Noon would come—she would hurry along Fifth
Avenue, a Nordic Ganymede, her fur coat swinging fashionably
with her steps, her cheeks redder by a stroke of the
wind’s brush, her breath a delightful mist upon
the bracing air—and the doors of the Ritz
would revolve, the crowd would divide, fifty masculine
eyes would start, stare, as she gave back forgotten
dreams to the husbands of many obese and comic women.
One o’clock. With her fork she would tantalize
the heart of an adoring artichoke, while her escort
served himself up in the thick, dripping sentences
of an enraptured man.
Four o’clock: her little feet moving to
melody, her face distinct in the crowd, her partner
happy as a petted puppy and mad as the immemorial
hatter.... Then—then night would come
drifting down and perhaps another damp. The signs
would spill their light into the street. Who knew?
No wiser than he, they haply sought to recapture that
picture done in cream and shadow they had seen on
the hushed Avenue the night before. And they
might, ah, they might! A thousand taxis would
yawn at a thousand corners, and only to him was that
kiss forever lost and done. In a thousand guises
Thais would hail a cab and turn up her face for loving.
And her pallor would be virginal and lovely, and her
kiss chaste as the moon....
He sprang excitedly to his feet. How inappropriate
that she should be out! He had realized at last
what he wanted—to kiss her again, to find
rest in her great immobility. She was the end
of all restlessness, all malcontent.
Anthony dressed and went out, as he should have done
long before, and down to Richard Caramel’s room
to hear the last revision of the last chapter of “The
Demon Lover.” He did not call Gloria again
until six. He did not find her in until eight
and—oh, climax of anticlimaxes!—she
could give him no engagement until Tuesday afternoon.
A broken piece of gutta-percha clattered to the floor
as he banged up the phone.
Tuesday was freezing cold. He called at a bleak
two o’clock and as they shook hands he wondered
confusedly whether he had ever kissed her; it was
almost unbelievable—he seriously doubted
if she remembered it.
“I called you four times on Sunday,” he
told her.
“Did you?”
There was surprise in her voice and interest in her
expression. Silently he cursed himself for having
told her. He might have known her pride did not
deal in such petty triumphs. Even then he had
not guessed at the truth—that never having
had to worry about men she had seldom used the wary
subterfuges, the playings out and haulings in, that
were the stock in trade of her sisterhood. When
she liked a man, that was trick enough. Did she
think she loved him—there was an ultimate
and fatal thrust. Her charm endlessly preserved
itself.
“I was anxious to see you,” he said simply.
“I want to talk to you—I mean really
talk, somewhere where we can be alone. May I?”
