So saying, he hung up, cutting off a squeal of protest
He turned to his work, which, it so happened, had to do with tenders for the electric wiring of showcases. The relish with which he had rebuked the powers of spiritual darkness abated a little in face of these figures on cultural light He fondled the flake from a stone cheek that served him as a paper-weight. All winter it had exuded a little of its stored four thousand years of sunshine into the grey of his office. Today, however, it seemed just a lump of stone. Yet somewhere in the general greyness there was something it was very vague, very elusive a mere memory of a golden gleam.
Suddenly, he found himself thinking of the yellow waistcoat. Or rather, he just saw it. He saw the waistcoat, and he saw himself inside that waistcoat, on the steps of a small but solid country house; a man of leisure, a scholar, a gentleman.
This vivid but very secret waistcoat, of a colour strong as corn colour, but bright as canary, was not wholly imaginary. Seven years ago, on their honeymoon, Henry and Edna had been to Europe, including England, and, in England, to the races. In the paddock Henry had noticed an old man with a red face and white hair. Even as he looked at him he overheard someone saying, "See the old man with the red face and white hair. That's Lord Lonsdale. The one in the yellow waistcoat"
Henry had had a good look at him; he found his red-faced lordship more interesting than the horses. He noted the unusual amplitude of the whitey-grey tweeds, which gave the old boy, with his side whiskers and apple cheeks, the appearance of a bluff old farmer as he stood among the fashionable crowd. Henry, whose taste was of the best, recognized this bucolic touch as the mark of the true prince.
The yellow waistcoat was unquestionably the key and signature to this masterpiece. "For a fat man," thought Henry, "it is certainly necessary to be a prince to wear a waistcoat of that colour. But a dark, slim man, if he was very rich, and lived the right way . . ."
"Who is it you are staring at so hard?" Edna had asked.
"No one in particular," he had said. "Do you see that old man with the red face? I think they said he was Lord Lonsdale."
"He looks an old darling," she had said.
Since then, when in vacant and in pensive mood, Henry had found this glorious waistcoat flash upon his inner eye with an effect much like that of Wordsworth's daffodils. When he read of Lord Lonsdale's death, he felt almost like a missing heir.
He once saw a waistcoat, not quite so arrogantly unwearable, but nearly, in the window of Abercrombie & Fitch. He thought of the long history of man, and his own poor seventy years of it. And in that no yellow waistcoat.
Who else was to wear it? Henry reviewed the trivial lives and unsatisfactory appearances of the very rich. One could hardly imagine Mr. Ford in a waistcoat of that description. His soul cried out to the waistcoat, and the waistcoat cried out to him. They needed one another. A sliver of plate glass and a paltry million or two utterly divided them.
"That man, the slim one with the shining dark hair, is Henry Sanford, the millionaire archeologist"
"He looks a darling."
Never had the yellow waistcoat gleamed so persistently in the dark recesses of Henry's thoughts, never had all it symbolized of leisure, and position, and the good life, and being a darling, been so clear as this afternoon. A full hour had passed, and the reports were almost where they were. Then Henry's telephone rang again.
"Is that Mr. Sanford? Will you hold the wire, please? This is Cosmos, Hollywood. Mr. Fishbein wishes to speak to you."
"Oh, hell!" said Henry to himself.
"Mr. Sanford, I've called up personally to make you a very, very humble apology."
"What's that? Oh, no."
"I gather our New York branch has been wasting your time, bothering you."
"Oh, no. Really. They just called up."
"We know what the museum stands for, Mr. Sanford. Several of our stars make it their first port of call just as soon as ever they hit New York. Here in Hollywood we've come to realize what a museum means in the way of background, authenticity. I'm afraid our New York office was a little brash."
"Not at all," said Henry. "Not in the least."
"I've often wondered what the people thought when the first Greek produced the first statue," pursued the imperturbable voice, smooth and irresistible as that of an after-dinner speaker reading from notes. "I guess maybe they put it down as just a phase, something that hadn't come to stay. I don't expect a Greek aristocrat would have liked the idea of his child sitting for a nymph or cherub. Mr. Sanford, there's a very great deal of difference between the spoiled prodigy of the Victorian theatre phase, and the natural, simple, thoroughly wholesome and normal child genius of motion pictures, who is to all intents and purposes unconscious of the lens."
"Oh, quite, quite," said Henry.
"I wish you had met up with one or two of our principal Hollywood children," continued Mr. Fishbein. "I mean the top one or two, raised under parental control, with a qualified psychiatrist in the background. You would enjoy a romp with these unspoiled youngsters. Has it ever struck you, Mr. Sanford, that in any up-to-date school your daughter will be called upon to take part in little playlets, calculated to foster the instinct for dramatic art?"
"There is a very great difference," said Henry.
"There is a difference," said Mr. Fishbein, "of two or three million dollars. I am not talking salary to you, Mr. Sanford, though this is a big vehicle we are casting, about the biggest child-opportunity in film history. But do you ever think of royalties, royalties on toys, children's underwear, that sort of thing? However, I don't expect that phase interests a man of your standing. I know you feel all the publicity and ballyhoo might spoil the kiddie. If you saw some of the screen mamas we have to cope with here, you'd know who did the spoiling. With parents of your background, your little girl might go to Bryn Mawr when she was through out here, and, apart from her dress, no one could pick her out from any bunch of sub-debs on the campus. Well, it's been very nice to chat with you, Mr. Sanford. I hope you'll let me drop in at your museum next time I come East have a look at some of those splendid pictures and busts. By the way, how do you folks in the art world regard the screen drama in its present phase?"
"Well . . ." said Henry.
He was still saying "well" fifteen minutes later. Mr. Fishbein seemed determined to say a great deal.
"There is a great deal in what you say," said Henry. "I must admit I hadn't thought of one or two of those points before. I'll call you up tomorrow morning, Mr. Fishbein. I'll let you know definitely."
Henry hung up. He found himself in a state of peculiar excitement. His breathing was affected. His mind seemed to be working furiously, yet produced no thought. "There is a good deal of difference, to a child," said he at last, "between having an overworked, undistinguished, hard-up, eternally bothered sort of father, and the sort I might be."
"Who is that dark, slim, distinguished-looking millionaire archeologist in the yellow waistcoat? He looks a darling."
"He's my daddy."
It was on the campus at Bryn Mawr. The girls were a lovely lot that year.
"Oh, hell!" said Henry. "I must keep myself out of this. But that cuts both ways. I must keep my prejudices out also."
In the end he got up and caught his usual train, being, as not infrequently happened, very nearly run over near the entrance to Grand Central. "If I had been killed by that cab," thought Henry, "what would my life have been?"
Bates was on the train. Bates was a publisher. With him was another man from the Tarrytown district, a man called Cartwright, a plump and merry man, with shining eyeglasses. A fourth came in shortly after Henry had taken his seat. This was a man whose name none of them knew, because he seldom opened his mouth. He was sallow, lantern-jawed, with a wry smile and an attentive, understanding eye. They seemed to know him very well, God knows how; he always joined them when he travelled on the train, ventured nothing, replied briefly, and nodded cordially when they got off at Tarrytown. He himself went on. When he was not there, they missed him. His nod and his astringent smile were valued.