VI

It was early Spring . . . time to write ads of “Easter Apparel and Accessories” . . . to get out extra fashion pages, after last-minute buyers’ conferences. Rush the art work; rush the cuts; rush copy to the typographer; tell him to rush proofs. The fashion copy-writer left. Then I was fashion copy-writer. The assistant advertising manager was ill—they let me do her work. I was glad. It made the days go fast.

“Get a lizard bag up, an import, to be sketched with those lizard shoes, Miss Thomas,” I said. “Miss Hastings’s on her way down; she’s going to do all the art work in the two accessory columns. Hosiery, gloves, the shoes-and-bag in one, handkerchief, jewelry item, there’s one more space. Tell Mr. Johnson the flower and the perfume buyers both wanted to go in the page—and ask him to decide. I don’t want the one who’s left out, discussing why with me. . . . No, we can group the boutonnière and perfume bottle, and use ’em both. They’ll balance the shoes-and-handbag. Hastings’s good at handling that sort of thing.”

A jargon—a jargon I had learned quickly. It paid for the rent and taxis to the office and for clothes—more clothes than I had had since I was married. I had a new Spring ensemble in blue—the dress a Ducharne print, the coat a good copy of one of Vionnet’s—“with the intricate simplicity of the original about it”—$89.50 wholesale. The buyer took me over to the manufacturer; I admired his whole line, politely; I talked about advertising; I got his copy to write for Women’s Wear; $25 a week extra. Not bad. I got a millinery account the same way, that paid $15. The office paid me $65, since I was fashion copy-writer. I bought two pairs of shoes at once nowadays, and purses to match them, and said it was economy. They stayed looking well longer.

I had plenty of washable suède gloves, that Nora kept beautifully fresh. Silly gay jewelry, to wear a month and throw away. But it must carry out the ensemble idea, meanwhile. A black silk coat, that was not just a black silk coat. A black and white Patou frock. Hats and hats and hats—because I loved hats. (The forlorn days when I lived with Peter and hunted about, toward the season’s end, for one hat for five dollars in a sale.) Lovely expensive powders, and lipsticks and perfumes. (Peter bought me a bottle of Houbigant’s Idéal once. That is not very expensive, but he must have gone without lunches three days to get it.)

It was seven weeks since Peter left; five weeks since I began to live with Lucia. There was no time, or not very much, to think about Peter—waking, doing calisthenics, having orange juice and toast and coffee in a drug store, taking a cab to the office. No time to think of Peter, from nine to one, or from two-thirty to five-thirty. No time after, walking home fast, two miles in forty minutes, bathing, dressing, going places.

Men told Lucia I was lovely looking, but completely cold. Why cold? I let them kiss me when they must, in cabs, dancing in hot night-clubs, at parties. They were not real. Neither was the office.

Clothes were real. I bought many clothes so that, when Peter called up, I could say “come over instantly” and I would be marvellously dressed. I dressed carefully, always, because I might meet some friend of Peter’s, who would go back to him and say, “I saw Patricia; she was looking beautiful.” Then he would call up sooner.

The telephone was real. Some day, or perhaps some night, late, it would ring significantly. That would be Peter. He would begin by saying “Patty, it was all—the last months—all a crazy mistake; I’m coming back.”

And I would say, “I’m glad.”

I would tell Peter about first nights, and the funny tabloid columnist who came in and wrote his stuff on my typewriter when I wanted to go to bed, until Lucia came and took me downstairs to sleep. The columnist looked so disappointed.

I would tell Peter about my arrangement with Lucia, to turn up at Childs’ at three in the morning when I was out without her; so that I could meet her, supposedly accidentally, and go home with her. The arrangement was made because Lucia said I was not awake enough, yet, to be able to handle anyone. That would amuse him—tell him that I went sleep-walking about, all through the weeks he had gone.

Meanwhile, the days hurried, and the evenings hurried; and, when I went to bed in the daybed that could be adjusted for two people (what had Lucia meant by that, Lucia had no lover), I slept, usually.

