indignation. “What do you think I am? Do you think I’d lend my mother and sister to. . . . There are some things you don’t understand smart as you are. Ah! I’m not going to talk to you. . . !” He stood up.
“Sit down,” said Joe quietly. “You can always turn me down, you know. Only a fool turns down a proposition before he hears it.”
Bristed sat down looking rather like a fool.
“Now, briefly,” said Joe, “without any skyrockets or red fire, what is the objection?”
“Do you think we’re going to foist you off on our friends . . . ?”
“Easy!” said Joe. “There’s not going to be any foisting. You ought to know me. Wherever I go, I stand on my own bottom. I say to everybody: Eight years ago I was a dirty little ragamuffin on Sussex street. My father and mother made their living sewing on pants for a contractor. When I was hungry I stole things off the pushcarts to get me a meal.”
“It pays to tell that, eh?” sneered Bristed.
“You’re dead right, it pays,” said Joe. “The idea it suggests to the other person is: Look how far he’s risen! I never made any pretences. Don’t have to. That’s how I get along. People think it’s original. Everybody likes me except those who have lost money through me. If you could only see it, it’s your fine sentiments that keep you down. Bet your grandfather wasn’t troubled with them.
“Take this scheme that I propose—you wouldn’t exactly have to beat the drum for me, you know. I’m fairly notorious. The Boy Wonder of the Street. Folks high and low are curious to have a look at me. I’d be a social asset instead of a liability. I’ve noticed that family, blue blood and all that, don’t cut as much ice as they used to. Those people, having bored each other stiff, are now beginning to look around for a little outside entertainment . . . Of course I could climb up anyhow. But I don’t care to take the trouble to lay a regular campaign. Prefer to begin at the top . . . I like the girls up there,” he added grinning; “they’re so damned independent. Like me!”
“Damn you!” said Bristed under his breath.
“Keep the change!” said Joe cheerfully . . . “How much would it take to keep up your house in good style?”
“It’s not a big house,” muttered Bristed. “Ten thousand a year.”
“I’ll make it twelve thousand,” said Joe. “And what’s more, I’ll settle a good round sum on your mother in the beginning, so that when I no longer need you, she wont be left flat.”
“And what would we have to do, exactly, to earn it?” asked Bristed, sneering.
“Just have me to your house, and have your friends there to meet me. After that I stand or fall by my own efforts.”
“Everybody would know where the money came from.”
“And why the Deuce shouldn’t they know? That’s what people like you can’t see! Tell the truth about the whole affair. Tell everybody. Then they’d begin to respect you . . . There’d be a lot of benefits to you in addition to the twelve thou. If you and your folks took your rightful place, you’d have a chance to look around yourself, eh? and . . .”
“No thanks!” said Bristed violently.
“Oh, of course you wouldn’t sell yourself,” said Joe dryly. “But she might be a damn fine girl, though rich. Ithashappened. I tell you straight, Bristed, it’s your only chance. You haven’t got the guts to make good in the rough and tumble of the Street. You’re too gentlemanly. Then there’s your sister . . .”
“By God . . . !” said Bristed with burning eyes.
“Keep your hair on,” said Joe coolly. “That is not a part of my plans.”
“Don’t you mean to marry?” sneered Bristed.
“If I do, I shall look higher,” said Joe, facing him down. “. . . However, I mean to thoroughly canvass the field first. I don’t want money of course. I mean to marry a girl of the very highest position who hasn’t got too much. But she’s got to be a regular top-notcher!”
“I won’t have anything to do with it!” said Bristed.
“Put it before your family,” said Joe, undisturbed. “You owe them that. Tell them the worst you know about me. If they want to look me over before committing themselves, all right. Then if they turn me down, why that’s all right, too. I can easy find somebody else.”
“Well, I’ll tell them,” said Bristed. “But I’ll advise them against it.”
“That’s all right, old man,” said Joe. “I have confidence in the ladies. They are always realists.”
Wilfredwas washing himself at the basin in his little dressing-room. He bit his lip to keep back the whistle that naturally issued at such a moment, because he had found that if he kept quiet in there, the girl in front would sometimes come into her dressing-room which adjoined. In the old house there had been a pantry running across between the two rooms, and this had been divided by the flimsiest of partitions. When he was on his side and she was on hers, it was almost as though he were in her company. She was a little brown girl, delicately rounded, with an innocent, gentle, provoking air, and a skin like peaches and cream. How delicious it was to picture her washing at her basin while he was washing at his!
Wilfred had never spoken to her. She had a husband. The pair of them excited a warm interest in Wilfred because they were so young. A mere boy and girl and they initiated so much further than he was! Once he had had a glimpse into their room as he passed the door. It was distressingly bare; nothing but a bed. Evidently one of these imprudent runaway matches. He, considering himself a prudent person, was charmed by imprudence in others. Yet Bella Billings the landlady, hinted that already things were not going well in the front room. The husband, a sulky-looking blond lad with an unwholesome complexion, was a telegrapher who worked all night, and slept in the daytime. Thus the little wife was thrown much into Bella’s company. A well-meaning creature, Bella, but rabid in her emotions; hardly the best advisor for a discontented girl wife.
Thus Wilfred’s thoughts as he held his head close to the water to avoid a noisy splashing. As he straightened up, groping for his towel, a murmur of voices from the front room reached his ears. It came from the direction of the bed. Wilfred became very still, and his heart beat faster. What did a boy-husband and a girl wife say to each other in bed?
No words reached his ears; but the sense of the murmuring was very clear; the girl beseeching, the lad’s surly voice denying.
Wilfred, blushing all over, retreated into his main room with the towel about his head. He was filled with a delighted astonishment. He had never guessed that the sort of girl a man aches for might in turn ask. He had supposed that such a one merely suffered a man to love her out of her kindness. The discovery that a woman might be both desirable and desiring seemed to change the color of life. He silently addressed the front room: “Oh, if you were mine!”
