 | Tales of the jazz age |  |
I
At nine o'clock on the morning of the first of May,
1919, a young man spoke to the room clerk at the Biltmore
Hotel, asking if Mr. Philip Dean were registered
there, and if so, could he be connected with Mr. Dean's
rooms. The inquirer was dressed in a well-cut, shabby
suit. He was small, slender, and darkly handsome;
his eyes were framed above with unusually long eyelashes
and below with the blue semicircle of ill health,
this latter effect heightened by an unnatural glow which
colored his face like a low, incessant fever.
Mr. Dean was staying there. The young man was
directed to a telephone at the side.
After a second his connection was made; a sleepy
voice hello'd from somewhere above.
"Mr. Dean?"—this very eagerly—"it's Gordon,
Phil. It's Gordon Sterrett. I'm down-stairs. I heard
you were in New York and I had a hunch you'd be here."
The sleepy voice became gradually enthusiastic. Well,
how was Gordy, old boy! Well, he certainly was surprised
and tickled! Would Gordy come right up, for
Pete's sake!
A few minutes later Philip Dean, dressed in blue silk
pajamas, opened his door and the two young men greeted
each other with a half-embarrassed exuberance. They
were both about twenty-four, Yale graduates of the year
before the war; but there the resemblance stopped
abruptly. Dean was blond, ruddy, and rugged under his
thin pajamas. Everything about him radiated fitness
and bodily comfort. He smiled frequently, showing
large and prominent teeth.
"I was going to look you up," he cried enthusiastically.
"I'm taking a couple of weeks off. If you'll sit
down a sec I'll be right with you. Going to take a
shower."
As he vanished into the bathroom his visitor's dark
eyes roved nervously around the room, resting for a
moment on a great English travelling bag in the corner
and on a family of thick silk shirts littered on the chairs
amid impressive neckties and soft woollen socks.
Gordon rose and, picking up one of the shirts, gave it
a minute examination. It was of very heavy silk, yellow,
with a pale blue stripe—and there were nearly a
dozen of them. He stared involuntarily at his own
shirt-cuffs—they were ragged and linty at the edges and
soiled to a faint gray. Dropping the silk shirt, he held
his coat-sleeves down and worked the frayed shirt-cuffs
up till they were out of sight. Then he went to the
mirror and looked at himself with listless, unhappy
interest. His tie, of former glory, was faded and thumbcreased—it
served no longer to hide the jagged buttonholes
of his collar. He thought, quite without amusement,
that only three years before he had received a
scattering vote in the senior elections at college for being
the best-dressed man in his class.
Dean emerged from the bathroom polishing his body.
"Saw an old friend of yours last night," he remarked.
to save my neck. That girl you brought up to New
Haven senior year."
Gordon started.
"Edith Bradin? That whom you mean?"
"'At's the one. Damn good looking. She's still
sort of a pretty doll—you know what I mean: as if you
touched her she'd smear."
He surveyed his shining self complacently in the
mirror, smiled faintly, exposing a section of teeth.
"She must be twenty-three anyway," he continued.
"Twenty-two last month," said Gordon absently.
"What? Oh, last month. Well, I imagine she's
down for the Gamma Psi dance. Did you know we're
having a Yale Gamma Psi dance to-night at Delmonico's?
You better come up, Gordy. Half of New
Haven'll probably be there. I can get you an invitation."
Draping himself reluctantly in fresh underwear, Dean
lit a cigarette and sat down by the open window, inspecting
his calves and knees under the morning sunshine
which poured into the room.
"Sit down, Gordy," he suggested, "and tell me all
about what you've been doing and what you're doing
now and everything."
Gordon collapsed unexpectedly upon the bed; lay
there inert and spiritless. His mouth, which habitually
dropped a little open when his face was in repose, became
suddenly helpless and pathetic.
"What's the matter?" asked Dean quickly.
"Oh, God!"
"What's the matter?"