Sometimes, when I woke in the night, I began to ache for the feeling of Peter’s head against my shoulder . . . and thought “if I could run my hand through Peter’s silky tumbled hair—softly, not to wake him . . .”

Then I went downstairs and slept on the little couch in Lucia’s apartment. When she woke, she just said, “Hello darling. I have such a hangover.”

And I said, “You ought to do calisthenics at night, Lucia. They’re wonderful for hangovers.”

“Oh, don’t be such a tiresome athletic lamb. Makes me weary to think of calisthenics. Is it eight o’clock yet?”

One evening when I worked until half-past six, I cabbed home, because Lucia and I had a foursome dinner engagement at seven, and I had to be dressed in fifteen minutes.

But Lucia was not in. I looked for a note on the telephone pad, where we always left messages for each other. It said: “Your husband telephoned at six. I told him to call again at seven. Took our two men off. Good luck.

“P.S. Keep your head, darling.

“P.P.S. I’ll be home around midnight, if you want to come down.”

It was twelve minutes of seven. I dropped hat and gloves and purse and packages (two pairs of chiffon stockings in a shade called “ecstasy” and a net bandeau from Paris) all on the stairs, and sat down beside them. My knees shook, so that they kept hitting against each other, and that amused me inordinately. I got a cigarette and matches from my purse, and smoked and let my hopes run.

(He is coming back; it is all over with Hilda, and he just could not stand Judith; he is coming back. What shall I do with this apartment? I wonder if Pete would live on Brooklyn Heights or somewhere economical so we could save money and have another baby in a couple of years. I always knew if I did not believe it was all over, it would not be. Must be tactful and not too curious about whatever he has been doing. He has just been having an excursion, and Lucia says they come back better for the outing. I must remember that. Should I tell him about the doctor? No, absolutely no. I was sort of crazy; else that would not have happened.)

The telephone rang.

“Peter darling!”

“Oh, is that you, Pat? I wondered if you were free for dinner; we might discuss our divorce.”

I could not answer for a minute. (But how stupid of me. He would not admit, instantly, that he wanted me back—it would make him seem so inconsistent. Men mind that.)

“Yes, I’m free for dinner, Pete, if you’ll give me three quarters of an hour to get ready. I’m just home, and I have to bathe and things . . .”

“All right. That will be quarter to eight. Shall I call for you or will you meet me? I thought we might dine at the Blue Star.”

(Oh, pleasant French speakeasy where we used to dine to celebrate things, occasionally, when we were in funds. That was a good sign, that he wanted to eat there. Better meet him there, he could have a cocktail while he waited. Then he would be sure to feel good-tempered.)

“Suppose I meet you there, Pete, at eight.”

“ ’Right. See you in an hour. Good-bye.”

What to wear, the blue ensemble or Patou frock and black coat? I rushed upstairs, started my bath running, took out a crisp pale rose French chemise, that was all beautifully tucked and pleated. Pete loved underthings in pretty colours, and hated lacy stuff.

Then the implications of that—my sureness that he would admire the chemise—made me so breathless that I had to sit down for an instant and have some of another cigarette.

The Patou frock, certainly—it was much more striking—made me look ineffably slim yet sufficiently curved. I bathed and dressed hastily, but efficiently. The great problem was how much rouge? I had so much colour of my own at the moment—but if it faded later I did not want to look wan and forlorn. Better risk a little too much, the lights in the Blue Star were dim, and with a black dress and hat I could stand it.

The dress slipped on. Black marocain with a deep white collar and exaggerated cuffs, cut petalwise. Black satin opera pumps . . . I did not like satin shoes much, but these made my feet look so narrow. An almost brimless black milan hat, with a gold arrow embroidered athwart the front. Pearls—no, the flat gold necklace.

Hunting for the necklace, I found an old ring, a flawed emerald in a curious Italian setting. Pete bought that for me in London, in an antique shop on Oxford Street. I put it on as a good gesture.

