“Won’t you take off your coat?”
“I really shouldn’t. I can only stay a minute and get the story. Uh. Postponed. Would you care to tell me why you’re postponing it, Mr. English?”
“Mrs. English would be able to tell you better. I think you ought to ask her, because it’s really her party. I’d rather not talk to the press, because after all it is her party.”
“Oh, I see,” said Miss Cartwright. “Oh, don’t hang it up. Just put it on the chair or some place. This is awfully strong. I’m not used to drinking. I don’t suppose I average more than a drink a week, all year round.”
“I’ll give you some more ginger ale.”
“This is an awfully attractive house. Did Mrs. English do it herself?”
“Yes.”
“She has terribly good taste. Oh! Foujita! I love Foujita! Is it a real Foujita or a copy? I mean—”
“It’s a print. You look quite different without glasses.”
“I have to wear them when I’m driving or walking. I couldn’t get a license unless I wore them and if I drive without them I’m liable to be fined or have my license taken away. Why don’t you try a Spud?”
“No, thanks. I can’t get used to them.”
“That’s what I thought, but I did finally, and now I can’t smoke any other kind. I hope I’m not keeping you from anything, Mr. English.”
“Far from it. I’m glad you came.”
“I shouldn’t have come, but I did want to get the list of guests right. People are so touchy. Not that Mrs. English is. She’s very considerate, and believe me, that’s a lot. But I’ve made some mistakes lately about who was at whose party and so on, and some of the Gibbsville matrons have raised the devil down at the office. So I only have this list we printed in Gwen Gibbs a month ago and I wanted to be sure if there were any changes. Additions and so on, to the original list.”
“It’s a tough job, isn’t it?”
“Oh, is it ever tough? It isn’t really, most of the time, but once in a while we have a sort of wave of indignation or something. Women call up and just raise the devil because names were left out or parties weren’t given the prominence they thought they ought to have. And of course I always get it in the end, they pass the buck to me. Some people named Bromberg, Jews, they almost got me fired last week. They took out their ad and everything, just because I didn’t use a story they sent in about some imported English perambulator they bought for their baby. You should have seen the story! I couldn’t possibly use it or the paper would have been a joke, but did they back me up? They did not. I finally had to run a half a stick about it, but I killed the gushy part, and so the Brombergs put their ad in again and I have to lick everybody’s boots and kowtow to everybody that appears on the society page. Not Mrs. English, but I can’t say as much for some of your friends. Well, thanks very much for the drink and I’m sorry you’re not having the party. It’s very nice to have met you. I often see you driving those beautiful Cadillacs around town. When we first came to Gibbsville I used to wonder who you were…. My goodness, what made me say that?”
“Have another drink before you go. Stay and tell me more.”
“Oh, yes. Oh, my yes. Can’t you just see me? No, I better go while the going’s good. Oh, I don’t mean that the way it sounds, Mr. English, but people talk so much in this town.” Julian had a quick recollection of a story about the Baptist minister’s daughter going without stockings. Unwillingly he looked at her legs, and she apprehended the look. “That’s it,” she said. “You heard it yourself. I’ll never live it down, going without stockings. It’s all right in front of Queen Mary, but not in Gibbsville. Well, thanks again. See you again some time.”
“Don’t go,” he said. Unaccountably he liked her. More than that, he didn’t want her to put on her glasses. She wasn’t bad-looking. She wasn’t pretty. But she wasn’t bad-looking, and she had an interesting figure; not sensationally good, but you could have fun with it. He hated himself, but he had an enormous desire to discover this girl.
“What time is it?” she said.
“It isn’t even ten o’clock. It’s still in the nine class. Nine-thirty-five, nine-thirty-seven, something like that. It’s very early.”
“Well, one more drink, although why you want me to stay I don’t know. I look a wreck. Haven’t even been home from the office.” She gazed around the room, just getting ready to sit down, and then she said: “Mr. English, I’d feel a thousand per cent better if you’d let me wash my hands.”
“Oh, I’m terribly sorry. I’ll show you.”
“Just tell me where it is, I’ll find it.”
“I better show you. There’s no light, I don’t think.”
“This is terribly embarrassing, or would be if you weren’t so nice. I always feel more at ease with a married man. Tell you the truth, my back teeth are floating.”
He was shocked and he was glad it was too dark for her to see his face. Either that one drink had had an unusual effect, or little Miss Cartwright—who was not little, but rather reedy—could turn out to be fun. He lit the lights and then came downstairs and made himself a drink. He heard her, and then he saw her coming down the stairs, slowly now; step by step, at ease. Her steps might have meant self-confidence, in which case he did not like it and did not like her. He wanted to seduce this girl, but he wanted to do it because he was able to through experience and superior knowledge. He didn’t want her to have anything to do with it except to acquiesce. Still, she was near-sighted or something. That might explain the way she walked.
“Rye and ginger ale,” he said.
“Right,” she said. She sat down, and now he was sure it was confidence. He almost laughed in her face. She was not a girl who would be included in anyone’s list of attractive damsels, but she had as much confidence at this moment as Norma Shearer or Peggy Joyce or somebody. He knew now that she was not a virgin, no matter what he had thought ever before; and while he made a drink for her he imagined the ridiculous scene with probably a veterinary student with two or three scholastic keys and fraternity pins on his vest—the rush of life in the direction of Miss Cartwright, and the quick rush away. He wondered how old she was, and he asked her as he handed her her drink.
“Old enough to know better,” and then, “I’m twenty-three. Why do you ask that? Just curiosity or what?”
The Big Ten confidence. “What, probably. I don’t know. I just wondered. I couldn’t make an accurate guess myself, so I asked you.”
“That’s refreshing nowadays. Now how old are you?”
“Thirty.”
“That’s what I thought. I thought about twenty-eight, but you go around with so much older people that I thought in a town like this you—oh, I don’t know what I thought. It doesn’t make much difference. This drink is much stronger. I suppose you know that.”
“Yes. I made it exactly as strong as mine. As a matter of fact I had an extra one while you were upstairs. Where’d you go to school?”
“University of Missouri.”
“Oh, did you? I was thinking of going to one of the Western Conference schools one time.”
“Well, you wouldn’t have gone to Missouri, then. Missouri isn’t in the Conference.”
“Oh, I thought it was.”
“No,” she said. “I started at Missouri before we came to Gibbsville. I was thinking of transferring to Columbia, to save the expense of train fare and so on, but I decided to stay out there. I studied journalism.”
“Oh, I see,” he said. Her breasts were small. Practically non-existent while she had her dress on, but they would be neat.