That was all. A day or two later, as Bella had foretold, the establishment in the front room suddenly broke up. The young telegrapher went off to take a job in the Southwest, while his wife returned to live with her mother in a Connecticut town. Wilfred did not forget her. In his dreams he invited her. The fact that she had been married lent her an added seductiveness. He led Bella on to talk of her. It transpired that they kept up a correspondence. Her name was Mildred.
Bella Billings was draping herself ungracefully in the doorway of Wilfred’s room. For reasons of propriety she would never come all the way in. His room, being on the ground floor, was convenient to stop at. She liked Wilfred, perhaps because he allowed her to talk as long as she pleased. Few of her lodgers would. Wilfred found her conversation no less tiresome than the others did, but kept himself up with the reminder that he was a literary man, and Bella undoubtedly a character. She talked with a wasteful expenditure of breath that left her gasping halfway through a sentence, but unsilenced; and a display of pale gums that slightly shocked Wilfred. It seemed to him that he had never seen anything so naked as Bella Billings’ gums.
She was an institution on the South side of Washington Square. Everybody had lodged with her one time or another. In addition to letting rooms unfurnished without service, she conducted a manufacturing business in a rear extension to her house. “Stella Shoulder-Brace Co.” the brass plate at the door announced; but “shoulderbrace” was a euphemism; what she made were various artificial contours for the female form. These objects were shaped on strange machines in the back premises like parts of iron women, polished. Bella—everybody south of Fourteenth street called her Bella behind her back—also painted Newfoundland dogs and cupids after Bouguereau in oils upon red velvet panels.
Her subject at the moment was pernicious anæmia from which she had been a sufferer. She was describing to Wilfred how her fingernails and toenails had dropped off. Wilfred had heard it before; but was rendered patient by a design of using Bella for his own ends. As soon as an opening presented itself, he said carelessly:
“Only six days to Christmas! What are you going to do to celebrate, Miss Billings?”
Deprived of the support of her discourse, Bella blinked uncertainly. “Well . . . I don’t know,” she said with a giggle. “I suppose I’ll do nothing as usual.”
“Everybody ought to have a big time, Christmas,” suggested Wilfred.
Bella took a fresh pose in the doorway. “I’ve kinda got out of the way of social life,” she said. “Being so devoted to my art, and all.”
“Why don’t you give a party?”
“Ohh!” said Bella breathlessly, “I don’t know people well enough to give a party.”
“You would before the party was over,” said Wilfred. “That’s what a party’s for.”
“I don’t know enough people to ask.”
“Small parties are the best. You know some girls.”
“Oh, there wouldn’t be any fun in a hen party.”
“I’ll tell you what let’s do,” said Wilfred; “let’s give a joint party during Christmas week, you and I. You ask the girls and I’ll bring the fellows.”
Bella’s eyes widened, and she uncovered the pale gums. Then she nodded until Wilfred thought her head must snap off. “All right!” she said panting. “But why bother about any more girls? I’d love to entertain your friends.”
“Oh, we must have enough girls,” said Wilfred quickly. “If there was only one, the fellows would get to quarrelling.”
“Will Stanny come?” she asked breathless and giggling.
“Sure!”
“He’s my favorite. He’s so wistful. I always wonder what he’s thinking about when he looks so wistful.”
“Maybe his corns hurt,” said Wilfred. This was the line to take with Bella.
“Oh, Mr. Pell, you’re so cynical! . . . Who else will you bring?”
“Just Stanny and Jasper; the others will be out of town.”
“I must ask the two boys from the top floor.”
“Oh, them!” said Wilfred. “How about the girls?”
“Well, there’s Hattie Putzel,” said Bella. “Her brother’s on’y a bootblack, but you would never know it from her. A real stylish girl. And there are the two Scotch lassies I met in the restaurant where I eat sometimes. Regular little ladies, they are. Name of McElderry.”
“That’s four, counting yourself,” said Wilfred, “against five fellows. Must have another girl.”
“Well, let me see . . .” said Bella.
He waited breathlessly.
“There’s that Maud Morrison who used to be my forelady in the shop . . .”
Wilfred was obliged to show his hand. “Do you think that Mildred would come?” he suggested offhand.
“Now that’s a good idea!” said Bella. “The poor little thing must be having a dull time living at home. A wife who is no wife! I might keep her here with me a couple of days Christmas. I’ll write to-night.”
Wilfred started to brush his coat, whistling softly. He was aware that he must be looking exceedingly self-conscious. Fortunately Bella was not perspicacious; her mind was busy with plans.
“I’ll get a gallon of Marsala wine from the Eyetalian in Thompson street. You and me can go halves on it. I’ll get the girls to bring sandwiches. Charley works for a commission merchant; he can bring apples . . .”
Wilfred, Stanny and Jasper, having dined at Ceccina’s, made their way across Washington Square. Stanny and Jasper were calm and anticipatory; Wilfred was tormented by an anxiety that he did not confide in his friends. Up to that morning Mildred had left Bella in doubt as to her coming. Wilfred had staked everything on her. Suppose she did not come? Cinders; ashes; dust!
They went into Wilfred’s room to leave their hats and brush their hair. From Bella’s room in the rear extension, came the sounds of a discreet little company. When they entered Wilfred could scarcely bear to raise his eyes to look. Ten people crowded the room to suffocation. Yes! and there she was, sitting in the farthest corner, her lashes sweeping her flower petal cheeks. A great wave of relief and laughter surged in Wilfred’s breast. What a joke that she should look so virginal! You darling! if you knew what I know about you! he thought. He could not meet her eyes.