Lucia had some Nuit de Noel perfume. Pete liked that. I went downstairs for it. In Lucia’s bath, regarding myself in her long mirror, glowing, I was grateful for my looks. They had been useful to me with Pete, and not so long ago. Lucia had written something about “keep my head.” I never could with Pete. Never did. But it was reassuring to be looking my best.

In the taxi, being very careful to sit so that the back of the black silk coat did not get mussed and careful not to touch anything that would soil my gloves, I felt a little cold suddenly because I could not remember what, if anything, Pete had ever liked about me except my looks. I would have to think back to find out, nearly two months since I had seen him, and, before that, there was the six months’ war . . . (Oh, do not think about that, think about what I am going to say when I see him.)

He sat, in a blue suit that I had not seen, smoking, with an empty cocktail glass in front of him. He looked lean and hard, and a little strange, somehow. He did not see me until I was quite close.

“Oh, there you are, Pat, how are you? What’ll you drink?”

“A Martini, I think.”

“All right; let’s order dinner right away; then we can talk,” he said. “You’re looking handsome, Pat.”

“You, too.”

“How’s the advertising business?”

“All right. I got a raise. How’s the newspaper business?”

“I got a raise, too. Have another Martini?”

“Yes, thank you.”

I felt cold and dry, like a Martini. I had sat across a narrow table from Pete hundreds of times before, and felt as close to him as if the lovely hardness of his arms were around me. Now there was a distance compounded of lies and quarrels and separate adventures. I had not known there would be such distance. Perhaps it could be bridged. (Do not hurry him—try to think. I cannot. I want to say, “Take me back; give me another chance, so I’ll come alive again.”)

I took out a handkerchief, so that I could look at myself in the mirror of my purse. My face was composed. That was good.

“Have you replaced me yet, Pat?” He grinned, a friendly enough grin.

“No.” (I have to do something about this. I do not know whether it will be right or stupid, but I have to do something.)

“Haven’t you missed me, really, Pete?”

“A person misses anyone that’s been around as long as you. I’m convalescing slowly.”

I grew a little angry, and knew that I should not. “How’s your Great Romance getting on, Pete?”

“Which one?”

The waiter took away the soup. Pete filled my wine glass.

“Hilda-with-the-pure-soul, I mean?”

“Oh, that’s all shot to hell; hadn’t you heard?” His voice was entirely casual. He ate fish with evident enjoyment. (“The sauces are good here, aren’t they, Pat?”)

“No—I hadn’t heard— What happened?”

“I don’t mind telling you. The little girl raised outstanding hell one night I was tight because I kissed someone whose name I don’t even remember, dancing. She put on a show next day because I kept her waiting ten minutes and came in smelling beery. Finally, all in one evening, she tried to get me to promise to stop smoking, kissing, and drinking. God, what a possessive woman! So I told her I couldn’t make the grade, and she told me you were about what I deserved. Does that please you?”

“Not unduly.”

I finished my glass of wine, and drew a long breath. Pete filled the glass again. “You are a grand-looking person, Pat.” But his voice was still casual.

(Well, over the top. Nothing to lose; might gain something.) “And where does the exit of Hilda leave me, Peter?”

“As you were.”

The waiter brought chicken.

“What does that mean, Pete?”

He smiled, gently, as if it were a matter of no importance.

He said, “Through.”

Neither of us said anything for a bit—just went on eating chicken. Pete spoke first.

“I thought it would be pleasant to see you, to dine with you. It is. I’m fond of you; think you’re charming looking, have a lovely voice and hands and all that. And I’m sorry I put you through such scenes. You can’t help being what you are, I suppose. Don’t worry about it; it was my mistake in the first place. Have some more wine. . . . And by the way, anytime you want a divorce, tell me and I’ll get things arranged. I’m in no hurry myself of course. In fact I begin to feel that the situation, as it is, affords me a certain protection. . . .”

I couldn’t talk for a minute. Then, “What do you mean by ‘being what I am?’ ”

“Oh come on, Pat. What’s the use of going into that?”

“Why not?”

“I refuse to call you a slut when I’m taking you to dinner.”

