III
From his place in the corner of the basement room Wilfred watched the other diners covertly. Had he but possessed a mantle of invisibility his happiness would have been complete. As it was, his pleasure in looking at people vanished when they looked at him. There were four places at a table, and he was most comfortable when all were taken. People sitting so close, never looked at you; and they made a sort of screen for you; moreover he was able to listen to their talk, and to build upon it.
He ate his dinner in this place on West Tenth street once or twice a week; or as often as he could scare up the necessary thirty-five cents. He told his Aunts he had to work late at the office. How scandalized they would have been could they have seen him sitting there with a bottle of wine before him. They would never realize that he was grown. The place had no license of course, and you had a pleasant feeling of lawlessness; at any moment the police might come banging at the door. But they never had. A plain and friendly place, it supplied something that Wilfred had apprehended in novels of foreign life. He had got in the first time by attaching himself to the tail of a party at the door. Now he was known there and hailed by name. The generous minestrone, ravioli, etc., made his stomach purr. When he sat back and lighted a cigarette, life ceased to appall.
It was run by a handsome Italian woman with a heavenly smile, named Ceccina. Her husband, Michele, held sway over the kitchen, which was revealed through an open door; and their three children Raymo, Alessandro and Enriqueta helped their mother to wait upon the tables. Simple people; Wilfred loved them from a distance, except the little girl, who was pert without being engaging. It was the fault of the fond patrons. Wilfred felt it his duty to discourage her. He had a specially warm spot for Alessandro the bullet-headed one, a blonde sport in that dark family. Alessandro, always watching for a chance to sneak out and play in the streets, was often in trouble with his father, who swore at him in English, without being aware of the comic effect of his aspersions on the boy’s parentage.
The round table in the middle of the room, which would hold six at a squeeze, was reserved for a little company of friends that included two known authors; a lady editor; an artist; and a long-legged young man of unknown affiliations, whom the others called the bambino. These people constituted the focus of interest in the place. Wilfred watching them, and listening, decided against them. Let the authors be known as well as they might, their circle was not the real thing; its brilliancy was self-conscious. One author looked like a walrus with his tusks drawn; the other like an elderly trained poodle. The artist had a voluminous cape to his overcoat; and rattled his stick against the door-frame when he entered. Somebody said he designed labels for tomato cans. The room was small enough for Wilfred to scoop in these bits of information, as they flew about.
These and others in the room were of the general show; there was one group that Wilfred had taken for his own; whom he regarded with an intensity of interest that hurt. Young fellows, no more than a year or two older than himself; lively young fellows; and good friends! Until he had come to Ceccina’s he had never seen any young men like these, but he immediately understood them; he seemed to have been waiting for such. The conventions upon which young men ordinarily formed themselves, had no force with them. Their eyes seemed to see what they were turned upon; they were interested in things; they could let themselves go; and how they talked!
Two of them came every night. These addressed each other as Stanny and Jasper. Stanny was short and sturdily built; with an expression of doughty wistfulness that arrested Wilfred. He had a tenor voice with rather plaintive modulations, that went with his eyes. A man every inch of him, from the set of his strong shoulders, and his courageous glance; but a man who felt things and wondered. Up to this time Wilfred had despairingly supposed that manliness was the capacity for not feeling things. Jasper, with his crisp, bronze, wavy hair, and warm color, was full of a slow, earthy zest. His face generally wore a sleepy half-smile; and he had a trick of squinting down his big nose. Wilfred inferred that he must have wit, from the surprised laughter which greeted his rare sallies.
These two were sometimes joined by an older man with a fine, reticent face and silky black beard, whom they called Hilgy. Hilgy had his features under such control, that it was impossible to decide whether he was speaking in jest or in earnest. Wilfred observed that sometimes his own friends did not know how to take him. Hilgy liked to string them. Sometimes a thin, handsome youth no older than Wilfred, made one of the party. They called him Binks; and so exuberant and audacious was his style, that all hung upon his words, though he was the youngest among them.
Unfortunately for Wilfred, these fellows, unlike the party at the center table, talked low and all he could get of it was a phrase here and there. He had gathered that they were all artists, though they wore their hair short, and dressed like anybody else. They forced him to reconsider all his notions about artists. Art! the word rang hopefully in Wilfred’s consciousness; it was a way other than business, of making one’s living. Of course he couldn’t be a painter, because his fingers were all thumbs. But a writer, perhaps; that was an art, too. Years ago, his grandfather had told him he had imagination; he had been hugging the assurance ever since. Nobody else had ever suggested that he had any worthy quality. Still, a writer!—how ridiculous to dream of such a thing, when he lacked a college education.
For many nights Wilfred had been watching these happy fellows. Such friends! What would he not have given for one friend, and each of these had three! Talk boiled out of them. Sometimes at a heard phrase, Wilfred’s own breast would froth up like yeasty beer. It was so extraordinary to discover that they talked about the same things that troubled his mind! They were clever. They poked sly fun at the other diners. Once Wilfred caught Stanny’s nickname for the writer who looked like a poodle: “Flannel-belly!” Inexplicably right! he laughed whenever he thought of it.
Wilfred had taken two of the four to his heart; Stanny and Binks. But his feelings toward them were different: for the one he felt a violent affection and sympathy; for the other, a violent, helpless admiration. One or another of these two, or both of them, linked arms with Wilfred in his waking dreams; and into their attentive ears he poured the frothy stuff that choked his breast. When he came to himself, he would smile, to think how in his dreams, he did all the talking.
