On Saturday afternoon, after a long prowl about the picturesque edges of
Manhattan, Wilfred made his way to Martin’s café. This was a treat he
could occasionally give himself. It was rather awful to enter the place
alone, but once you got your legs under a table, you sank into a
comfortable insignificance. And what a scene for the connoisseur of
humanity! he thought. Martin’s was the center of New York life—not
fashionable life, because that had moved up-town with Delmonico’s; but
fashionable people hardly counted nowadays; the best-known writers,
artists, actors; men of the hour in every walk of life, frequented
Martin’s. And exquisite women! the flower of New York’s women; who cared
what their social status might be?
Wilfred could not meet the eye of one of these delicate creatures, but
in his mind he explored them through and through. In his mind he
experienced the gallant way of dealing with them. Sometimes when he
overheard snatches of conversation at near-by tables, he burned to tell
the whining male for the honor of his sex, that _that_ was not the way!
On the present occasion when he looked about the rooms, he received an
unpleasant shock upon beholding Joe Kaplan seated at a table in the
vicinity, the center of a group of admiring older men. Oh Lord! can I
never hope to escape him! thought Wilfred. The face of one of Joe’s
companions struck familiarly on his sight; a face that had been
reproduced in the newspapers; handsome, dusky, florid; blurred a little
by self-indulgence. Cooper Gillett, of course. It _would_ be a
multi-millionaire, thought Wilfred, sneering.
He saw that Joe’s own style had improved very much. He had lost his
too-sleek appearance. Joe, who was always learning, had discovered that
the acme of good taste in men’s dress was expressed in an elegant
carelessness. He was wearing a suit of grey homespun, obviously made by
the most eminent of tailors. His tie was of a soft silk, cornflower
blue; and he had a knot of ragged cornflowers stuck in his buttonhole.
His hair lay on his head like a raven’s wing; his skin was as pink as a
baby’s; the teeth he revealed in his frequent smiles were as gleaming
and regular as a savage’s. What if his eyes were a little too close
together? they sparkled with zest and good humor. Well, he could afford
to be good-humored. He lived.
Twenty-three years old, and already at the top of the heap! A rich man,
and the associate of rich men. He would never be obliged to grind his
teeth in lonesomeness. That shameless smile of his would be devastating
among women. Women loved to be yanked down from their pedestals, and
quite right, too. How charming to yank them down. Half the desirable
women in the place were looking at Joe now.
But _does_ Joe live? Wilfred asked himself. He has no feeling. That’s
what makes him great. That’s what gives him such a power over everybody.
He doesn’t care. That’s what gives him such a power over me—God damn
him! I feel, and he does not. He lives his life, and I feel it for him,
and curse my own impotence! It is feeling which makes me so ineffectual.
Feelings . . . all kinds of feelings that lay hands on me and drag me
back! Oh God! I wish I could be a soulless animal like Joe! . . . And
yet . . . what’s the use of living a crowded life if you can’t realize
it? After all, isn’t it more real to have the feeling than the substance
. . . ? But down that path you soon begin to gibber! To hell with
thought! I want the fleshpots!
He perceived that Joe was aware of him, though he gave no sign of
recognition. A certain increased amplitude appeared in Joe’s style.
Wilfred sneered. It’s nuts to him to have me looking at him, he thought;
the fellow of good family who has come to nothing, gazing with sickly
envy at the street Arab who has risen to affluence! By God! I will not
look at him again!—But he could not help himself. His eyes were dragged
back.
Meanwhile he sneered. Rotten little hooligan! He gets on because he’s
got no conscience. If a decent man can’t get on in the world, so much
the worse for the world! I don’t envy him his present company;
millionaires and their hangers-on! Those fellows are dead inside; that’s
why they like him. Even the warmth of a dung-heap is warmth! Scratch the
pink skin and you’d find just a common, foul-minded Jew! Wilfred’s
thoughts seared his breast. He looked away from Joe in a despairing
effort to divert his mind; but the animated spectacle in which he had
hitherto taken such pleasure, no longer had any meaning for him.
When Joe and his party arose to leave, their course took them out beside
Wilfred’s table. Wilfred kept his eyes down until they had passed; then
raised them to that hateful-enviable back. The tall grace of Joe’s slim
figure, so perfectly turned-out—he had put on a black soft hat, just
enough out of the ordinary to emphasize his stylishness; the confident
poise of his head; it seemed almost more than Wilfred could bear. Oh
God! how I hate him! he thought; he poisons my being! Meanwhile the
under voice was whispering: If I could only be him!
