One evening Ulick leaned over Dora's balcony. He had called
unannounced, and found her in anything but an amiable mood. "It's you,
is it?" was her reception. He had not been very attentive of late, and
Dora, despite her kittenish airs, was strictly business in her methods.
With her, one nail replaced another. The devil take the hindmost. If
you haven't any money, you needn't come around. Time is money. What are
you here for? When you're dead, you're dead a long time. She was fond
of repeating this chaplet of pearly wisdom as she faced her favourite
work of art, framed and hung on the alcove of her bedchamber: "Rock of
Ages cleft for me" was the legend this lovely picture bore. Dora, who
wasn't particularly imaginative, saw herself as the attudinizing female
who so closely clung to the cross in a typhoon that would have sunk a
fleet, but didn't disturb her chaste draperies. She impressed Dora. A
vague notion nestled in the recesses of her conscience that she wasn't
precisely leading a noble life, and that the necessary rock of ages for
her was a comfortable bank account.
He was not disturbed by her cool phrase. It wasn't a novelty. He stared
at the town and thought that when the softer and richer symphony of the
night arrives, when the jarring of one's ego by the innumerable racking
noises has ceased, when the city is preparing to forget the toilsome
day, then the magic of New York begins to operate; its missing soul
peeps forth in the nocturnal transfiguration. However, not on Broadway,
with its thousand lights and lies, not in opera-houses, theatres, or
cafés, but from some perch of vantage must the nocturnal scene with
all its mysterious melancholy beauty be studied. He saw a cluster of
blazing lights across at the West Side Circle, a ladder of fire the
pivot. Further down theatre-land dazzled with its tongues of flame.
Literally, a pit, white-hot. Across in the cool shadows of the east
are level lines of twinkling points. The bridges. There is always the
sense of waters not afar. The hotels are tier upon tier starry with
illumination. The Avenues, long shafts of bluish-white electric globed
fire. The monoliths burn as if to a fire-god their votive offerings.
In the moonlight mansions on Fifth Avenue seemed snow-driven. The
Synagogue opposite the park, half byzantine, half moresque, might
have been mistaken for an Asiatic mosque as it lay sleeping in the
moon-rays. The park, as if liquified, flowed in plastic rhythms, a
lake of velvety foliage, a mezzotint dividing the east from the west.
Sudden furnace bonfires leap up from the Brooklyn side; they are
purely commercial; Ulick looked for Whistler's rockets. Battery Place
and the Bay are operatic, the stage for a thrilling fairy spectacle.
The dim, scattered plain of granite house-tops are like a petrified
cemetery of immemorial Titans. At night, he mused, the city loses its
New World aspect. It reveals the patina of Time. It is a city exotic,
semi-barbaric, the fantasy of an oriental sorcerer who had been mad
enough to evoke from unplumbed and forgotten seas the long lost
Atlantis....
The buzzing of the annunciator, a man's voice aroused Ulick from his
reverie. He hopped into the room where he found Paul. The greeting of
the pair was cordial; there wasn't the slightest feeling of jealousy
between them, and this was something Dora detested. Competition is the
life of cocottes, she declared early and often. In her feline fashion
she had tried to arouse the jealousy of Paul and Ulick, but vainly.
Ulick was touchy when Easter's name was in the mouth of Paul, and he
knew that if Paul ever dared to speak of Mona disrespectfully, he would
smash him. But jealousy over Dora? Pas pour trois sous!
Dora was a safe port in emotional storms. When all fruit fails welcome
haws, runs the adage. Ulick had been on the jagged edge of ennui ever
since the visit of Mona. He hadn't the courage to look into his soul,
black with a viler sin. To distract himself, like the man who drinks
to forget, he had gone up to Dora's overlooking the fact that it was,
for all he knew, Paul's "evening at home." Still, no bones were broken
and he shook Paul's hand and said bienvenu! Dora glowered. She talked
to herself. She went into the kitchen and raised her voice to the new
cook. She noisily rattled dishes, pushed the furniture and behaved like
a woman misunderstood. She, too, had her grievances. These fellows of
hers weren't behaving on the square. Now, what did Ulick Invern mean
by coming up when he knew he would run into Paul! Did he do it on
purpose, just to annoy her? She whimpered in the pantry as she took
down the decanter of whisky and put the glasses on a tray; whatever
else might be criticised in her conduct no one ever would accuse her of
inhospitality. This consoling idea struck her and to drive it home more
securely in her self-esteem she helped herself to a generous drink. It
was not the first "hooker" she had drunk that day; in fact, she was
admirably intoxicated when Ulick arrived, and she knew that he noticed
it. It was her standing grievance against him that he couldn't be
persuaded to drink or smoke. It seemed to put him on a pedestal above
her and she hated pedestals. Now there was Paul--always half-stewed....