"Every God damn thing in the world," he said miserably.
"I've absolutely gone to pieces, Phil. I'm all
in."
"Huh?"
"I'm all in." His voice was shaking.
Dean scrutinized him more closely with appraising
blue eyes.
"You certainly look all shot."
"I am. I've made a hell of a mess of everything."
He paused. "I'd better start at the beginning—or will
it bore you?"
"Not at all; go on." There was, however, a hesitant
note in Dean's voice. This trip East had been planned
for a holiday—to find Gordon Sterrett in trouble exasperated
him a little.
"Go on," he repeated, and then added half under his
breath, "Get it over with."
"Well," began Gordon unsteadily, "I got back from
France in February, went home to Harrisburg for a
month, and then came down to New York to get a job.
I got one—with an export company. They fired me
yesterday."
"Fired you?"
"I'm coming to that, Phil. I want to tell you frankly.
You're about the only man I can turn to in a matter like
this. You won't mind if I just tell you frankly, will
you, Phil?"
Dean stiffened a bit more. The pats he was bestowing
on his knees grew perfunctory. He felt vaguely that
he was being unfairly saddled with responsibility; he
was not even sure he wanted to be told. Though
never surprised at finding Gordon Sterrett in mild
difficulty, there was something in this present misery
that repelled him and hardened him, even though it
excited his curiosity.
"Go on."
"It's a girl."
"Hm." Dean resolved that nothing was going to
then he'd have to see less of Gordon.
"Her name is Jewel Hudson," went on the distressed
voice from the bed. "She used to be `pure,' I guess,
up to about a year ago. Lived here in New York—
poor family. Her people are dead now and she lives
with an old aunt. You see it was just about the time
I met her that everybody began to come back from
France in droves—and all I did was to welcome the
newly arrived and go on parties with 'em. That's the
way it started, Phil, just from being glad to see everybody
and having them glad to see me."
"You ought to've had more sense."
"I know," Gordon paused, and then continued listlessly.
"I'm on my own now, you know, and Phil, I
can't stand being poor. Then came this darn girl.
She sort of fell in love with me for a while and, though I
never intended to get so involved, I'd always seem to
run into her somewhere. You can imagine the sort
of work I was doing for those exporting people—of
course, I always intended to draw; do illustrating for
magazines; there's a pile of money in it."
"Why didn't you? You've got to buckle down if
you want to make good," suggested Dean with cold
formalism.
"I tried, a little, but my stuff's crude. I've got talent,
Phil; I can draw—but I just don't know how. I
ought to go to art school and I can't afford it. Well,
things came to a crisis about a week ago. Just as I
was down to about my last dollar this girl began bothering
me. She wants some money; claims she can make
trouble for me if she doesn't get it."
"Can she?"
"I'm afraid she can. That's one reason I lost my
job—she kept calling up the office all the time, and that
letter all written to send to my family. Oh, she's got
me, all right. I've got to have some money for her."
There was an awkward pause. Gordon lay very still,
his hands clenched by his side.
"I'm all in," he continued, his voice trembling. "I'm
half crazy, Phil. If I hadn't known you were coming
East, I think I'd have killed myself. I want you to
lend me three hundred dollars."
Dean's hands, which had been patting his bare ankles,
were suddenly quiet—and the curious uncertainty playing
between the two became taut and strained.
After a second Gordon continued:
"I've bled the family until I'm ashamed to ask for
another nickel."
Still Dean made no answer.
"Jewel says she's got to have two hundred dollars."
"Tell her where she can go."
"Yes, that sounds easy, but she's got a couple of
drunken letters I wrote her. Unfortunately she's not
at all the flabby sort of person you'd expect."
Dean made an expression of distaste.
"I can't stand that sort of woman. You ought to
have kept away."
"I know," admitted Gordon wearily.
"You've got to look at things as they are. If you
haven't got money you've got to work and stay away
from women."