I was very angry. “No more of a slut than Judith!”

“You are well informed, aren’t you? Perhaps you are no more of one, but she never pretended to be anything else—to me.”

I was hopeless then. This distance seemed occupied by a tangible barricade between us. Could it be bridged? I could not think how. Two tears dropped down into my salad. I hoped Peter did not see them. One had one’s pride. No, that was silly. I did not have any pride, because I cared. I just felt I ought to have some.

His voice was elder-brotherly affectionate. “I didn’t mean to make you cry, Pat. Don’t think about it any more. Have a cognac and benedictine mixed for a liqueur? You used to like them?”

“Thank you.” I looked at him. I stretched my hand to where his hand lay on the table. Perhaps if he let me touch him . . .

He slipped his hand over mine, and then noticed the emerald ring. “Oh God, Pat,” he said, “do you remember?”

We talked about London; the first apartment we had had there; dinners for two I had managed to buy for a dollar; things far away and long ago.

When we went out, he tucked my arm under his, and we walked through the Spring evening, looking in shop windows, making each other laugh by remembering things we had done and jested at when we were awfully young.

He was twenty-five and I was twenty-four; and we talked about “when we were awfully young.” I asked him—I was shy about it—to come see my apartment. He said he would like to, so we took a cab, and found that we were hanging on to each other’s hands rather desperately.

There was no light in Lucia’s apartment when we passed. I went straight on up, and locked the door at the stair-head. I did not want Lucia and strange people coming in and talking about plays they had been to, when I could talk to Peter instead.

But I must think of something to talk about. I gave him cigarettes. He was looking at me as if he loved to look at me; and yet, as if it hurt him.

“Peter, I’ve been meeting playwrights and columnists and a painter who’s going to do my portrait, and more funny people . . .”

“Yes, I suppose you would go in for celebrity chasing.”

That stopped me. I wished we were somewhere other than this apartment that had nothing to do with Peter and me.

“Sorry, Pat. I didn’t mean to be disagreeable.”

“It’s all right.” (He had not kissed me, yet. Maybe, when he did, it might be really all right. It might bridge the distance.)

He walked up and down. He was just a little drunk. I was afraid I would say something stupid, so I said nothing. He began to talk. “Before I was in love with you, Pat, I was rather hard hit by that girl Natalie. Do you remember? I’ve mentioned her. Promtrotter and so on; I wrote verses to her and she ditched me for Gerard, because he had a hell of a lot of money. It was sensible of her—she was five years older than I anyway, and it was just a case of calf-love, as far as I was concerned. But I took it relatively hard. . . . Then I met you. . . .”

I felt tired. Where was this leading?

“You looked so clean, there was something—it’s an old-fashioned adjective, but I used to think of you as dewy, Patricia.”

He stood with his hands in his pockets staring at me; not angrily, not as if he hated me, and certainly not as if he loved me; just puzzled, and as if he were a little tired too.

“Pat, would you mind telling me . . . was I a very inadequate lover? Was that why you slept around?”

I felt as I imagine a man feels when he has been knocked out, and is just coming back to consciousness. What had I done to Peter?

“Peter, my dearest, no!—Could I try to explain just what happened, really?”

I would tell about Rickey—Rickey could go to hell, if it would wipe that look, that tired look, off Pete’s face.

He smiled a one-sided smile.

“No, honestly, Pat, I’d rather not hear a new version. I wouldn’t believe it. You’ve presented several, in the last eight or nine months; do you remember?”

“But this is the truth.”

“They all were at the moment.”

He would not believe me, anymore. What was the use?

“Peter, would you please kiss me at once?”

He came over instantly. We kissed. I felt at last as if the last year just had not happened.

Then he picked me up; put me on the new, decorative daybed; walked across the room; scrutinized a print he had seen before,—scrutinized his life and mine, and our generation that everyone had been yelling about since we had grown up, and before; scrutinized his opinions of immortality, for all I know. His expression was sufficiently remote.