She fetched in the liquor.
They played cards, that is, Dora and Paul wrangled over some game,
Ulick interesting himself in a newspaper; there wasn't a book in the
apartment fit to open. Dora's dissatisfaction grew apace. Slapping the
cards down she called to Ulick: "You're the nice one I don't think.
You don't drink or smoke, you can't even play poker. What are you good
for anyhow?" Bored, Ulick went into the hall after his hat and stick.
The hints of Dora were not cryptic. He felt that three is company, two
none, and he determined to leave them to their desperate ennui à deux.
But he had counted without Paul.
"Where are you off to, old top?" Paul asked. "Wait a bit and I'm with
you." Dora revolted. "You make me tired, both of you. First Ulick,
then you, Paul, and you're going to see the girls, I swear to that."
"No," politely contradicted Paul, "no girls when we can have your
company Dodo." "That's why you slip away and leave me to spend the
evening alone within four walls. Well, that's where you'll get left.
I'm going to ring for a taxi and I'll go across to Edie's. She always
has company." She was again on the verge of tears. Paul's next speech
precipitated the explosion, though from an unexpected quarter. Turning
to Ulick he had banteringly remarked:
"Jewel, I'm off to Europe Saturday. I'm going to Paris on the fastest
boat I can get, the 'Deutschland'. I hope to see Easter in Paris. Shall
I give her your love?" He meant it innocently, but his manner proved
the red rag to the bull. Ulick became pale, surest sign that he was
angered. He didn't answer at once, then, as he stood in the doorway,
he said in his chilliest voice: "I never discuss ladies with such men
as you and particularly in such surroundings." This rude speech sent
Paul up into the air; he, too, had been drinking far more than was good
for him. He went over to Ulick and said: "What's the matter with you?
Can't I mention Easter's name without you rearing on your hind legs?
Perhaps I should have asked for Mona's permission"--He got no further.
Ulick's reach was long, his attack swift--he hadn't studied for naught
boxing with his father's old fencing-master, an Irishman, in Paris.
He landed his "left" full on Paul's chest and Paul reached the floor
amid a huge clatter of displaced chairs, the table, its glasses and
decanter. He lay there, not so much stunned, as reflective. Decidedly
he was not in the same class with this heroic Franco-American. Dora
came to the rescue with screams of rage. Aroused by the scrimmage a
coloured girl stood staring from the kitchen, the whites of her eyes
like cream, thunder-curdled. She proved the lightning-rod that drew
off the accumulated electricity of Dora, who was fearful that the row
had been overheard in the eminently respectable house. She flew at the
unfortunate cook.
"Get to hell out of here!" she shouted, then turned on her guests.
Ulick, shamefaced, stammered an excuse as he helped Paul to his feet.
This proved the acme of Dora's unhappiness. "As for you two, you clear
out. I've no use for you. Always hanging around with your nasty messing
ways. Clear out, both of you, or I'll call the police. Ruining my
reputation with your scrapping. I won't have it here, I tell you. My
lease says no fighting is allowed on the premises, and what have you
fellows been doing? Get away. I won't hear any excuses. And fighting
about two ladies"--she sarcastically lowered her voice at the mention
of ladies--"Nice ladies they must be. Sly sluts, that's what they
are. Don't tell me. Little Dora knows your fine society dames, your
artistic ladies--whores the whole lot of them." With that she bundled
her "gentlemen friends" out of the apartment. "Good-bye, Dodo," cried
Paul. "I'll drop in to say a last good-bye before Saturday." But the
door slammed for an answer and presently they were on the lift and soon
in the street. Paul, his good temper reasserting itself passed his arm
through the abashed Ulick's, and casually exclaimed: "I say, old man,
you have a punch! Let's walk down to the Utopian. The fresh air will do
me good. But am I thirsty!" The young men slowly moved down the Avenue
arm in arm, apparently the best of friends.... Late that night Dora
was brought home by two "lady-friends" in a shockingly intoxicated
condition.