"That's easy for you to say," began Gordon, his eyes
narrowing. "You've got all the money in the world."
"I most certainly have not. My family keep darn
close tab on what I spend. Just because I have a little
leeway I have to be extra careful not to abuse it."
He raised the blind and let in a further flood of sunshine.
"I'm no prig, Lord knows," he went on deliberately.
"I like pleasure—and I like a lot of it on a vacation
like this, but you're—you're in awful shape. I never
heard you talk just this way before. You seem to be
sort of bankrupt—morally as well as financially."
"Don't they usually go together?"
Dean shook his head impatiently.
"There's a regular aura about you that I don't understand.
It's a sort of evil."
"It's an air of worry and poverty and sleepless
nights," said Gordon, rather defiantly.
"I don't know."
"Oh, I admit I'm depressing. I depress myself. But,
my God, Phil, a week's rest and a new suit and some
ready money and I'd be like—like I was. Phil, I can
draw like a streak, and you know it. But half the time
I haven't had the money to buy decent drawing materials—and
I can't draw when I'm tired and discouraged
and all in. With a little ready money I can take
a few weeks off and get started."
"How do I know you wouldn't use it on some other
woman?"
"Why rub it in?" said Gordon quietly.
"I'm not rubbing it in. I hate to see you this way."
"Will you lend me the money, Phil?"
"I can't decide right off. That's a lot of money and
it'll be darn inconvenient for me."
"It'll be hell for me if you can't—I know I'm whining,
and it's all my own fault but—that doesn't change it."
"When could you pay it back?"
This was encouraging. Gordon considered. It was
probably wisest to be frank.
"Of course, I could promise to send it back next
month, but—I'd better say three months. Just as
soon as I start to sell drawings."
"How do I know you'll sell any drawings?"
A new hardness in Dean's voice sent a faint chill of
doubt over Gordon. Was it possible that he wouldn't
get the money?
"I supposed you had a little confidence in me."
"I did have—but when I see you like this I begin to
wonder."
"Do you suppose if I wasn't at the end of my rope
I'd come to you like this? Do you think I'm enjoying
it?" He broke off and bit his lip, feeling that he had
better subdue the rising anger in his voice. After all,
he was the suppliant.
"You seem to manage it pretty easily," said Dean
angrily. "You put me in the position where, if I don't
lend it to you, I'm a sucker—oh, yes, you do. And let
me tell you it's no easy thing for me to get hold of three
hundred dollars. My income isn't so big but that a
slice like that won't play the deuce with it."
He left his chair and began to dress, choosing his
clothes carefully. Gordon stretched out his arms and
clenched the edges of the bed, fighting back a desire
to cry out. His head was splitting and whirring,
his mouth was dry and bitter and he could feel the fever
in his blood resolving itself into innumerable regular
counts like a slow dripping from a roof.
Dean tied his tie precisely, brushed his eyebrows, and
removed a piece of tobacco from his teeth with solemnity.
Next he filled his cigarette case, tossed the empty box
thoughtfully into the waste basket, and settled the case
in his vest pocket.
"Had breakfast?" he demanded.
"No; I don't eat it any more."
"Well, we'll go out and have some. We'll decide
about that money later. I'm sick of the subject. I
came East to have a good time.
"Let's go over to the Yale Club," he continued
moodily, and then added with an implied reproof:
"You've given up your job. You've got nothing else
to do."
"I'd have a lot to do if I had a little money," said
Gordon pointedly.
"Oh, for Heaven's sake drop the subject for a while!
No point in glooming on my whole trip. Here, here's
some money."
He took a five-dollar bill from his wallet and tossed
it over to Gordon, who folded it carefully and put it
in his pocket. There was an added spot of color in
his cheeks, an added glow that was not fever. For
an instant before they turned to go out their eyes met
and in that instant each found something that made
him lower his own glance quickly. For in that instant
they quite suddenly and definitely hated each other.
| Tales of the jazz age | |