He turned. He looked completely unhappy. He said, “Christ, once I thought you were a sort of miracle evolved for my special benefit.” He stood staring at me.

I said nothing.

“Well, you remain, the pleasantest woman I ever knew—in bed.”

Why protest? Let him say all the things he wanted; if they made him feel better. They did not mean anything—just words.

His voice was unsteady now.

“I want to kiss you again.”

“Yes,” I said.

Was this what I had wanted really, this Peter asleep with his head against my breast like a child—this passion that was supposed to lessen first of all things in marriage, but with us had outlasted everything else, so that it was now the only way we had of talking to each other? No, I did not want this, much. I wanted Peter as he used to be.

Still, perhaps this could be used in recovering the rest. In the morning, we would dress and go to breakfast somewhere, and I would be so gay and amusing at breakfast that Pete would hate to leave, and would come back, tomorrow, or certainly the next day, and then, gradually . . . I felt quite warm and happy. It would be lovely, going to breakfast with Peter.

Judith? Something in me hardened, as I lay with Peter’s tumbled head on my shoulder. . . . I survived Hilda, perhaps I could survive Judith too. . . . I went to sleep tranquilly.

But when I woke in the morning Peter was gone.

I did not believe it for a minute; I did not believe that Pete could leave without a word, as if I were some girl he had met in a speakeasy the night before; and not found very diverting. Peter would not do that to me. He had, though, done just that.

I had wanted to go to breakfast with him; I had wanted so to go to breakfast with him. I began to cry; and got up and hunted for a handkerchief. Then I saw a note marked “Patricia” on the mantel; and remembered I had left a note for Rickey, once, and cried harder; so that I could not see to read it, for a minute.

It said, “Thanks for hospitality. See you again sometime.” That was all.

I went stumbling downstairs to find Lucia. Maybe she could tell me what to do next. I did not know. I showed her the note. I said, “I hate him; I’m never going to see him again. I’m going to kiss so many other men I shan’t remember what he was like. He says I’m a slut; I’ll be a slut, but never with him, again. Lucia, why did he do this to me?”

“Pat, darling, pull yourself together for a minute. I’m sorry Pat. There isn’t anything you can do, you know. There . . . cry as much as you like . . . then we’ll talk.”

I sat and sobbed. Lucia dressed, saying, “You’ll feel better soon, darling” intermittently.

I did not feel any better, but after a while I stopped crying.

“I’ll telephone your office, Pat, and say you had to go to the dentist and will be in at noon. I’ll stay out myself, too. It’s a nice day, and I haven’t taken a morning off since the one after the Bordens’ sailed.”

“I’d like to take a car and drive too fast; race railroad trains to grade crossings, Lucia.”

“Yes. Dress, Pat, and we’ll go somewhere leisurely to eat.”

I dressed, in the new blue ensemble. We went to Mary Elizabeth’s restaurant. It was quiet, for late breakfast; and we could look out over the Avenue.

“Lucia, I let him stay, because I thought it was the way to get him back.”

“What do you want him back for?”

“Because we used to love each other so.”

“Do you love him now, really?”

“At this moment I wish he were dead. But generally I love him.”

“As he is or as he was?”

“As he was.”

“How are you going to manage to get him back as he was?”

She poured herself a second cup of coffee.

“In a minute Pat, I’ll be quoting the well-known source of copy for cigarette ads to you.”

“The Rubaiyat?”

“Exactly. ‘The moving figure writes and having writ’—what of it? Be like me. Watch people perform and don’t get involved yourself.”

“The Rubaiyat’s just an adolescent’s ideal of philosophy, except the parts about drinking.”

“Tell me some philosophy that’s not adolescent. Self-expression—the new freedom for women—Freud, that Great Excuse?”

“There is progress, though, Lucia. Myself, I’ve progressed, in taste, from Scott Fitzgerald to Ernest Hemingway.”

“How much progress is that?”

“A damn long distance on the road to bigger and broader vocabularies.”

Lucia laughed. “You see, you’re feeling better already, Pat. Did you know I was five years older than you?”