It was a squeeze in Bella’s room which was crowded before anybody entered it; and at first an awful constraint settled upon them. No one said anything except the nervous Bella, whose occasional squalls of talk seemed to be lost in a vacuum. The girls just sat, looking aggravatingly refined; and the young men stood holding up the walls with their backs. Wilfred began to sweat gently; he felt responsible. Neither Jasper nor Stanny was disposed to help him out. Jasper squinted down his nose; and Stanny looked obstinately mournful. Wilfred blamed the two men from up-stairs. They didn’t belong. Charley was a lean and sprawling youth; Dave a dark and solid one. Boors, thought Wilfred.
Finally in desperation, Wilfred said: “Let’s go into my room. It’s bigger.”
The girls decorously shook out their skirts and prepared to follow.
Things began to go a little better. Wilfred had a bottle of cherry brandy that he circulated with trembling hands. There was but one liqueur glass to each two persons, and that helped to break the ice. The guests began to circulate and pair off. Hattie Putzel and Jasper found each other out. Hattie was a handsome, dark girl with a great deal of manner. It was impossible to believe that her brother was a bootblack. During the whole evening, Jasper kept his arm around Hattie’s waist without, so far as Wilfred could see, ever exchanging a word with her. However they seemed to understand each other. Stanny got one of the little Scotch girls, but Bella was continually organizing cutting-out expeditions.
Mildred sat by herself shy and demure. Wilfred, electrically conscious of her, had not yet dared to approach. Nevertheless there were mute exchanges. Wilfred was aware that her demureness was addressed to him. It seemed to be clear to everybody present that this was a case; and no other fellow tried to interfere.
When the cherry brandy was finished, the hospitable Bella produced her gigantic demijohn of Marsala. During the rest of the evening the demijohn never left the crook of her arm. “La Vivandière” Stanny dubbed her. Bella was wearing a dress made by herself of red flannel with black crescents printed on it. Half beside herself with giggling, panting excitement she was such a ludicrous figure as to make them all self-conscious. They scarcely liked to look at her. However, by degrees the party became animated and noisy; and Wilfred felt no further concern for the outcome. Wilfred and Mildred kept apart, glancing at each other with sidelong eyes.
Bye and bye Charley invited the crowd up to his room. As they swept up-stairs, Wilfred and Mildred came together at the tail of the procession. In the semi-darkness of the hall, out of sight of the others, Wilfred felt more confidence.
“Hello!” he whispered.
“Hello yourself,” she whispered back.
“I was so afraid you wouldn’t come to-night!”
“Bella told me you wanted me to come.”
“Funny we shouldn’t meet until after you had moved away.”
“I used to wonder about you.”
The darling! She had wondered about him!
She slipped her arm through his like a little girl, and Wilfred pressed it. Something broke loose in his breast. He roared up through the house: “Clear the track for we are coming!” And galloped up the stairs, dragging the laughing and protesting Mildred after. Only once or twice in his life had Wilfred found his whole voice like that.
On the last dark landing she pulled back a little. He got it. His eager arms went around her with a will. He crushed the slender delicious body against his own. Ah! what a moment! To close his arms about his dream, and find them full! To be assured that he was no sprite, but a man like other men! Their lips hungrily sought each other in the dark. Again and again! Never should he get enough! Oh woman! Oh mystery of delight! Oh terrifying feast to be halved with a hungry stranger!
They entered the lighted room carefully apart from each other; subdued and highly self-conscious. A roar of laughter greeted them. They blushed scarlet, but rather enjoyed it. Mildred made haste to lose herself amongst the girls. The dignified Stanny tempted Wilfred. Seizing his hands, Wilfred whirled him about like a dervish.
“Have you gone crazy?” said Stanny, affronted.
Stanny was not having a good time. He desired to shine in the eyes of the little Scotch girl, and that ridiculous, ogling Bella was making him look like a fool! In some sort of hand-holding game that they all played, Bella, pretending to be insulted, accused Stanny of having tickled her palm. Stanny’s sense of humor was not equal to it. Pure hatred glittered in his eyes, as he denied the charge. Wilfred will never forget the picture made by Bella in the red flannel dress, sitting in the middle of the floor with her toes sticking up, embracing the mighty demijohn, and coyly expressing a hope that no gentleman would take advantage of her condition. None did.
Hunger set them all cascading down the stairs. Supper was served in Bella’s shop at the rear, amidst the queer polished forms on which the “shoulderbraces” were made. A difference arose between Jasper and Charley, upon the latter’s expressing a desire to share the society of the aristocratic Hattie. For a moment a row threatened; but Wilfred had the happy idea of suggesting that they settle it by seeing which could first pitch an apple into a stove pipe hole near the ceiling. After sundry apples had been squashed against the wall, Jasper won.
Wilfred and Mildred, sitting a little apart from the others, ate largely, while they gazed at each other, no longer ashamed.
“Funny, how it makes you hungry,” said Wilfred, grinning.
“How what does?” asked Mildred, with an innocent air.
“Well . . . you know!”
Mildred giggled.
While Wilfred laughed with her, the sweetness of her struck through his body like a dagger. She exercised at once the charm of a child and of a woman. If she had been really grown-up, he would have been terrified of her, but she was a child at heart, and Wilfred was all right with children. At the same time, notwithstanding her dawn-freshness, she was a woman more experienced than himself. He did not have to remember to spare her.
Something set the crowd rampaging up the stairs again. Perhaps there were others who took advantage of the dark halls. Wilfred detained Mildred at the bottom.
“Let them go,” he whispered; “they’re so noisy. Let’s you and I go into my room where it’s quiet.”
“Oh, no!” said Mildred. “Not in there with you alone!”
“Oh,” said Wilfred, immediately cast down.
They hung unhappily at the bottom step.
“Pleasecome,” he begged.
“I will if you promise to be good.”
“I’ll be as good as I can.”
They ran into Wilfred’s room. He closed the door, and slid the bolt.
“Oh, you mustn’t do that!” cried Mildred.
