It was after four o’clock when she got there, and Yancy was at the bar. He saw her enter and watched her approach, and then, just as she reached the bar, he turned his back and spoke to her reflection in the long mirror behind a row of beer glasses.
“Get the hell out of here,” he said.
“What?” she said.
“You heard me,” he said. “Get the hell out of here and don’t ever come back.”
She stared past him into the mirror, meeting his eyes sadly, and he was almost convinced for a moment that he had hurt her inexcusably and should be ashamed of himself.
“Why are you abusing me?” she said. “Don’t you believe that I am as sorry as you for what happened?”
“No.”
“Do you believe that it happened because of me?”
“Yes.”
“Is it because you hate me so much that you want to think so badly of me?”
“I don’t hate you. What would be the use? It would be like hating cancer.”
“If you don’t hate me, why don’t you look at me?”
“I don’t want to look at you. I don’t want to see you or talk to you or have you near me. I’m sick of you, and I’m afraid of you. You’re contagious. I told you before what you were, and I told Joe, but it didn’t do any good, and now it’ll never do any good. He’s dead, and there’s no way of proving who did it, I guess, but you know and I know why it happened, that it was because of you and what you are and did. I wish it had been you instead of him, but it wasn’t, and probably that’ll be all right, after all. In the end, you’ll probably find a harder and slower way to die.”
She shook her head from side to side, as if she would not believe that he was saying such cruel things to her, and the heavy side of her hair moved slowly back and forth over one sad eye.
“All right,” she said. “I can see that I had better go away. Good-by.”
He didn’t answer, and she turned and walked to the door and stopped and looked back, but he continued to look into the mirror silently, and so she went on out and got into the Jaguar, and it was remarkable how she had begun suddenly to feel. She felt vastly relieved and lightened, purged and almost exonerated by Yancy’s castigation. Driving away in the Jaguar, she started thinking about somewhere else to go in order to avoid being alone, and she decided that Bernardine DeWitt’s apartment on MacDougal Street was the closest place that appealed to her, and so she went there.
She was admitted to the apartment by the maid, and there were, as usual, several people talking and moving around and drinking cocktails, but Bernardine wasn’t among them. Perhaps she had merely gone off somewhere for a few minutes, or even for a few hours, which wouldn’t be exceptionally odd of Bernardine, who was very casual about guests, but it didn’t matter, anyhow, where she had gone or when she would come back. Everyone would simply drink as much as he wanted, and leave when he was ready.
Charity had one Martini quickly, and then took another to carry around the room. She had drunk about half of it and spoken amicably to three or four persons when she came to a young man in a corner. He was sitting alone with an empty glass in his hand, and he had an interesting, angular face and stubborn hair that went in different directions in several places. She stopped and looked down at him, pushing her hair back on the heavy side with the hand that did not hold her glass.
“Hello,” she said.
He stood up with a kind of awkward, spasmodic motion, as if he moved by sections, one after the other. He returned her look with fierce intensity.
“Hello,” he said. “I was just watching you.”
“Were you? Why?”
“Because you’re the only woman here worth watching.”
“Do you really think so? Even if you don’t, it was a charming thing to say. I don’t believe anyone has ever said anything so charming to me before.”
“Please don’t accuse me of being charming. I was only telling the truth. I’d like to paint you.”
“Are you a painter?”
“Yes, I have a studio in the Village. You needn’t ask who I am, however, because you’ve never heard of me.”
“Possibly I’ll hear of you in the future.”
“Possibly. It doesn’t matter. Will you come to my studio and let me paint you? I couldn’t pay you, of course. I’m very poor.”
“I wouldn’t want you to pay me.”
“Will you come, then?”
She heard in his voice the same kind of urgent fierceness that she saw in his eyes. She was aware of the stirring of incipient excitement. “Perhaps,” she said. “Let’s sit down and talk about it.”