“I didn’t think it was as much as that.”

“Yes, I’m twenty-nine. Arch walked out on me when I was twenty-five. I tried to manage him too much; wanted to make a success of him, you know. And made scenes about other women. Usual story. As soon as he was successful enough to get a chance to manage his Chicago office, he went; and told me to comfort myself with my love for music, or something to that effect. I forget.

“I used to jump through hoops for him. Used to ache for his visits to New York. I haven’t seen him for a couple of years, and I’m glad. He still—there’s just a breath’s space of disturbance—about the first man you loved—”

She looked very placid, notwithstanding. I ached, but it helped to sit and listen to Lucia.

“By the time you’re twenty-nine,” she said, “you’re likely to have reached—the age of generalizing. I no longer think of myself as me, a terrifically important person. I think I’m an interesting example of the unattached woman-about-town. Victim of the new freedom—had it thrust on me willy-nilly. You belong to the same type. But you’re younger, and you mind more.”

“What’s going to become of us, Lucia?”

“Nothing. Whatever ‘becomes’ of anyone else? Get old, and grey haired, and fat or scrawny.”

She could not be as indifferent as all that. “What do you really think about ex-wives, Lucia?”

She grew animated.

“We are free. Applesauce! Free to pay our own rent, and buy our own clothes, and put up with the eccentricities of three to eight men who have authority over us in business, instead of having to please just one husband.

“We don’t have to be dominated any more. Twaddle! Grant that a woman married to a brute or a degenerate under the old system, was out of luck. How many of those were there, compared to the women married to average decent men with a sense of responsibility?

“If you and your Peter had been young fifty years ago, you wouldn’t have been unfaithful to him once; because you wouldn’t have had twenty opportunities for infidelity flung at you in a year; and, if he were unfaithful to you, he’d manage it discreetly, because he’d be socially ostracized if he didn’t. And he wouldn’t have told you to go your way, blithely; because there wouldn’t have been any way for you to go. The principal thing that relieving women from the dullness of domesticity did, was to relieve men from any necessity of offering stability in return for love, fidelity and so on.

“Women used to have status, a relative security. Now they have the status of any prostitute, success while their looks hold out. If the next generation of women have any sense, they’ll dynamite the statue of Susan B. Anthony, and start a crusade for the revival of chivalry.

“Freedom from men? Which of us is free who is emotionally absorbed in any man? The choices for women used to be: marriage, the convent, or the street. They’re just the same now. Marriage has the same name. Or you can have a career, letting it absorb all emotional energy (just like the convent). Or you can have an imitation masculine attitude toward sex, and a succession of meaningless affairs, promiscuity, (the street, that is) taking your pay in orchids and dinner dates instead of money left on the dresser.

“Women used to be happy if their men were good to them; and, when they grew old, if their children got along all right. They’re happy on the same basis now. They always followed their lovers with their dreams, to war or work, but were content enough at home if they were occupied and had a modicum of kisses. The abnormal ones, I suppose, had a rotten time of it, and so they yelled and pushed and tipped over the apple-cart for the rest of us in the end.” She stopped and lighted a cigarette.

“However, Lucia, here we are, with the sun of the new age shining on us; what are we going to do about it?”

“Pat, let’s have more coffee and some marmalade. Are you feeling calmer, child? Does the thought of women-in-general make you see Pete and yourself in proportion? I expect not. Give it a couple of years though.

“Ex-wives seem to be doing three things. Some go in for celibacy and business success—one necessitates the other almost always, you know, simply because there is a limit to the amount of vitality a woman has to expend, altogether. Most women can’t stand the pace of a career and a great love affair (or several in succession) managed simultaneously. The careerists will be all right, though, in a sense; they’ll save money for their old age and so on. But they won’t have children, so the problem ends with them. That is class one.”

“I don’t belong to that class, Lucia. I’m glad—I feel lucky—that I can sling words together, and hold a well-paid job, and get others on the side. But I don’t give a damn about it, except that it permits a more luxurious life than if I were a twenty-a-week clerk, somewhere.”

