Fifth Avenue and Forty-fourth Street swarmed with the noon crowd. The
wealthy, happy sun glittered in transient gold through the thick
windows of the smart shops, lighting upon mesh bags and purses and
strings of pearls in gray velvet cases; upon gaudy feather fans of
many colors; upon the laces and silks of expensive dresses; upon the
bad paintings and the fine period furniture in the elaborate show
rooms of interior decorators.
Working-girls, in pairs and groups and swarms, loitered by these
windows, choosing their future boudoirs from some resplendent display
which included even a man’s silk pajamas laid domestically across the
bed. They stood in front of the jewelry stores and picked out their
engagement rings, and their wedding rings and their platinum wrist
watches, and then drifted on to inspect the feather fans and opera
cloaks; meanwhile digesting the sandwiches and sundaes they had eaten
for lunch.
All through the crowd were men in uniform, sailors from the great
fleet anchored in the Hudson, soldiers with divisional insignia from
Massachusetts to California, wanting fearfully to be noticed, and
finding the great city thoroughly fed up with soldiers unless they
were nicely massed into pretty formations and uncomfortable under the
weight of a pack and rifle. Through this medley Dean and Gordon
wandered; the former interested, made alert by the display of humanity
at its frothiest and gaudiest; the latter reminded of how often he had
been one of the crowd, tired, casually fed, overworked, and
dissipated. To Dean the struggle was significant, young, cheerful; to
Gordon it was dismal, meaningless, endless.
In the Yale Club they met a group of their former classmates who
greeted the visiting Dean vociferously. Sitting in a semicircle of
lounges and great chairs, they had a highball all around.
Gordon found the conversation tiresome and interminable. They lunched
together _en masse_, warmed with liquor as the afternoon began.
They were all going to the Gamma Psi dance that night--it promised to
be the best party since the war.
“Edith Bradin’s coming,” said some one to Gordon. “Didn’t she used to
be an old flame of yours? Aren’t you both from Harrisburg?”
“Yes.” He tried to change the subject. “I see her brother
occasionally. He’s sort of a socialistic nut. Runs a paper or
something here in New York.”
“Not like his gay sister, eh?” continued his eager informant. “Well,
she’s coming to-night--with a junior named Peter Himmel.”
Gordon was to meet Jewel Hudson at eight o’clock--he had promised to
have some money for her. Several times he glanced nervously at his
wrist watch. At four, to his relief, Dean rose and announced that he
was going over to Rivers Brothers to buy some collars and ties. But as
they left the Club another of the party joined them, to Gordon’s great
dismay. Dean was in a jovial mood now, happy, expectant of the
evening’s party, faintly hilarious. Over in Rivers’ he chose a dozen
neckties, selecting each one after long consultations with the other
man. Did he think narrow ties were coming back? And wasn’t it a shame
that Rivers couldn’t get any more Welsh Margotson collars? There never
was a collar like the “Covington.”
Gordon was in something of a panic. He wanted the money immediately.
And he was now inspired also with a vague idea of attending the Gamma
Psi dance. He wanted to see Edith--Edith whom he hadn’t met since one
romantic night at the Harrisburg Country Club just before he went to
France. The affair had died, drowned in the turmoil of the war and
quite forgotten in the arabesque of these three months, but a picture
of her, poignant, debonnaire, immersed in her own inconsequential
chatter, recurred to him unexpectedly and brought a hundred memories
with it. It was Edith’s face that he had cherished through college
with a sort of detached yet affectionate admiration. He had loved to
draw her--around his room had been a dozen sketches of her--playing
golf, swimming--he could draw her pert, arresting profile with his
eyes shut.
They left Rivers’ at five-thirty and paused for a moment on the
sidewalk.
“Well,” said Dean genially, “I’m all set now. Think I’ll go back to
the hotel and get a shave, haircut, and massage.”
“Good enough,” said the other man, “I think I’ll join you.”
Gordon wondered if he was to be beaten after all. With difficulty he
restrained himself from turning to the man and snarling out, “Go on
away, damn you!” In despair he suspected that perhaps Dean had spoken
to him, was keeping him along in order to avoid a dispute about the
money.
They went into the Biltmore--a Biltmore alive with girls--mostly from
the West and South, the stellar débutantes of many cities gathered for
the dance of a famous fraternity of a famous university. But to Gordon
they were faces in a dream. He gathered together his forces for a last
appeal, was about to come out with he knew not what, when Dean
suddenly excused himself to the other man and taking Gordon’s arm led
him aside.
“Gordy,” he said quickly, “I’ve thought the whole thing over carefully
and I’ve decided that I can’t lend you that money. I’d like to oblige
you, but I don’t feel I ought to--it’d put a crimp in me for a month.”
Gordon, watching him dully, wondered why he had never before noticed
how much those upper teeth projected.
“I’m--mighty sorry, Gordon,” continued Dean, “but that’s the way it
is.”
He took out his wallet and deliberately counted out seventy-five
dollars in bills.
“Here,” he said, holding them out, “here’s seventy-five; that makes
eighty all together. That’s all the actual cash I have with me,
besides what I’ll actually spend on the trip.”
Gordon raised his clenched hand automatically, opened it as though it
were a tongs he was holding, and clenched it again on the money.
“I’ll see you at the dance,” continued Dean. “I’ve got to get along to
the barber shop.”
“So-long,” said Gordon in a strained and husky voice.
“So-long.”
Dean, began to smile, but seemed to change his mind. He nodded briskly
and disappeared.
But Gordon stood there, his handsome face awry with distress, the roll
of bills clenched tightly in his hand. Then, blinded by sudden tears,
he stumbled clumsily down the Biltmore steps.