Ritchie came home in a somewhat bitter humor, partly due to his having
spent the night on a hard chair, and partly to other and finer causes.
He hoped that drunken fellow would be gone. He wished never to see him
again; but when Ritchie opened the door, there he was, lying on the bed
and reading one of the little books.
“Hello!” he said, as joyously as if Ritchie were his heart’s dearest
friend.
“Are you feeling better?” Ritchie curtly inquired.
Without waiting for a reply, he began to take off his grimy work
clothes.
“I don’t know how to thank you,” the other went on. “Absolutely the
whitest thing I ever heard of! I must have been pretty far gone last
night--can’t remember a blamed thing.”
He was not discouraged by his host’s silence.
“I shan’t forget this, you know,” he continued. “You darned nearly saved
my life. Can’t imagine what my people would have said, if I’d come home
like that. You know how it is--”
“No, I don’t,” interrupted Ritchie. “I’m a teetotaler.”
“Shows sense,” said the other warmly. “I think I’ll have to be one
myself. My name’s Bradley.” He waited. “What’s yours?” he asked.
“Ritchie,” responded the other. “And as good as Bradley any day,” he
added mentally.
In some respects, however, honesty obliged him to admit that he was not
so good as Bradley.
Bradley, after stretching, got up. He was in his shirt sleeves, and
Ritchie surveyed his tall, slender figure with the eye of a connoisseur
in physiques. The fellow was young yet, not fully developed, but
certainly those shoulders, that solid neck, that broad chest, were
promising--very promising.
“Well, he probably eats too much meat,” thought Ritchie, with dejection.
“Living like he does, he won’t last!”
In order to show his perfect ease and indifference, he began to wash,
whistling when the process permitted.
“I must be badly in your way,” said the other, in his good-humored
manner. “I’ll clear out, I think. Got a spare overcoat? I don’t like to
go out like this.”
Ritchie grew scarlet. His overcoat--certainly spare enough--was in that
place where winter overcoats naturally go in the spring.
“No,” he said sullenly.
“Then I--” began Bradley.
There was a knock at the door. Ritchie flung it wide open, with the air
of one who has nothing to conceal. In the hall stood two resplendent
young heroes, broadly smiling.
“Still alive, Bradley?” said the taller and older of the two.
They both came into the room as if Ritchie did not exist. Trembling with
resentment, he stood aside, collarless, in his cheap striped shirt, with
his black hair still wet on his forehead. These three well fed, well
clothed creatures, with their vigorous voices, completely filled the
room--filled, he thought, the whole world, squeezing him out of it.
In an affectionate and blasphemous manner Bradley reproached his friend
for deserting him the night before.
“You ought to thank me,” said his friend, “for leaving you in the care
of that peach of a girl!”
“What peach of a girl?” asked Bradley, pleasantly surprised.
The friend recounted the circumstances. No one observed Mr. Ritchie’s
rage and dismay.
“I went there just now to make inquiries,” the friend went on, “and she
told me where I’d find you. Bradley, old son, if you’re a man and a
brother, you’ll go there at once and thank her! She’s a beautiful girl,
and--”
“Here!” interrupted Ritchie. His voice was so strange that they all
turned to look at him. “Leave her out!” he cried. “You can thank me!”
Bradley was smitten with compunction. He began thanking Ritchie with
energy, introduced his friends, and invited him to dinner.
“No!” said Ritchie. Like many teetotalers, he had acquired the habit of
saying “no” somewhat ungraciously. “No! But you can just leave her out!”
Again he was thanked by all of them, and at last they left his room; but
he knew that Madeline would not be left out. He felt certain that they
would go at once to Compson’s Chophouse. He could see them talking to
Madeline. He knew how she would admire their dress, and their silly
language, and their frivolous and disgusting manners.
“_All right!_” he said to himself. “You’re welcome to ’em; but you don’t
catch _me_ going there any more, to be made a fool of. Not much!”
Suddenly he decided that he wanted no dinner--not at Compson’s, or at
any other place. He threw himself down on his cot, with a scornful laugh
that sounded like a sob. Fellows like that always got everything. They
thought they owned the earth--and very likely they did.
V
Young Bradley was not subtle or astoundingly clever, but he did know
better than to go to thank a beautiful girl in the company of his two
friends. He went alone.