He told himself that her words didn’t signify anything. He believed that her lips were hungry for his. Wine had turned them crimson. So he merely looked at her, and walked away from the door. She avoided his look. They drifted to the worn bearskin in front of the fire, and sat down upon it, not touching each other. Now that they were alone together, behind the bolted door, constraint afflicted them again. They stared into the fire. Wilfred had a sense that precious moments were being wasted.
Finally Mildred said primly: “You have a nice room.”
“Like it?” said Wilfred. “It’s nice to have your own place.”
“I came in here once with Bella, when you were out,” she confessed.
“Did you?” he said delighted.
“I wanted to see if there were any pictures of girls about.”
“What did you care?”
“Oh, girls are always curious about a boy like you. You never give yourself away.”
Delicious flattery! “Well, there are no pictures.”
“Oh, I expect you’ve got them put away.”
“No. I don’t know any girls.”
“Well all I can say is, you’re pretty cheeky for a beginner!”
Wilfred felt bold and masterful again. “That is because you sweep me off my feet,” he said. He leaned towards her, bringing his face very close to hers. How enchanting it was to remain like that, without actually touching her. What a strange, strong current passed into him from her!
“You have put a spell on me!” he faltered.
“Promise me to stay quite still for a minute,” she whispered.
“What for?”
“Just because I ask you to.”
“Well . . . I promise.”
She caught his face between her two hands. “I want to kiss you all by myself,” she murmured. “In my way.”
Wilfred closed his eyes. “I’ll try to endure it,” he whispered.
“Lots of times. . . . Lots of times!” she crooned. “Ah, you’re so sweet! You’re as sweet as a baby!”
Wilfred received this with mixed feelings. “I don’t want to be kissed like a baby . . . !”
Between kisses she giggled. “Well, I’m not! . . . I just said you were as sweet as a baby. . . . I’d like to kiss you a hundred times without stopping!” Moving her head from side to side that her lips brushed his, she whispered: “I’m so glad you’re new at this . . . !”
“Time’s up!” cried Wilfred, flinging his arms around her. Deprived of any prop, they toppled over on the rug. “You weren’t good!” he murmured accusingly. “You began it! That lets me out! What do you think a man is made of? . . . Oh, you darling . . . !”
“Oh, Wilfred, don’t!” she begged in a panic. “Please,pleasedarling Wilfred! You’re so much stronger than I!Pleaselet me up! Let me out of this room . . . !”
Gathering her up in his arms, Wilfred carried her to the couch.
Clinging to him, she continued to protest. “Please,pleaseWilfred! Let me up . . . ! I demand that you open that door! . . . Oh, Wilfred, I’m so ashamed. I can’t bear to look at you . . . !”
“That’s easy fixed,” he said, laughing. He reached over their heads, and turned out the light.
In the small hours the three friends were making their way back across Washington Square arm in arm, Wilfred in the middle. Wilfred was too much excited to seek his bed; he had offered to see his two friends home. Jasper’s face wore a sleepy smile; but Stanny looked disgruntled. On this night he had had no luck.
Wilfred’s turgid feelings almost strangled utterance. “By God! but you fellows are dear to me!” he cried, pressing their arms against his ribs. “What would I do without you? I suppose I’m drunk. When I froth up like this I know I make a fool of myself. I don’t care. I’ve got to tell you how I feel. . . . I’ve been as miserable as hell lately. Well, that’s over. I’ve made a stage. . . . You think and think and get nowhere. No fixed point! Like a squirrel in a revolving cage! Like a nebula in the ether!—That’s damn good, you fellows. . . . Nebula in the ether! . . . For once I have forgotten myself! It’s astonishing. By letting everything go I caught hold of something solid. There is such a thing as joy! Oh, Heaven, it makes up for everything! There is beauty. . . . Oh my God! but life is good! I wouldn’t change with God to-night . . . !”
“Oh, for God’s sake!” said Stanny. “One would think you were the first male!”
So comic was this explosion of disgust, that Jasper and Wilfred stood still and roared with laughter. Stanny punched them, laughing, too. A tension was relieved. They continued skylarking on their way.
PART FOUR: LOVERS
PART FOUR
Onthe way to Thursday dinner with the Aunts, Wilfred went around by Sixth avenue in order to have a look at the news-stand. Yes, the Century was out! Good old Century in its plain yellow dress, and neat lettering! Wilfred’s heart set up a slightly accelerated beating. Before paying over his thirty-five cents, he took the precaution of consulting the table of contents. “Romance in Rivington Street. . . . Wilfred Pell.” A sigh of satisfaction relieved his breast.
Oblivious to the uproar at Sixth avenue and Eighth street, he leaned against a shop window to get the light over his shoulder, reading the sentences that he already knew by heart, with a delighted grin pressing into his cheeks. How human and funny it was! how offhand and graceful! He hadgotit that time! At the same time an inner voice was saying dryly, in Hilgy’s manner: Oh, it’s not as good as all that! His delight was mixed with apprehension: Would he ever be able to get it again?
He gave his private ring at the Aunts’ door-bell, that the maid might not be brought up-stairs from her work. Aunt May opened the door. Wilfred had shoved the magazine in his overcoat pocket. He would not blurt out his news. Besides, his Aunts would be sure to say the wrong thing. Aunt May held up her cheek to be kissed, without looking at him. It was one of the most amusing characteristics of his people, the way they took each other for granted.
The reason for Aunt May’s abstraction was revealed. “I think a rat must have died under the floor. . . . Huh?” she said sniffing. “These old houses . . . !”
“How inconsiderate!” said Wilfred.
She was already on her way back to the drawing-room, and did not get it. Wilfred presently followed, carrying the magazine in his hand.
“I am just finishing a letter,” said Aunt May at her desk.
Wilfred looked around the room with a warm feeling about his heart. How pleasant the sight of something that was unchanged. The Brussels carpet with its all-over design; the skimmed-milk wall-paper with its neo-Gothic ornaments traced in gilt; the square piano with yellowed keys and absurd muscle-bound legs; the carved walnut furniture. Could he not do something in a story with that tranquillizing room, with the whole quaint little house which was of a piece with it—but no! He was still too close to it. At the thought of the room up-stairs which had been his, he shivered with old pains and ardors.
