Anthony bounced the tennis ball very hard. This
was one of his handsome days, she thought; a sort
of intensity had displaced the melancholy in his dark
eyes.
“Geraldine,” he said, at length, “in
the first place I have no one I want to marry; in
the second place I haven’t enough money to support
two people; in the third place I am entirely opposed
to marriage for people of my type; in the fourth place
I have a strong distaste for even the abstract consideration
of it.”
But Geraldine only narrowed her eyes knowingly, made
her clicking sound, and said she must be going.
It was late.
“Call me up soon,” she reminded him as
he kissed her goodbye, “you haven’t for
three weeks, you know.”
“I will,” he promised fervently.
He shut the door and coming back into the room stood
for a moment lost in thought with the tennis ball
still clasped in his hand. There was one of his
lonelinesses coming, one of those times when he walked
the streets or sat, aimless and depressed, biting
a pencil at his desk. It was a self-absorption
with no comfort, a demand for expression with no outlet,
a sense of time rushing by, ceaselessly and wastefully—assuaged
only by that conviction that there was nothing to waste,
because all efforts and attainments were equally valueless.
He thought with emotion—aloud, ejaculative,
for he was hurt and confused.
“No idea of getting married, by God!”
Of a sudden he hurled the tennis ball violently across
the room, where it barely missed the lamp, and, rebounding
here and there for a moment, lay still upon the floor.
For her dinner Gloria had taken a table in the Cascades
at the Biltmore, and when the men met in the hall
outside a little after eight, “that person Bloeckman”
was the target of six masculine eyes. He was a
stoutening, ruddy Jew of about thirty-five, with an
expressive face under smooth sandy hair—and,
no doubt, in most business gatherings his personality
would have been considered ingratiating. He sauntered
up to the three younger men, who stood in a group
smoking as they waited for their hostess, and introduced
himself with a little too evident assurance—nevertheless
it is to be doubted whether he received the intended
impression of faint and ironic chill: there was
no hint of understanding in his manner.
“You related to Adam J. Patch?” he inquired
of Anthony, emitting two slender strings of smoke
from nostrils overwide.
Anthony admitted it with the ghost of a smile.
“He’s a fine man,” pronounced Bloeckman
profoundly. “He’s a fine example
of an American.”
“Yes,” agreed Anthony, “he certainly
is.”
—I detest these underdone men, he thought
coldly. Boiled looking! Ought to be shoved
back in the oven; just one more minute would do it.
Bloeckman squinted at his watch.
