I had asked Sam Ellersly to dine with me; so preoccupied was I that not
until ten minutes before the hour set did he come into my mind--he or any
of his family, even his sister. My first impulse was to send word that I
couldn't keep the engagement. “But I must dine somewhere,” I reflected,
“and there's no reason why I shouldn't dine with him, since I've done
everything that can be done.” In my office suite I had a bath and
dressing-room, with a complete wardrobe. Thus, by hurrying a little over
my toilet, and by making my chauffeur crowd the speed limit, I was at
Delmonico's only twenty minutes late.
Sam, who had been late also, as usual, was having a cocktail and was
ordering the dinner. I smoked a cigarette and watched him. At business or
at anything serious his mind was all but useless; but at ordering dinner
and things of that sort, he shone. Those small accomplishments of his had
often moved me to a sort of pitying contempt, as if one saw a man of talent
devoting himself to engraving the Lord's Prayer on gold dollars. That
evening, however, as I saw how comfortable and contented he looked, with
not a care in the world, since he was to have a good dinner and a good
cigar afterward; as I saw how much genuine pleasure he was getting out of
selecting the dishes and giving the waiter minute directions for the chef,
I envied him.
What Langdon had once said came back to me: “We are under the tyranny of
to-morrow, and happiness is impossible.” And I thought how true that was.
But, for the Sammys, high and low, there is no to-morrow. He was somehow
impressing me with a sense that he was my superior. His face was weak, and,
in a weak way, bad; but there was a certain fineness of quality in it,
a sort of hothouse look, as if he had been sheltered all his life, and
brought up on especially selected food. “Men like me,” thought I with a
certain envy, “rise and fall. But his sort of men have got something that
can't be taken away, that enables them to carry off with grace, poverty or
the degradation of being spongers and beggars.”
This shows how far I had let that attack of snobbishness eat into me. I
glanced down at my hands. No delicateness there; certainly those fingers,
though white enough nowadays, and long enough, too, were not made for fancy
work and parlor tricks. They would have looked in place round the handle
of a spade or the throttle of an engine, while Sam's seemed made for the
keyboard of a piano.
“You must come over to my rooms after dinner, and give me some music,” said
I.
“Thanks,” he replied, “but I've promised to go home and play bridge.
Mother's got a few in to dinner, and more are coming afterward, I believe.”
“Then I'll go with you, and talk to your sister--she doesn't play.”
He glanced at me in a way that made me pass my hand over my face. I learned
at least part of the reason for my feeling at disadvantage before him. I
had forgotten to shave; and as my beard is heavy and black, it has to be
looked after twice a day. “Oh, I can stop at my rooms and get my face into
condition in a few minutes,” said I.
“And put on evening dress, too,” he suggested. “You wouldn't want to go in
a dinner jacket.”