Wilfred commenced to read the delicious story all over again.
Having sealed her letter, Aunt May became aware of his smile. “What is amusing you?” she asked.
“Damn good story!” said Wilfred.
“Wilfred! This is not South Washington Square!”
“Oh, beg pardon, Aunt. They tell me that profanity is becoming fashionable.”
“Not in this house! . . . Who is the story by?”
Wilfred affected to turn back to the beginning. “Chap called Wilfred Pell.”
“Wilfred! Give me that magazine!”
Together they studied the illustration to Wilfred’s story.
“I don’t think much of that,” remarked Aunt May.
“Putrid!”
“Wilfred . . . !”
“One is prepared for it,” said Wilfred like a long-suffering author. “He’s made my young lad look like a race track tout. Twenty years out of date. Why can’t these fellows look about them when they go into the streets? . . . However, it’s a Dugan, you see. That lends importance to the story. They paid more for that one picture than they did for the story.”
“How unjust!”
The placid, rosy Aunt Fanny came into the room.
“Fanny!” cried her sister. “Wilfred’s story in the Century!”
Aunt Fanny seized the magazine, and while her eyes fastened upon it, she held up her cheek sideways to be kissed.
Said Aunt May with a thoughtful air: “Wilfred, how many of those could you . . . Huh? . . . About the same amount of writing as ten letters, I should say. And if you had nothing else to do. . . .”
“Oh, but I have not your facility, Aunt May.”
“Don’t try to be funny! . . . Say, two a month anyway. . . .”
“It’s not how many you can write, but how many you can sell, my dear.”
“Oh, but the cheaper magazines will all be after you . . . Huh? now that the Century. . . .”
“Well, I wouldn’t exactly say that. The cheaper magazines have a grand conceit of themselves, you see. They affect to look upon the Century as a back number.”
“All the best people read the Century!”
“Unfortunately there are so many more people of the other kind!”
Later, at the table, Aunt May said with a casual air—but her hazy grey eyes were intent upon her thought: “Wilfred, now that you are becoming known . . . Huh? . . . you ought to . . .Dosit up straight in your chair! . . . you ought to go about more . . . !”
“Why, I circulate like a dollar bill!” said Wilfred. “I am worn and greasy with handling.”
“Iwishyou wouldn’t be vulgar!”
“Seriously, I have dozens of friends now.”
“Oh, South Washington Square!”
“I’m known as far North as Fifty-Ninth street. The Fifty-Ninth street crowd of artists and writers aremostrespectable. They sell their work, too. I know Walter Sherman, and Louis Sala and Frances Mary Lore. Miss Lore is a special friend of mine.”
The two Aunts exchanged an anxious glance. “Lore?” said Aunt Fanny. “Who are her people . . . Huh? . . .”
“Let me see,” said Wilfred, “her father was a letter carrier in Memphis. Or else he was the garbage collector. I forget.”
“Wilfred!”
“Well, it doesn’t signify, does it? Frances Mary stands on her own bottom.”
“Wilfred!”
“Oh, Aunt! I didn’t mean what you mean!”
“Seriously, Wilfred,” said Aunt May, “you are twenty-six years old. . . .”
“We should hate to see you marry on South Washington Square,” put in Aunt Fanny.
Aunt May frowned at Aunt Fanny. This was too direct.
Wilfred grinned at them both. An outrageous retort trembled on his tongue, but he bit it back. After all, they were dear old dears. And he was his own man now. “Well, thank God! that’s not an issue,” he said. “I don’t want to marry and I couldn’t if I did!”
“You ought to know the people whocount,” said Aunt May.
“So I do,” said Wilfred. “In my world.”
“But that’s a very small world, my dear. . . . Huh? . . . I mean the great world.”
“Society?” said Wilfred. “I can hardly see myself performing with that troupe of trained seals.”
“And why not, pray?” asked Aunt May, bridling. “That is where you belong, on both sides of the house. Your name alone. . . . Huh? . . . the sole representative of your branch. . . .”
“And you have become quite nice-looking,” added Aunt Fanny.
“Thanks, ladies, thanks,” said Wilfred bowing.
“Nor are we entirely forgotten,” said Aunt May with dignity, “notwithstanding the parvenues who crowd everywhere. . . .”
“And the girls of that world are so much prettier and more charming,” put in Aunt Fanny.
Aunt May frowned at her again. But it was the seeming injudicious remark of Aunt Fanny’s which arrested Wilfred’s attention, and sent his mind cavorting down the very avenue that they wished. It was true! The girls ofhisworld, writers and artists, good fellows as they were—well, that was just the trouble with them, they were such good fellows! When women descended into the arena to compete with men, they lost something of their allure. What cynic had he heard say that? He himself, would never have dared say it out loud amongst his friends; but was it not true? And sometimes, confound them! they beat a man at his own trade! How could you make love to a girl whose stories were in greater demand by the editors than your own? . . . Why not be honest with yourself, and confess that you were enough of a Turk at heart to be attracted by the idea of exquisite girls especially trained and groomed to please men. Very reprehensible, of course, but as long as there were such girls going, why not have one?
Wilfred was recalled to his surroundings by hearing Aunt May say, casually:
“Every time we see Cousin Emily Gore she asks after you.”
So that was the milk in the cocoanut! “Kind of her,” said Wilfred.
“She has several times given you an opening to call; but you never would.”
“That was when I was working for her husband,” said Wilfred. “No sucking up to the boss’s wife for me, thanks.”
“Wilfred! What an expression!”
“But I’m on my own now; the case is altered.”
“And Cousin Emily says,” added Aunt Fanny, “that there’s such a shortage of dancing men in society, they’re at a premium!”