“At present, Pat, you’re in class two and, I think, on your way to class three, where I am. Class two says ‘Love is over, there remains . . . adventuring about.’ I’m judging from your before-breakfast-mood of planning to kiss so many people you forget what your husband was like. It will probably give you distance on him; and do you more good than harm, if you go through with that idea.”

“Of course, Lucia, there are the scruples that are left over from the way one was brought up.”

“Yes. But I think chastity, really, went out when birth control came in. If there is no ‘consequence’—it just isn’t important. People’s ideas—the things they say about affaires—begin to shift enormously, and their ideas are half a generation behind their conduct—their experiments.”

“The thought of going out and getting me fifty lovers doesn’t stir me much, though, Lucia. What’ll I have in the end? My memories, I suppose. Hell! Memory may have been some comfort to the Victorians, judging from their poetry; but I don’t seem to be able to work the miracle on it. To remember that Peter adored me in 1923, just leaves me absolutely cold in 1926. I’ll have to eat dinner with someone other than Pete tonight, no matter what he once said about for ever-and-ever.”

“I know. You’ll come to class three in the end. You’ll marry again.”

“Are you going to marry again, Lucia?”

“You bet, darling, in about another year. The imminence of my thirties makes me believe in the probability of my forties, and do I plan to be a worn-out, irritable female sitting around an advertising office shivering every time they hire a bright kid copy-writer just out of college, and being distressingly polite to an advertising manager ten years younger than myself? I do not.”

“Are you in love?”

The serene face looked suddenly wistful. “No. After Arch, no one was ever quite what I wanted. Oh, I experimented, had lovers, not many. Casual lovers, so much more interested in themselves than me, always. Casual lovers are like that. And they felt injured when I’d not live up to the promise of the colour of my hair (with you Pat, it would be the shape of your mouth) and it’s difficult to know what to say to them between kisses. I might have cared for someone, again, I suppose, if I had not been always waiting for Arch to come to town. That’s the sort of thing you shouldn’t do, but no doubt will.”

“Whom are you going to marry?”

“You can make raids on any of my men except Sam.”

“But he’s not good-looking . . . and isn’t he dull?”

“I thought that would surprise you. He has more substance (and I mean in character, as well as in banks) than anyone else we know. He’s stopped asking what it’s all about. He knows a few things that he wants out of the show. I’m one of them.”

“I don’t believe you’ll marry him.”

“Wait a year and see. Let’s go get manicures.”

After we had manicures, I went to my office, and did a full day’s work in an afternoon. I knew if I had a minute to think about Peter I would have hysterics over my typewriter; and hysterics, in department store advertising offices, are permitted only to a few, very successful women buyers. I was through at five, and wanted to telephone him. But what was there to say? “You might have taken me to breakfast, Peter?” There was not much sense to that. So I went upstairs to the beauty shop, and managed a facial before the store closed, instead.

Lucia was taking me along to a party given for a woman who had come back from Arabia, the world’s greatest authority on Arab love songs.

Lucia and I usually dressed together, downstairs in her room, so that we could talk. “Had a facial didn’t you, Pat? Looks grand. I did some wangling for you this afternoon; telephoned Ned to bring Charlie along for you. You can start your career of crime with the younger generation novelist, if you’re still going in for it. Are you?”

“I don’t know. I still feel outstandingly broken hearted, and I want to make Pete seem a long way off since I can’t have him close as I want.”

“The middle distance is neither this nor that. Like pink roses, isn’t it? Well, try Charlie. You’ll have a chance. He’s like that. . . . I’ll be interested in watching the fireworks, if you’ve really made up your mind to snatch a few opportunities. To date, you’ve just been sufficiently good-looking so that the men I’ve introduced to you haven’t minded—much—the fact that you’ve been inert as a sofa-cushion. I see you’ve brought down your bright red dress.”

I had not worn it yet—had bought it because the colour was heavenly. But it was, a bit obviously, a dress one wore to be stared at. Tight across the hips, and no back.

