“Often, however,” he explained to Marcus who admired him very much because he was a conventional success, “I merely study the faces in the subway, wonder what lives have produced such faces, and write sonnets about them when I get home.”
Marcus blazed with desire when he heard Algernon’s somewhat off-hand account of Irene. His own desires were orthodox and straight-forward, and such a girl was just what he longed for. He paid expensive court to Irene and took her to theatres, to the opera and to the ballet, night after night, being impatient. At the conclusion of two weeks, he proposed to Irene that she go to Atlantic City with him for the week-end. She refused flatly, and when he asked if she thought she might feel differently after six months, she said she was sure she would not, she was sorry, but to be perfectly frank, she found him unattractive. Marcus in anger replied that she had a capitalist and Hollywood conception of what was handsome, for he had been told by some girls that he was extremely attractive. He did not add that it was a colored girl to whom he had just paid ten dollars who had said: “Boy, are you handsome!”
No sooner had Marcus stopped seeing Irene than she began to go out with Ferdinand to whom she had been introduced by Marcus. The truth was that Marcus suspected Ferdinand of interviewing and seeking out Irene before his rejected week-end proposal.
Marcus was hurt, as if he had been betrayed. He saw no reason for Ferdinand’s being successful where he had failed, and he felt also that such a one as Ferdinand, precious and finicky, had been unfaithful to himself in going with a girl like Irene. He protested long, as if obsessed, to Edmund and Jacob. Both of them, perverted by Marcus’ stolid foolishness, provoked Marcus all the more.
Ferdinand hated Algernon and refused to acknowledge his existence when they passed on the street. The year before, Algernon’s father had hanged himself because of losses in the stock market, and the circle had had a merry time about this event, for none of them liked Algernon, whom they had known as a student. They had discovered that when they asked most acquaintances if they had heard about Algernon’s father, most of them said:
“Yes, he hanged himself!” and broke out laughing. The laughter was directed at Algernon as a prig, and not at the father, a small, quiet, extremely nervous man whom no one knew very well.
The outlandish answer and laughter continued so that as each newcomer was asked the question and broke into laughter, Ferdinand said:
“Look, everyone breaks out laughing,” and he was pleased.
And this had also been the inspiration of the most notorious instance of an incapacity to make conversation and engage in small talk, for one day Harry Johnson, an acquaintance of the circle and of Algernon, one renowned for shyness and insensitivity, had encountered Algernon soon after his father’s death. After several abortive efforts to make conversation with Algernon, who was no help whatever, Harry tried to break the silence between sentences.
“Say, what’s this I hear about your father hanging himself?” he inquired.
This question had been discussed for six months, especially by Rudyard who maintained that it was a direct expression of Harry’s hatred of Algernon.
Knowing how Ferdinand detested Algernon, Marcus felt that the one thing which would make him abandon Irene was the knowledge that she had been intimate with Algernon. This would certainly waken the finicky dandy in him.
Jacob was consulted by Marcus.
“Go ahead and tell him, if you like,” said Jacob, “but if you tell him, you may not take much pride in yourself hereafter.”
“After all, I am a friend of his,” said Marcus. “Perhaps it is my duty to tell him?”
“Who do you think you are making that remark to?” said Jacob. Marcus grinned in guilt and recognition. Then he suggested that perhaps Jacob, also a good friend of Ferdinand, ought to tell him about Irene and Algernon, since he had no personal stake.
“You ought to be dead,” said Jacob.
Meanwhile the news of the courtship grew. Ferdinand, who hardly ever lent a book to anyone, was lending certain selected works, long sacred to him, to Irene.
“This surely is serious,” said Jacob to Edmund.
Stiffly and shyly, Ferdinand was seen bringing Irene to see other treasures and curios of his private cult. It was like the loving son who for the first time brings his intended to see his mother and his father.
“This must mean marriage,” said Jacob.
Ferdinand undertook to supervise Irene’s habits of dress. He went with her to the dressmaker’s and he quickly persuaded her to shift from the garish to the elegant. She was surprised to find that he knew so much about dress and delighted that he cared about such matters.
He explained curtly that he had had several extra-marital relationships which had provided him with an opportunity to learn about such things. He made this explanation because he felt that he must make it clear that he had committed adultery, just as in other periods chastity was deemed a necessity and a virtue.
The two united extremes; it was the union of a brash, bright, full, open, vivacious and buxom girl to a constrained, meticulous, reserved and tormented young man.
The boys of the circle observed that strange changes also occurred in Ferdinand, now that he went with Irene. He had always abhorred politics, especially radical politics. Now he spoke with a venom he had once reserved for discourteous headwaiters of the infamy of the Stalinists.
“What does she have that I don’t have?” said Laura. No one answered her although conversation had concentrated upon Irene for an hour. The silence was sharp. Laura thrust her head forward.
“You’re no Adonis,” she said to Edmund.
“What did I do?” asked Edmund, moved at the same time to sympathy and laughter.
“She has thick ankles and her complexion is rotten,” said Laura.
“Who?” said Edmund.
“This too shall pass away,” quoted Laura, departing for the kitchen to get herself a fresh drink.
At that moment the door slammed like a gunshot and Marcus entered.
“Hello, hello, hello,” he shouted, the image of abounding good humor.
“What now?” said Jacob.
“What next?” said Edmund.
“I hear that Ferdinand has just married Irene,” said Marcus, enjoying the astonishment of this news. He drew forth the engraved card which announced that Ferdinand and Irene would be at home to their friends on Saturday night.
“You will get one tomorrow,” said Marcus, “I met Ferdinand in the street and he gave me one.”
“What are you so pleased about?” asked Laura. “You’re not the one who married Irene.”
“I have a very good reason to be pleased,” said Marcus, “I know something that Ferdinand does not know.”
“Shut up,” said Jacob, but vainly.
“What does he know?” asked Lloyd Tyler who had not heard about Irene’s intimacy with Algernon.
“This card is very fine,” said Jacob, shifting the subject, “it is just like Ferdinand to send a card as well-engraved as this.”
“It must have cost a pretty penny,” said Marcus, grinning.
Laura returned from the kitchen where she had listened as she drank. She replied to Lloyd’s question as if it had just been uttered.
“Marcus has been saying that Irene used to sleep with Algernon and he is going to tell Ferdinand.”
“Who says I am going to tell him?” said Marcus, trying to look indignant, but breaking into a fresh grin.
“You had better shut up,” said Jacob, all his authority in his tone. To himself he said: “Everyone does what he wants to do if he can, after paying his respects to scruple and compunction.”
“I won’t say anything,” said Marcus, whom Jacob alone was able to persuade to be silent. “But if I drink the champagne that Ferdinand is going to have, who knows what slips of the tongue, what lapsus linguae may not leak out? In vino veritas, they say!” he chortled, pleased that he had spoken Latin.