The frightened German youth shook his head, his eyes wide open and appalled.
“Ich verstehe nicht,” he said stupidly.
Hamerton stared at him furious. There seemed to be nothing to do or say. Should he slap the fellow’s face, knock him down? He desired to do something like this, something really outrageous; but the suitable action didn’t occur to him. He merely stared, therefore, with concentrated contempt for any such worm; at the same time, in the back of his mind, feeling that the whole thing was extraordinarily funny, but that he wouldn’t for the world admit it. They continued to stare at each other; the grotesque scene protracted itself timelessly. And then, turning on his heel, “Oh, Hell,” he said, and stalked with extravagant dignity back to his room.
And the moment was over.
THE WOMAN-HATER
It was half past ten on a night in May, and the three medical students had just been through their notes in histology for the third time. The windows were open, and a sound of dripping could be heard on the stone window-ledge; the desultory drip, gradually slowing, that succeeds a spring shower. One of the men lay face down on a couch, his face pillowed sideways on his bare arms. His eyes were shut. The other two sat in fumed-oak Morris chairs, with their legs stretched out before them, and smoked cigarettes. Empty glasses stood on the floor beside them. They had taken off their coats.
“Well, what do you say, Bill? How about it?”
“I guess it’s stopped raining.”
“Sure, it ain’t gonna rine no more.… Let’s go.”
Bill, retying his loosened necktie, got up and went to the window. He rested his freckled hands on the sill and leaned out.
“Yes—it’s stopped, all right. And the stars are coming out.…” He turned around, looked down at the man on the couch, and idly dislodged a cushion from the couch-arm, so that it fell on the sleeper’s face. “And, by God! I couldn’t learn another symptom if I was paid a million dollars for it. Wake up, Pete.”
Pete lay unmoving. “Leave me alone,” he murmured.
“Oh, come on, Pete. It’ll do you good. You need a little excitement to get the adrenals working.”
“No,” said Pete. And then with violence: “NO!”
“What time did you tell her we’d meet her, Dil?”
Dil got up and stretched, eyeing his reflection in the mirror over the mantelpiece. He smoothed his sleek hair with his hands, with something of an air of vanity. He was dark and handsome.
“I said we’d be at the stage-door at twenty of eleven.… What do you say about another little drink?… Say, Pete, what’s the matter with you, anyway? Why don’t you come and meet her? She’s a peach. She’s a creamer. She isn’t any ordinary chorus girl, you know.”
“Women don’t interest me,” said Pete.
“There he goes again,” said Bill. “What’s the use?”
“You’re both of you damn fools,” said Pete. “Just spending your money for nothing. What does she care about you? All she wants is food and somebody to dance with. She just uses you to kill time. She’s probably got a couple of husbands in New York.”
“You’re crazy,” said Dil mildly.
He went into a bedroom, and came back with his coat.
“Come on,” he said.
“All right,” said Bill. “Wait till I get my coat. Sure you won’t come, Pete?”
“No, I’m going to bed. And for the love of Pete don’t be so damned noisy when you come back. Last night I thought somebody was being murdered.”
The two men put on their hats, without comment, and went out. Dil carried a malacca stick with a silver band around it. They went down the stairs in silence, and emerging into the spring night turned to the left.
“It’s funny about Pete,” said Dil. “I wonder what’s the matter with him.”
Bill ruminated.
“He was always that way,” he said. “That was the way he was all through college.”
“Didn’t he ever have a girl?”
“Never a girl. Never would go to a dance or anything. You know, it isn’t that he’s shy, or anything like that. He came into my room once, by accident, when I was giving a tea. And he got along perfectly all right. In fact, my sister was crazy about him. She tried like the devil to get hold of him again. Even called him up on the phone to ask him to dinner. I was there when he answered it. And he just kind of drawled back at her, kidding her along. He just kept saying, ‘No, I guess not, thanks,’ till she got tired. Gee! she was mad. He didn’t bother to give any excuse. Just refused point-blank.”
“Maybe he just needs to be waked up.”
“Maybe he does.…”
They turned to the left again, entering a main thoroughfare, which was crowded and brightly lighted. They passed a lunchroom, and then the portals of a stone church. A lot of sodden confetti was scattered on the wet sidewalk.
“He’s right about one thing,” said Dil. “This business costs a lot of money. I’m getting kind of low.”
“By gosh, that’s true.”
“But then, it’s worth it.”
“Sure. There was a picture of her in Theatre Magazine last week. It said she was considered the most beautiful woman on the musical-comedy stage.”
“Everybody runs after her. I wonder why it is she’s taken such a fancy to us. I guess maybe she meets so few men who are decent to her. You know how it is.”
“Well she seems to like us, all right. Anyway, she likes you.”
“I’m not so sure about that. But she’s pretty keen on you, Bill. I could tell it last night by the way she looked at you.”
“Oh, go on.”
“When she was dancing with you. I had an idea I’d better go home and leave you alone together. But then I thought you might be embarrassed.”
Bill gave a flattered and uneasy little laugh.
“That’s just the way I felt about you,” he said. “I guess maybe she’s pretty fond of us both, really. It must be a kind of a relief to a woman like that to feel sure that a man isn’t all the time trying to take advantage of her. She feels safe with us.”
Dil hung his stick over the crook of his arm.
“You don’t suppose she gets bored with us, do you?” he said. “I was wondering last night whether she just thought of us as kids. It was when she was talking about that week-end party she went to at the painter’s on Long Island. It sounded pretty gay—almost fast.”
Bill pondered. The lights of the theater-canopy were just ahead of them. The people were beginning to come out, and the line of cars was forming. “Why should she?” he said. “After all, we’re as old as she is. And we aren’t either of us fools.… Of course a girl like Mae is bound to run into some fast parties. She has to be a good sport. But that doesn’t prove anything against her. And you’ve only got to look at Mae to see that she’s nice. And the way she’s all the time telegraphing and telephoning to her mother.”
Dil sighed.
“Absolutely,” he said. “Right turn.”
They greeted the doorman at the stage-door with the dignified knowingness of men of the world, and informed him that Miss Melville was expecting them. Dil tapped the ferrule of his stick against the door-jamb. They waited in silence, and other men were waiting also, with their coat-collars turned up. They looked like conspirators. Two chorus girls came out, two men stepped forward quickly and bowed, taxis came and went.
“She’s coming now,” said Ollie, the doorman.
“Hello, boys!” she cried. “I didn’t see you out in front tonight.”
“No, we had to sweat for an exam,” said Bill.