Such was the delightful tenor of Stafford’s reflections as he led the way to a table in the tastefully subdued supper room at the Vanderbilt. It was, as he had hoped it would be, crowded. The soft carpets caressed his feet; a Viennese waltz sounded in his ears; the second glances at Betty Blair filled his heart with pride and his chest with wind. He motioned the waiter aside and himself adjusted her chair and arranged her cape. Then, after giving their order, he sat and regarded her expectantly, still scenting vaguely the delicious perfume that had arisen from her crown of golden brown hair.
“I’m not going to ask why you’re so kind to me,” he said. Betty Blair sat silent, pulling off her gloves.
“What do reasons amount to at a time like this?” continued Stafford. “It’s enough to know that we are here. Outside is the world, with its sorrows and its pain, its cold logic and its stubborn facts. No one knows better than I how full it is of shams and lies and hypocrisy. It is only when his heart speaks that a man tells the truth.”
“And you?”
“Mine is speaking now. It has been — ever since I first saw you. If I could only tell you all that I have felt — all that these few days have meant to me! I have thought of nothing else, I have cared for nothing else, but this.” His tone was full of earnestness, his eyes looked into hers with a sincere and real appeal.
“But you don’t expect me to believe you?”
“Try me,” Stafford leaned forward and spoke eagerly. “I know what you would say: that I do not know you. Ah! Do I not? Who could look into your eyes without seeing the kindness of your heart? Nothing could make me happier than that you should ask me for proof. Anything — I would do anything.”
A smile, charming and earnest, appeared on the face of Betty Blair. She stretched a hand across the table toward Stafford. Her eyes looked into his with confidence and satisfaction.
“I believe you,” she said, “because I want to. But I’m going to demand your proof.”
“I would do anything, go anywhere for you,” repeated Stafford, as gravely as his intoxication would permit. “A demand from you is a favor. Try me.”
Betty Blair opened a large silk bag which she had carried on her arm, and from it took a long slip of paper, a leather bound tablet and a fountain pen. She turned a cool, calculating eye on Stafford, unsheathed the fountain pen, and cleared her throat in a businesslike manner.
“Your address is 25 Broad Street?”
Stafford, guessing wildly as to the meaning of these deliberate preparations, nodded.
Betty Blair turned to a page in the leather bound book and wrote on it. Then:
“You are a Republican, I believe?”
“Unless you’re a Democrat.”
“Mr. Stafford, this is no joke. You are a Republican?”
“I am,” seriously. “Is it a crime?”
For reply Betty Blair pushed the slip of paper across the table and handed him the fountain pen. “Sign on the twenty-fourth line, please,” she said.
As Stafford caught up the paper and read the printed paragraph at the top his jaw became firmly set and his hand trembled. Then he looked across at Betty Blair with a cold and cheerless eye.
“Miss Blair,” he said, “I congratulate you. But you’ve missed your mark. I refuse to keep a promise obtained by fraud and misrepresentation.”
“Mr. Stafford!”
“O piffle!” said the exasperated Stafford inelegantly. “You’ve deceived me. You’ve destroyed my illusions. But you’re up against the wrong man. Take it from me, the best thing you can do is to put a marble bust of Sappho on your mantelpiece, read carefully the life of Peg Woffington and hang Susan B. Anthony on a sour apple tree. If you’ve finished supper I’m ready to go.”
“Mr. Stafford,” Betty Blair’s voice was cold and stern, “this is no time for personalities. Can you deny that ‘Votes for Women’ is the universal password in the intellectual world of today? I’m not surprised that you wouldn’t sign that pledge, even after you’d promised. It’s just like a man. But I warn you—” she choked with indignation — “I warn you—”
“You have already,” Stafford rose and laid a bill on his plate. Then, as he turned to go, “Never again for me,” he said bitterly. “An hour ago I was thanking God I’d found you. Now I’m thankful I found you out — before it was too late. Oh, I know what a real woman is — or ought to be. I read about one once in a novel. I had no idea they’d gone so far as to demoralize the stage.”
That was all. An hour later Stafford was uneventfully and comfortably lying lonesome but safe in his bachelor bed. The only really important thing about the story is its application. As Stafford himself expressed it a day or two later, it’s a waste of time to search for live specimens of an extinct species.
A Professional Recall
They met at Quinby’s unexpectedly, for the first time in three months, and after the handshake proceeded to their old table in the corner.
“Well, how goes it?” asked Bendy.
“Bendy,” said Dudd Bronson, ignoring the question, “I am the greatest man in the world. I myself am for ham and cabbage, since it tickles my feelings, but if you want anything from peacocks’ hearts to marmalade, it’s on me.”
Bendy stared at the roll of bills Dudd brought out of his trousers’ pocket. “Dudd,” he said, his voice trembling, “I respect you. Please put it in your breast pocket so I can see the bulge. What was the occurrence?”
“I hate to tell it,” declared Dudd. “Bendy, I am a modest man. When you admire me most, remember I said that.
“The pity of it is that there was no one to watch me. I done it in solitude.
“One day, about two weeks ago, I walks into the sanctum of David Jetmore. Jetmore is the best lawyer in Horton, over in Jersey. He’s one of them fat, bulgy men that looks right through you with a circumambious gaze.
“ ‘Mr. Jetmore,’ says I, ‘my name is Abe Delman. I been running a store over in Pauline with my brother Leo. We had a fight over a personal matter which ain’t to the purpose, and when Leo began lookin’ for me in an unpeaceful manner I came away for my health. Now I want to get my half of the store which I am broke till I get it, and you should write to Leo’s lawyer, who is Mr. Devlin of Ironton, about a settlement.’
“ ‘Have you something for a retainer?’ asks Jetmore.
“ ‘No,’ says I, ‘I’m livin’ at a hotel.’
“ ‘I’m a busy man,’ says Jetmore, ‘and how do I know I’ll get any money?’
“ ‘Mr. Jetmore,’ says I, ‘that store’s worth three thousand dollars if it’s worth a cent. And if my half ain’t enough, maybe you can get Leo to give you some of his.’
“Finally, after I explained promiscuously why I had to keep at an unsafe distance from brother Leo, and other delicate points, Jetmore says he’ll take the job. When he says Devlin, Leo’s lawyer in Ironton, is a personal friend of his, I told him that made it all the better, but I had a mental reserve about the espree dee corpse.
“That same afternoon about four hours later I walks into Devlin’s office in Ironton.
“ ‘Mr. Devlin,’ says I, ‘my name is Leo Delman. I been running it a store over in Pauline with my brother Abe. We had a fight over a personal matter which ain’t to the purpose, and Abe left for parts unknown without my blessing. Two days ago comes a letter from Abe’s lawyer, Mr. Jetmore of Horton, about Abe’s share in the store, which he didn’t wait to take with him, and I told him to write to you, because you should make it a settlement for me.’