As Joe went through the door, a girl sitting at the last table, glanced
up at him through her lashes. Wilfred had already marked her; she was
the prettiest girl in the room; fragile as tinted china; a flame burning
in an egg-shell. She wore an amusing little seal-skin cape with a high
collar; and a smart black hat elevated behind, and tilted over her
adorable nose. A fatuous old man was sitting opposite her.
Instantly Wilfred’s burning fancy rearranged the scene. The girl was
still sitting there with her inscrutable half-smile, but now Joe was
opposite her all togged up to the nines, looking at her with insolent
mastery. And Wilfred with money in his pocket, very well dressed, with
that something in his air which showed that his grandfather had worn
good clothes before him, came strolling in. As he passed their table,
the girl raised her lovely speaking eyes. Their glances met and clung
for an instant, and something passed between them that Joe would never
know.
With ready self-possession, Wilfred turned to Joe, saying: “Hello,
Kaplan, I didn’t recognize you.” Joe’s greeting was stiff; but Wilfred,
coolly ignoring that, said something humorous that caused the girl to
giggle deliciously. She looked at Joe in a way that he could not ignore,
and he was obliged to murmur churlishly: “Mr. Pell . . . Miss Demarest.”
(An assumed name of course; the enchanting and mysterious creature gave
herself recklessly, while she looked for the man!) She offered Wilfred
her drooping hand, not quite able to meet his eyes now, while she
murmured: “Won’t you sit down for awhile?”
Wilfred spoke of real things with a simple humor that showed up the
cheap facetiousness that passed current at Martin’s for what it was. A
new look appeared in the girl’s beautiful eyes. As in a flash, she had
perceived the great truth, revealed to but few women: that it is the
shy, imaginative men who are really the delicious rakes at heart; while
the showy, flaunting fellow, the professional lady-killer is cold and
shallow. . . .
Wilfred suddenly caught sight of Joe in the flesh, coming towards him.
It was like an icy douche. . . .
To his astonishment, Joe stopped at his table. He said with his
disarming grin:
“Hello, Pell!”
Wilfred mumbled in reply.
“I didn’t speak to you before,” Joe went on, “because of that gang I was
with. They’re gone now, thank God! and I can be myself.” He dropped into
the chair opposite Wilfred. “What you drinking? _Grenadine au Kirsch?_
Nothing but apple water! Have an absinthe with me.” He signalled a
waiter. “Hey, _garçon! Deux absinthes au sucre._”
Joe Kaplan speaking French! A yell of laughter inside Wilfred.
To have the effulgent Joe sitting opposite, attracting all eyes to their
table, made Wilfred exquisitely conscious of the discrepancies of his
own dress. Joe’s brilliant personality beat him to the earth; he hated
himself for being so easily overcome. He couldn’t meet those hard bright
eyes. He was full of indignation that Joe had presumed to sit down
without waiting to be asked; and at the same time he was amazed that Joe
deigned to notice him at all. Surely he could not be so insignificant as
he seemed to himself if. . . . But vanity was slain by the hateful
suggestion that it gratified Joe to sit there displaying the contrast
between them to the assembled company.
How Wilfred writhed under that thought! Yet it would have been too
ridiculous for him to get up and walk out of the place. He had not
courage enough for that. He sat there, enduring it, until people
forgetting them, looked elsewhere. Then curiosity began to burn in him,
and he no longer wished to go. What a chance to learn the truth about
Joe! If he could be induced to talk about himself; to reveal his
commonness; it would destroy the absurd, splendid, evil creature of
Wilfred’s imagination, and cure his envy.
“Funny how we always run into each other,” said Joe; “big as the town
is! What you doing now?” He was only giving Wilfred half his attention;
the black eyes were roving around.
“I work for the Exchange Trust,” said Wilfred.
“Oh, Amasa Gore’s bank. Did he put you in there? I haven’t seen Gore for
near four years. How is the old stiff? . . . And Dobereiner? And Harry
Bannerman?”
“I don’t know,” said Wilfred. “I never go there.”
“Still living with the Aunts?”
“No. I have my own place now.”
“That’s what a fellow wants, eh? When he grows up,” said Joe with a
good-humored, and infinitely suggestive grin.