Aunt May looked annoyed. Fannywouldsay the word too much!
“Yes, so I’ve heard,” drawled Wilfred. “Low society is really more select.”
“Will you call on Cousin Emily Gore? . . . Huh?” asked Aunt May.
“Haven’t got a Prince Albert.”
“We are told it is no longer indispensable.”
“Oh, they’ll take us in anything now, eh?”
“Dobe sensible, Wilfred! . . . Will you go?”
“Oh well, I suppose an author’s got to know all sides of life—even the lowest.”
The two ladies exchanged a look of mutual congratulation.
“Wednesday is her day,” said Aunt May. “And Wilfred, dear, do allow yourself to be . . . Huh? . . . As you know so well how to be. . . . This mocking air may be . . . But not in Cousin Emily’s world, my dear. . . .”
It was then, Wilfred saw, Aunt Fanny’s turn to feel that May was risking all they had gained by saying too much. Their faces were so transparent! “Cousin Emily takes a special interest in the débutantes,” Aunt Fanny hastily put in. “They say that this year’s débutantes are the loveliest in years!”
“Well I may be a Turk,” said Wilfred, “but I’m not as much of a Turk as that—no débutantes!”
“A Turk. . . . Huh? . . .” said Aunt May. “I’ll let her know you’re coming.”
Wilfredknew the Gore house from cellar to garret, from having been required once in the old days, to take an inventory of its contents. It was rather piquant to be there now as a guest in a swallow-tail coat. It was not one of the greatest houses in New York; but ’twould serve. His hat and coat were taken from him in a horrible entrance hall in the “Moorish” style, all the rage about 1890. He passed through the library (which contained no books) all done in red velvet, and entered the drawing-room behind. The drawing-room, with its great bay-window giving on the side street, was rather fine he considered; evidently a pretty good decorator had been let loose in here. But there was far too much stuff in it. The prevailing tone was an agreeable blue.
In the bay stood a grand piano, with a great golden harp placed beside it. Wilfred smiled at the harp. It had not been moved in seven years. “Why in Hell a harp?” he asked himself. Against the wall facing the bay stood an immense upholstered settee; and over the settee in the place of honor, hung the famous portrait of Mrs. Gore by Madrazo. A superb figure. The rich blue brocade of her corsage seemed to be glued to her body like wall-paper.
It was a dinner for about twenty people. Mrs. Gore affected the Knickerbocker set, whose present day representatives showed a sad falling off from the picturesqueness of their ancestors. The ladies affected a rich and dowdy style of dress, still featuring the abdomen; and the gentlemen also, who ran to bottle shoulders, and a small, neat melon under their waist-bands, suggested the magazine illustrations of twenty years ago. Obviously gentlemen, who toiled not neither did they spin. In America, for some reason, they looked piteous. There were several more or less subdued young persons present. Wilfred was introduced to a few of the guests, and left to shift for himself. He was to take in a Mrs. Varick, an anæmic little woman who kept up a fire of virtuous platitudes. One could safely agree with everything she said, while one looked about.
A little late, when all the estimable guests were visibly becoming uneasy, a woman entered the room, who changed the whole complexion of the party. Like a wild bird lighting in the poultry yard, Wilfred thought. She was about his own age with miscellaneous American features, not in the least beautiful. But she had the divine carriage of Diana, and Diana’s arrowy glance. Never had Wilfred beheld that proud, free glance in living woman. What a glorious spirit it betokened! So defiant and desirable it rendered him helpless. She was wearing a dress of tomato red, partly misted with smoke-colored net. Nothing of yesteryear abouther! Though she and all her works must have been anathema to the drab ones, Wilfred observed that they were inclined to fawn upon her. Obviously, that girl could get away with anything, anywhere, Wilfred thought.
At the table he was terrified and delighted to discover that she was to be on the other side of him. She sat down, talking busily to her companion. Wilfred stole a glance at her place card. “Miss Elaine Sturges.” It had the effect of striking a gong. Elaine Sturges! Wilfred had not been above reading of the doings of the butterflies he despised; the Sturgeses of North Washington Square; elect of the elect! For several seasons she had been chief amongst the unmarried girls. It appeared that no entertainment was complete without her. Merely from having her name so often printed, the lustre of fame was about her plainly-dressed brown head; and Wilfred’s imagination was dazzled afresh. While he sagely nodded his head in agreement with Mrs. Varick’s ambling comment, he sought in his mind to have ready some arresting thing to say, when his chance came. But his mind was a blank.
He happened not to be looking in that direction when a contralto voice said near his ear: “I say, who are you? Your place card is covered up.”
Wilfred jumped. “Wilfred Pell,” he said, smiling.
“I thought I knew all the Pells.”
“I’m only an offshoot. A scribbling Pell.”
“Didn’t think such a thing was possible!”
They laughed, knowing the Pell characteristics.
Wilfred thought: She has not read my stories. . . . But why should she? I must say something at once, or she’ll turn back to the other man. . . .
When it came, it sounded feeble. “I hate to be asked my name. I dislike it so much!”
“What, Wilfred?” she asked carelessly. “Yes, it is rather in the Percy and Harold class.”
“One’s mouth takes such a foolish shape in saying it.”
Her cool, strong glance sought his eyes appraisingly. There was a thought in her eyes that she did not utter; but he read it.
“You think Wilfred suits me?” he said smiling, and sore at heart.
“I wasn’t thinking,” she said coolly. “. . . You have nice eyes.”
Nice eyes! At that moment it was like an insult. And so good-humored about it! He struggled with a crushing sense of inferiority.
“Well, at any rate, you are well-named,” he said.
“Am I? I thought the original Elaine was a pale, die-away maiden who floated down the river with flowers in her hair, and her toes turned to the sky!—But maybe I’m thinking of somebody else. My literary associations are hazy.”
“The Lady of Shalott?” suggested Wilfred. “I was thinking of the mere sound of the name. Elaine! So forthright!”