He was instantly struck down, completely conquered, by Madeline’s
haughty glance. It was the first time he had met a haughty girl. He
found most girls very much otherwise. He was accustomed to the ardent
pursuit of mothers and aunts, and not much coyness on the part of their
protégées. He had no conception of Madeline’s idea of man as a
dangerous and persistent hunter, with woman as his prey. In his circle
the girls did the hunting and he the evading.
He was captivated by her severity. She refused to go out with him that
evening; so he came again the next evening.
“Please come!” he entreated. “I’ve got the car outside. I’ll wait for
you as long as you like, and then we’ll run up to a little place on the
Post Road.”
“No, thank you,” said Madeline. “I never go out with strange gentlemen.”
“How am I going to stop being a strange gentleman if you’ll never go out
with me?” he complained.
Madeline didn’t know, and didn’t care to encourage strange young men by
trying to explain. She knew perfectly well that he would come back.
To be sure, he did, and this time he was dreadfully insistent. Now
perhaps the cause of Madeline’s hauteur was the take-it-or-leave-it
attitude of the men she knew. Certainly she had never before encountered
a persistent suitor, or one who was not offended by rebuffs. Customers
inclined to gallantry were very much annoyed if not encouraged. Even Mr.
Ritchie was fatally ready to be insulted; but this young fellow didn’t
care in the least. Let her be haughty, captious, even cruel, still he
was charmed and delighted.
Though she did not think this quite manly, Madeline could not withstand
the cajolery of the handsome and good-natured boy. She was thrilled with
pride that this splendid creature should come to seek her in Compson’s
lowly chophouse. She was secretly overwhelmed when he brought her
orchids. She didn’t really resent the innuendoes of the other girls.
They were simply jealous because no such hero ever had or ever would
come to seek them.
In her heart she was grateful, almost humble. She regarded her
incomparable Bradley with something very like awe. To placate Compson,
he would order coffee and pie while he waited to talk to her; and his
manner of eating and drinking, the way he rose and remained standing
when she approached, all the careless ease and grace of him, were a
marvel and a joy. Moreover, even in her most fervent admiration, she had
never lost the protective tenderness she had felt the first time she had
seen him. She worried about him, about his health and his morals.
This was really the reason why she finally consented to go out with
him--so that she could talk seriously and firmly, and perhaps reclaim
him.
“Well, you can be waiting for me to-morrow at nine o’clock,” she said.
“You’d better go along now.”
As he was leaving--a notable figure in a suit such as never entered
Compson’s, and a straw hat, and a walking stick--he was met by Ritchie
coming in. Ritchie was dressed in threadbare serge, and wore brown
shoes, which he had attempted to make black. Bradley went by without a
sign--not by intention, for he would have saluted his benefactor
joyously if he had known him; but Ritchie, to him, was exactly like
countless others, and quite indistinguishable.
Of course Ritchie took this apparent neglect as a personal insult. He
sat down at his usual table, burning with shame and fury. When Madeline
approached, he said truculently:
“I suppose you don’t want to go to the movies to-morrow night?”
It was an announcement, rather than a question.
“Well, I’m sorry,” replied Madeline, “only I got a date.”
“Him, isn’t it? All right! Go ahead! That’s just like a woman,” said
Ritchie. “If a feller has good clothes and a fine physique, what do they
care if he drinks, or anything?”
“I wasn’t aware I was requesting your valuable advice, Mr. Ritchie,”
observed Madeline frigidly.
“I wasn’t giving it,” said he. “All I was saying was, women are all for
show. They never see below the surface. Anyway, I’m going to Chicago the
end of this week. I’m sick of New York!”
“My! Poor New York!” murmured she.
“I’m sick of the girls here,” he went on vehemently. “Just a lot of jazz
babies--that’s what they are!”
“Here, now!” she cried.
“Jazz babies,” he repeated. “There isn’t one of them with--with any
brains or any feelings.”
Madeline had turned pale.
“I’m not paid to be insulted by customers,” said she. “I’ll send some
one else to wait on you. I’m sure I hope you’ll find some one in Chicago
that’s good enough for you, if such a thing is possible!”
And thus terminated their acquaintance. They were now complete
strangers.