"It's the grown-up manifestation."
"Manifestation of what?"
"Put them in water while I get dressed," I said. "Of something you
might learn--someday."
5
We had dinner together in the Knight's Bar.
She with one white orchid.
Jay received us with just the right look of appreciation for her--just
the right glimmer for me. He was sorry such things happened, but he
admired my taste.
The hotel staff, I knew, was by now vigorously discussing the matter.
The girls who ran the elevators, the telephone girls, the room-service
checkers, the cashiers, the waiters, the bellboys. Pros and cons:
He's an artist--and they're different. She's just another of those
rich wives on the make. I bet you wish you were one, yourself, you
hypocrite! Poor Mrs. Wylie! She's a nice, quiet girl and I'll bet he
swept her off her feet--because that's what newspapermen and writers
all are: chasers. Those quiet ones knock over more husbands than all
the flashy jobs in town! We all do, if we get a chance. I don't blame
either of them. I think both of them are stinkers. Whose business is
it?
Up with the dishes, down with the cars, in with the stapler, out with
the phone plugs--and on and on while typewriters paused and adding
machines stood briefly still. Romance or scandal--take your choice.
And never a sign to me but Jay's gleam--never a future syllable to
Ricky: a conspiracy of employed custom, reinforced by a small world of
reciprocal liking.