Wilfred stiffened his face; but in spite of himself, his breast warmed a
little towards Joe. There was a sort of infernal bond between them.
Wilfred was a profligate too—that is, he desired to be.
The bottle and glasses were brought, each glass with a little silver
fountain placed on top, through which the water dripped on the sugar,
alternately side and side, with a fairy tinkle. Wilfred watched the
operation fascinated. He tingled with pleasure at the thought of
drinking the dangerous stuff. As the sugared water mingled with it, the
green liquor mantled and pearled.
“A whole lot has happened since those days,” Joe went on. “I’ve ceased
to be a pimp, and have become a stockjobber. It’s considered more
respectable, I understand. Anyhow, it’s more profitable. Already I’m
rich, but not as rich as I shall be. Wall street is easy picking for me.
I’ll tell you why. The fellows down there have got the name of being the
smartest on earth, and they know it, and that makes them careless, see?
They’re so accustomed to doing others, they forget that they may be
done, in their turn. Another thing; Wall street has got a bad name, and
they’re always scared of what people will say. They want to be both
pirates and pillars of the church. I got an advantage over them, because
I don’t give a damn what anybody says, as long as I can keep out of
jail. What was I? Just a kid out of the East Side gutters. I had nothing
to lose. I’m a realist, I am. I think things through.
“Besides, I got a sort of gift of reading men. I don’t know how it is,
but when I’m talkin’ to a man, I always seem to know the bad things he’s
thinking about, and is afraid to let on. Some men look good, and some
look bad; but it don’t matter how good a man _looks_, you can depend
upon it, he’s got a secret badness in him, that he nurses. Everybody
likes me because I’m so damn natural. Even the men I get the best of,
come round. Morality is the curse of this country. Everybody is sick of
it, really. That’s why an out and out bad actor like me becomes a sort
of hero to everybody. You would never believe the things that
respectable men tell me when they get a drink or two in them. It’s
morality that perverts them. They feel they can let themselves go with
me, because I got no morals. . . .”
Wilfred thought with a kind of enthusiasm: This is great stuff! I must
remember it. He asked, shyly: “How about women?”
“Oh, women,” said Joe carelessly, “they’re a different proposition. I
only know one thing about women, and that’s all that concerns me. . . .
There’s no money to be made out of women. . . . I can tell you, though,
women are a damn sight more natural than men.”
Wilfred, afire with curiosity, had not sufficient effrontery to question
him further.
Joe held his glass up to the light. “I’m crazy about this green stuff!
My favorite poison! Makes your blood sting as it runs. Makes you feel
like a king! I don’t dare drink it when I got business on hand. Might do
something reckless like telling a millionaire the truth.”
Wilfred was disappointed with his first taste of absinthe. It was as
mild and insipid as anise-seed drops. He had drunk half his glass, and
it had had no effect whatever. All at once, he realized that he was
enjoying its effect, without his having been aware of its coming on. His
heart was lifted up. All his faculties were sharpened. He found himself
able to look Joe in the face. Oh, wonder-working spirit! I shall drink
absinthe every Saturday afternoon, he resolved.
Wilfred looked at Joe. After all, he’s only a fellow like myself, he
thought. He has his parts, and I have mine. He’s a trafficker and I’m an
artist. Would I change? Not likely! I can see a damn sight further into
him, than he can into me. He sees that I have a sort of grovelling
admiration for him in my blood; what he does not see is, that I despise
him in my mind. . . .
A second absinthe followed the first.
“It’s nice to have a fellow your own age that you can let go with,” said
Joe. “I get pretty sick of playing bright-eyes all the time to those old
dubs I got to work.”
“Haven’t you any friends?” asked Wilfred with a secret satisfaction.
“Friends?” said Joe. “Hundreds! But all older men than me. Got no time
for young fellows. They just fool. I’m a business man. . . . But damn it
all! I’m only twenty-three. I like to cut loose once in a while without
thinking what I’m saying. There are women of course, but they don’t
understand a man’s thoughts. I can talk to you. From the first I felt
there was something . . . that you and I understood each other.”
Wilfred shivered internally. It’s true, he thought; but by God! I’ll
never confess it to him! Rather to his surprise he found himself talking
to Joe with an impartial air.
“I’ve always been interested in you. You’re an extraordinary fellow. You
remind me of Adam; or of an artificial man that I read about, who was
created by a great scientist, and let loose on the world. A
perfectly-functioning man, with no hereditary influences to restrain
him. It gives you a terrible advantage over the rest of us.”