“So you think I’m a forthright sort of person?”
“Rather!”
“That requires consideration.”
“How do you seem to yourself?” asked Wilfred.
“Oh, I don’t know. . . . We are all over-civilized, over-complicated nowadays. . . .”
“You are neither civilized nor complicated,” said Wilfred boldly.
“Well upon my word!” she said, half-affronted.
“Diana,” murmured Wilfred. “You know that picture at the Metropolitan; a rotten picture, but a glorious woman!”
She continued to stare, really amused, as with a baby’s prattle. Wilfred, as if Mrs. Varick had spoken to him, turned away. Ididmake an impression then, he thought; better leave her with it!
They talked again at intervals during dinner; the usual sort of thing. Wilfred had no other daring inspiration. However, when the divinely brave eyes turned on him, he perceived a speculative look in them. At least I exist for her, he thought hopefully.
After dinner there was music in the drawing-room (but not on the harp) and all the guests had to stay put—or so Wilfred supposed. Not having been sufficiently ready-witted to maneuver himself into a position beside her, he watched her from down the room. He was sitting beside the door into the hall. There was a sleek fellow behind her, leaning forward with his lips close to her ear. He appeared to be able to amuse her. He was not in the least afraid of her, Wilfred observed with a pang.
Taking advantage of a little movement among the guests between numbers, the red girl with characteristic nonchalance came sauntering down the long room, attended by her companion. Wilfred’s skin began to burn and prickle. She was headed directly for him. He suffered acutely. He did not see how he was going to keep his head up if she passed so close. She had laid a dreadful spell on him.
She did not pass him by. She stopped, and he jumped up. Careless of who might hear, she said:
“Come and sit on the stairs with me.”
Wilfred followed her like a man in a dream.
“Thanks, Ted,” she said over her shoulder to the other man, and he remained within the room.
Wilfred tingled. Came to me in the face of the whole room! Sent the other man away! But he was deeply perturbed, too. It should have been me to go to her, and carry her off. . . . What will Mrs. Gore say to my walking out on her concert like this?
Elaine seemed to read his thoughts. “They won’t blame you,” she said smiling. “They know me! . . . Oh well, poor dears! I like to give them something to talk about. They lead such dull lives!”
In the hall, the stairs started off at right angles, and after pausing on a sort of Moorish balcony, turned and went up in the proper direction without further divagations. Above the balcony it was rather secluded, and not too light. Here they sat, Wilfred with a tumultuously beating heart. There was already a meek youth and maiden higher up. Elaine permitted Wilfred to light a cigarette for her. Wilfred was astounded at his situation. Smoking companionably on the stairs with Elaine Sturges! He had supposed that these girls were so circumspect. However, there was nothing equivocal in the clear glance.
“After a season or two, what an experience of stairs you must acquire!” said Wilfred.
“Eh?” she said, not getting it—or not choosing to get it.
“You ought to write a monograph on the subject,” he blundered on; “The stairs of New York.”
She smiled inattentively, and Wilfred felt like a perfect ass.
“I never meet any artists or writers,” she said, “except old and famous ones. It seems so odd for a young man to go in for it. And a Pell!”
She means that she thinks its unmanly, thought Wilfred with a wry smile. “Oh, it’s an easy job,” he said flippantly.
“You only say that because you think I’m not capable of understanding,” she said.
“Not at all!” said Wilfred quickly. “It’s because I can’t appear to take myself seriously, without feeling like a fool!”
“Oh!” she said, looking at him as if he had given her new food for reflection.
Wilfred felt like a specimen impaled on a pin.
“Tell me more about myself,” she said presently. “It’s refreshing!”
“I have so little to go on!” protested Wilfred.
“That didn’t seem to hamper you a while ago. Make it up as you go along.”
“You always do exactly what you please.”
She smiled inscrutably. “That isn’t very clever!”
Wilfred felt flattened out. “Well . . . you have entirely false notions about life,” he said, making a desperate fresh start.
“That’s better,” she said serenely. “In what way do you mean?”
Itwas after the lawful hours of business. Casting a glance up and down to assure himself no policeman was watching, Wilfred descended three steps, and knocked on the shuttered door of the little Hungarian café in East Fourth street. He was admitted as a matter of course. A haze of tobacco smoke filled the interior. The cymbaline player had gone home; and the place seemed oddly quiet. There were only four or five figures crouching over the tables; habitués of the place.
Relief filled Wilfred’s breast at the sight of Stanny in his usual place, over against the wall, his back to the door. Impossible to tell if he were drunk. It required more than a casual glance to discover that in Stanny. Opposite him sat Mitzi of course, with her seraphic, unchanging smile. The wide-eyed, soulless, pretty creature!—Not soulless, really; one must be fair; soulless only to them. Stanny, brooding upon her face, was giving everything away in his eyes. Andreas, the proprietor, passing to and fro with the drinks, scarcely troubled to hide his contempt. Wilfred became hot with angry compassion.
Big Andreas greeted him with loud heartiness, the while his black eyes glittered remotely. They hated each other. Mitzi turned her smile on Wilfred, offering him an adorable, plump, cruel little paw with short tapering fingers. That is to say, the kind of hand which is called cruel, he thought. In reality there was no cruelty in Mitzi; she was merely docile. Stanny looked around at him without any expression whatever; and by that, Wilfred knew he was drunk. He dropped into the seat beside Stanny, and a glass oftchaiwas put before him.
“ ’Ello, Vee’fred!” said the adorable Mitzi “ ’Ow you was to-night?”
Wilfred was fully sensible of her magical quality—the quality of a red rose beginning to unfold; but it left him unperturbed. For one thing she was too foreign. “Out o’ sight!” he replied. “I don’t need to ask how you are. You are prettier than ever to-night.”
“You lie!” said Mitzi, pouting good-humoredly. “You no t’ink I pretty girl. You t’ink I ogly girl.”