Lucia wore a bouffant gold thing that made her look like an angel, only more sophisticated.

Ned and Charlie turned up with a flask of cocktails already mixed. Ned was a publisher. He had never paid any attention to me before, but the red dress changed that. However, Lucia soon absorbed him. Charlie turned out to be a commonplace, medium-sized young blond, who would have looked better if he took up squash rackets. But he wore his consciousness of success like his very perfect dinner coat, a trifle flamboyantly.

“Another woman with exquisite hands,” he said, second or third sentence.

“Your shoulders—would make a man forget every disillusionment he’d ever had,” he said, fifth or sixth sentence.

Then we went to dinner at the Ritz. Lucia was taking care of Ned, in undertones, so I talked about Charlie’s books. Fortunately I had read them, but I read a great deal anyway. I said they were poignant, which seemed to please him. I had not tried to please anyone in a long time. This man was quite easy.

When we got to the party, we found the woman who knew all about Arab love lyrics, ten years too old to be decorative while she sang them, yet she would sing them.

I let Charlie take me upstairs to find drinks. He talked about women, and love, and snatching the unrepeatable golden moments as they came, else the champagne grew flat. That was the general tenor of it, anyway. I let him kiss me.

He was technically expert. One knows about things like that, from sophomore year at college on. He said he had not been so stirred in years. I knew that was probably what he always said next. But I was entertained.

In the dressing-room (Charlie and I were going taxi-riding in the Park, of course—“away from all these stupid people,” he said) I met Lucia, putting fresh lipstick on.

“Look here,” she said. “Do you want to do this? Charlie admits himself he’s one of the town’s great lovers, and he’s gone head over for the moment, but what is all that to you?”

“I don’t know that I want to. I don’t want not to.” I tried to think what I did want.

“Lucia, I’d like to be harder, inside. To try to take all this sort of thing as men are supposed to take it, for the adventure, for the moment’s gaiety—perhaps for warmth and friendliness and anaesthesia against—against feeling so alone. I know I shan’t be sobbing about Charlie tomorrow morning. He won’t matter enough. Damn it if I cry over this fresh make-up—

“Lucia, it might be fun . . .”

“All right. Don’t cry. Sit still a minute; you may as well make him wait a bit. Better take my wrap, it’s warmer than yours, and the gold’s good with your dress. And this is my last protest; I act like a maiden aunt about you anyway . . . Pat, can you dash off with this spoiled young novelist, remembering that you spent last night with Peter?”

“Yes, because if this Charlie person can make me feel last night was a month ago, or even a week, I’ll—I’ll send him gardenias.”

“Finish your cigarette and run along. And if you can really adopt the alleged masculine attitude toward sex, you’ve got all of New York to console you for Peter. New York on a short term lease, while you have the looks and the clothes for it. I’m betting you can’t though. Not many women can.”

Charlie was pacing up and down drinking a highball in enormous gulps. We went riding in the Park. I recognized a couple of things he had used in his books, among what he said, but he was pleasantly flattering, and not so conceited but that he implied gratitude, even surprise, for my manner of acquiescence.

We went to my apartment. He was unhurried. He said, “Strange little flower-face with a Mona Lisa mouth.” I wanted him to kiss me, and stop talking. He did not know it, but he might be going to do me some good. I kept remembering Peter walking up and down, the night before, and I wanted that ghost exorcised fast.

Finally Charlie did kiss me.

He left when it was growing light. I slept.

In the morning Lucia and I breakfasted together hurriedly. She asked no questions at all, but talked about going to the circus that night, with two men from the “Tribune,” “unless your new boyfriend is taking you places, Patricia.”

“He’s going out of town this afternoon, Lucia. I wouldn’t have been so reckless yesterday, if I hadn’t known that.”

“How my protegée grows up,” Lucia said.

We walked down the Avenue a little way together, laughing at things, in the Spring sunshine. Then I went on alone. I was neither happy nor unhappy. Peter seemed a fairly comfortably long time ago. I thought how to write the After-Easter-Sale-of-Millinery ad.