“Say, what are you driving at?” said Joe with a hard stare.
Wilfred smiled to himself. Got under his skin that time! However, he did
not wish to quarrel with the man, but to explore him. In order to divert
him, he said: “I’d like to hear about your Wall street operations.”
Joe’s annoyance passed. “Ah, to hell with my operations!” he said. “This
is out of business hours. . . . I’d like to get good and drunk over
Sunday. Are you on?”
Wilfred was sharply arrested by desire. What a chance! After that Joe
would have no mysteries for him! But of course, a power outside his
control shook his head for him. He heard himself saying primly: “Sunday
is my working day.”
Joe was not sufficiently interested to enquire what he meant. “That’s a
good-looking wench over here at my left,” he said; “the one with the
black hat tipped over her nose.”
Wilfred was willing to meet him on that ground. “Out o’ sight,” he
agreed. “Wonderful looking girls come here.”
“They ought to be,” said Joe; “highest-priced in town . . . let’s get a
couple. . .”
An icy hand was laid on Wilfred, chilling the absinthe-engendered
warmth. In spite of himself, he could not quite command his face. Joe
chuckled.
“It’s easy fixed,” he said. “All you got to do is slip a bill to the
waiter. You don’t even have to do that, because François will get a
rake-off from the girls later. He has a list of their telephone numbers,
see? He calls them up, and in a few minutes a pair of them will breeze
in and say: ‘_So_ sorry we were late!’”
Wilfred miserably shook his head.
“You don’t need to be afraid of them,” said Joe. “Just because they look
like Duchesses. They wouldn’t be let in here if they didn’t. They’re
just girls like any others. They’ll make it easy for you, when they see
you’re green.”
This was bitter for Wilfred. “I’m not afraid of them,” he said quickly.
Joe laughed again. “Aw, come on,” he said.
“I’m not dressed. . . .”
“It don’t matter,” said Joe. “So long as you have the price.”
“But I haven’t,” said Wilfred desperately.
“Oh Hell!” said Joe. “I didn’t suppose you had. This is on me. . . .
Look!” He produced a wallet from his breast pocket, and partly opening
it, revealed a thick stuffing of crisp new yellow-backed bills. “That’s
my Sunday money. I’ll go halves with you.”
“I . . . I couldn’t,” stammered Wilfred, grinding his teeth.
“Why not? Money means nothing to me. I mean spending money. It would be
fun to give you a swell, expensive time for once. You look as if you
needed it. Come on; to-morrow’s Sunday.”
Wilfred thought: This is not generosity, but merely the desire to shine
at my expense. He was almost suffocated with wounded pride. He could not
trust himself to speak; but merely shook his head again.
Joe was enjoying his discomfiture. “Haven’t you ever?” he asked,
grinning.
“Sure!” lied Wilfred. “But I didn’t buy it.”
“Oh, sure!” said Joe. “Love. That’s all right, too. But there’s
something about a pretty girl you never saw before, and never expect to
see again . . . you don’t give a damn, and she don’t. . . . Look here,
I’ll lend you the money. You can pay me back.” He held up a finger for
François.
“You’ll have to entertain them by yourself,” warned Wilfred. “I won’t
stay!”
“Oh, to Hell with it, then!” said Joe, disgruntled.
When the waiter came, Joe asked for their bill. Wilfred insisted on
paying for half the drinks, taking care to conceal from Joe how thinly
his wallet was lined. They left the café in silence. On the pavement
outside, Joe signalled for a cab, and Wilfred stiffly bade him good-bye.
Joe, grinning sideways at Wilfred, caught hold of his arm. “Wait a
minute, fellow!”
Wilfred read that grin perfectly. His thoughts were bitter.
“Come along with me,” Joe said. “I’m going up to see my girl—my steady
girl I mean. Been going with her five years. Almost like an old married
pair.”
“Sorry, I can’t,” said Wilfred. “Some other time. . . .”
“Aw, come on. This is just a social call. She’s a peach of a looker.
She’ll put you at your ease. . . .”
Wilfred detached his arm. “Sorry, I can’t,” he said. “Good-bye.”
Joe, one foot on the step of the cab, called after him: “Say, Kid, it’s
time you grew up!”
Wilfred walked away quickly. Joe’s parting shot rankled like a barbed
dart. It was true! It was true! He had not yet become a man!