“Aw, shucks!” said Wilfred. “You know quite well you’re the prettiest girl East of Third avenue!”
Mitzi, having exhausted her English, relapsed into her smile. Occasionally she made a droll face at either Stanny or Wilfred and murmured: “Aw, shucks!” Mitzi could sit and smile at a man—any man, the whole evening through without betraying either tedium or self-consciousness. There was that in her smile Wilfred thought, which called into being fires she was incapable of comprehending.
Wilfred was aware that anger was smoking within Stanny. Finally it puffed out spitefully: “What do you want here?”
“A glass oftchai,” said Wilfred, smiling.
“By God! I’m sick of this Ten Nights in a Barroom stunt!” said Stanny passionately. “You’re not my keeper!”
“Keep your shirt on,” said Wilfred, smiling still for Mitzi’s benefit. “I don’t aim to be.”
“Then what brought you here?”
“I wanted company,” said Wilfred. It was true, but Stanny would not believe it.
“If I’m going to Hell, I prefer to go in my own way,” said Stanny.
“Sure!” agreed Wilfred. “But I can’t help thinking you’re getting damned little out of this lap.”
“That’s all right!” said Stanny with drunken obstinacy.
“What you say him?” asked Mitzi, without in the least caring what the answer might be.
“I’m telling him I wish you were my sweetheart,” said Wilfred grinning. (How sick he was of his own grin!) “That’s what makes him sore.”
“Aw, shucks!” said Mitzi.
“What do you expect to get out of it?” Wilfred went on to Stanny. “You know as well as I do, that the man only puts out his pretty little wife as a decoy. He never lets her out of his sight. I don’t see how you can fall for it. With him looking on and sneering!”
“I wish to God I could see you make a fool of yourself over a woman!” cried Stanny bitterly. “You wouldn’t be so damn superior then!”
Wilfred grinned until his nostrils hurt. He had spent the earlier part of the night walking up and down North Washington Square, gazing at the lighted windows of the Sturges sitting-room with sick eyes; picturing a man inside bolder than himself.
“But I never will! I never will!” said Stanny. “You’re too much up in the air!”
“You don’t know me,” murmured Wilfred.
“Yah! a hell of a romantic feller if the truth were known, eh?” sneered Stanny.
Wilfred went on grinning inanely; tracing a capital E on the table with his forefinger. It created a sort of diversion to have Stanny abusing him unjustly; it was a counterirritant. He was absolutely sure of Stanny’s affection. It comforted him a little to lean his breast against the thorn of misunderstanding. It was the nearest to obtaining sympathy that he could hope for, he thought.
After awhile Wilfred said: “Will you come now?”
“No!” said Stanny.
But Mitzi, though she could not understand their talk, perceived that there was something inimical in the atmosphere. Presently she yawned behind the sinister little manicured paw, and stood up.
“Well, goo’-ni’, boys. Come round to-morrow.”
Through sullen lashes Stanny watched the little thing go swaying down the room and through the curtain at the rear, an unfathomable pain in his eyes. Wilfred raged internally. A man like Stanny to be brought down bythat! What am I raging at? he asked himself. Certainly not at Stanny; nor at the unconscious, infantile Mitzi. And he had no God to rage at.—At the same time Wilfred envied Stanny; his pain was so much simpler than his own.
Wilfred and Stanny went out on the sidewalk. At the Third avenue corner Stanny stopped.
“You had better leave me here,” he said bitterly, but without anger; “you can do me no good to-night.”
“How about your doing me a little good?” suggested Wilfred.
“Don’t make me laugh!” said Stanny. “You’re as transparent as window glass! . . . If you could only get rid of your evangelical streak!”
“I don’t want to save you,” said Wilfred. “I just want to be with somebody. Even you! . . . My God! you’re a selfish beggar!”
Stanny snorted, and started walking on with that extraordinarily doughty carriage of his, more pronounced when he was drunk.
Wilfred fell in beside him. “Oh hell,” he said, “you can say what you like. I’m not going to leave you. . . . You can come to my place if you want. Or I’ll go to yours if you’d rather.”
“I can’t sleep,” muttered Stanny.
“No more can I. Let’s walk then.”
When they had gone a block, Stanny stopped short, and faced Wilfred. “I know I’m a bloody fool,” he said ill-temperedly. “Now are you satisfied?”
Wilfred slipped his arm through Stanny’s “I’m a bloodier fool than you, old fellow, and my heart’s just as heavy!”
“Oh, for God’s sake!” cried Stanny passionately. “You and your heart! Do you think I can’t see that you’re saying that just to make me feel better? Nothing can touchyou! I wish to God you’d give over trying to manage me like a woman!”
Wilfred laughed.
When they got to the corner of Washington Square, Stanny kept straight on, and by that Wilfred knew that he was coming to his place. As they turned in at the old iron gate, rusting under its hundred coats of paint, in Stanny’s sullen eyes could be read as plainly as if it had been spoken, his intention of inveigling Wilfred into going to bed, and afterwards slipping out again.
As soon as they got inside Wilfred’s room, they started to quarrel viciously. Wilfred insisted on making up the fire, and Stanny said they shouldn’t need it. Then about the bed. Stanny all but knocked Wilfred into his own bed. Wilfred however, insisted on lying down on the moth-eaten bearskin before the fire. Stanny looked as if he would have liked to kick him there.
“You might as well take the bed,” said Wilfred.
“I’m damned if I will!” cried Stanny passionately.
“If I was alone, I should be lying here just the same. I can’t sleep, and I like to look at the fire.”
“Seeing pictures, eh?” sneered Stanny.
“Sure, seeing pictures. . . . What fools we are to scrap with each other, Stanny. . . .”
“Sure, what fools!” agreed Stanny, suddenly falling quiet and mournful.—But instantly, he lost his temper again. “You needn’t think I’m going to take your bed and leave you lying on the floor!”