On this night none of the fellows had come, and Wilfred was obliged to swallow his disappointment. Ceccina had finally been obliged to give their places to a party of overdressed strangers from up-town, who stared rudely around the room, and made audible comments. Such people cheapened everybody in the place. Wilfred cursed them under his breath.
Then the bell rang, and Stanny and Jasper entered the room, a good half hour after their usual time. Wilfred’s heart leaped like a lover’s; then set up a tremendous pounding; for the only two vacant places together, were at his table. The two crossed the room as a matter of course; and Stanny asked him politely if they might share his table.
“Certainly!” stammered Wilfred, keeping his eyes down. He simply had not the courage to look at them so near to.
They sat down side by side opposite him. Wilfred’s breast was in a commotion. His confusion must have affected the other two, for they were silent at first. Undoubtedly they thought him a churl, who hugged his solitude. He could not bring himself to look at them. He was bitterly upbraiding himself. You fool! What a poor figure you are cutting! Why can’t you be natural? These are simple, likable fellows, willing to be friends. They are your kind. What a chance! And you’re throwing it away! You won’t get another such chance. This is what comes of dreaming! Unfits you for the reality. . . .
Their soup was brought; and they hungrily applied themselves to it, with encomiums upon its flavor. While waiting for their next course, they picked up a conversation that had evidently been dropped a little while before. They spoke low; but Wilfred’s sharpened ears heard every word.
“I think you’re foolish,” said Stanny, “after working in the office all day, to sit in your basement nights, hacking away at your carving. With a book of Italian verbs open besides you, too. Or if you’re not there, you’re sitting in Madame Tardieu’s stuffy room, droning French with that tiresome old soul!”
“She needs the money,” mumbled Jasper. His shy, unsure utterance endeared him to Wilfred.
“Well, that’s not your fault,” said Stanny, slightly exasperated. “You’re too easy. She knows she’s got a good thing, and she’s nursing it along. . . . I say, it’s not natural at our age.”
“What else is there to do, nights?” grumbled Jasper. “We haven’t any money to spend.”
“Loaf!” said Stanny, promptly. “A certain amount of loafing is necessary to the soul’s health. You’re doing violence to your nature with this continual grind. It’ll get back at you some day. This self-improvement business can be carried too far. How can you improve when you’ve worked yourself into a half-doped state? . . . I bet you fall asleep in your chair at Mme. Tardieu’s many’s the night, while the old body drools on.”
“It’s a fact,” confessed Jasper.
While they talked together, ignoring him, Wilfred quieted down. It was better they should ignore him, he thought; for if, as was probable, they should not like him, that would be worse. Meanwhile what a glimpse into their lives he was getting!
“Last night,” said Jasper in his diffident, masculine voice, “I was sitting in Madame Tardieu’s room. It’s true, I was half asleep. I happened to look out of the window. . . . In the house opposite, there was a girl going to bed. She’d forgotten to pull down the shades. . . . Damn nice-looking girl! When she put up her arms to unpin her hair . . . lovely round arms . . . such a picture! . . . Well . . . I lost my head. I said good-night to the old lady in a hurry, and I went . . . I mean I went across the street. . . .”
“What!” exclaimed Stanny.
“It’s a rooming house. The outer door was closed. I waited on the stoop until one of the lodgers came home. Told him I’d lost my key. He let me in. I went up to the girl’s room and went in. . . .”
“Good God! what did she say?” demanded Stanny.
“Oh, she was surprised,” said Jasper shyly. “But she didn’t make much of a fuss . . . I stayed. . . .”
“Suppose she had made a fuss?”
“I didn’t think of that.”
“You had been drinking!”
“No. . . . Something got into me. . . .”
Wilfred was astounded and delighted by this anecdote. Such delicious effrontery was almost inconceivable to him. It was right, thought Wilfred; that was the gallant way; the mad, imprudent jolly way! Jasper loomed a hero in his eyes. He ventured to steal a look at the pair of them. Stanny was a little scandalized by the story—but only a little. Evidently it was much the sort of thing a friend might expect to hear from Jasper. Then Wilfred looked at Jasper; and at the same moment Jasper happened to raise his shy, wicked eyes to Wilfred’s face. A spark was struck, and suddenly they laughed together.
Wilfred blushed scarlet. “I’m sorry,” he stammered. “I couldn’t help hearing. . . .”
“Oh, that’s all right,” said Jasper, blushing, too. “You know how it is.”
A warm tide of joy coursed through Wilfred. To be hailed by Jasper as a fellow!
Stanny now included Wilfred in his remarks. He was annoyed. “A piece of folly, if you ask me,” he said. “God knows what might have happened!”
“But it wouldn’t, to him,” said Wilfred. “There wasn’t any room in his mind for it to happen.”
Stanny looked at Wilfred dubiously. Wilfred blushed again. What nonsense am I talking? he thought.
“He understands,” said Jasper, with a jerk of his head in Wilfred’s direction.
“Yes, I understand,” said Wilfred, a little breathlessly. “But I wouldn’t have had the nerve to carry it through, myself. I think it was fine!”
“Huh!” said Stanny. “You don’t know this idiot as well as I do. Works himself into a state of stupefaction. Then suddenly blows up, and doesn’t know what he’s doing. I don’t call that rational!”
“Oh well, reason isn’t everything!” said Wilfred grinning.
“Hear! Hear!” said Jasper.
Stanny’s irritation was only on the surface. He grinned back at Wilfred. “You shouldn’t encourage him!” he said with an affectionate glance at Jasper. “The old stove-in-bottom! You wouldn’t think he was capable of it, to look at him, would you?”
“I’m not bragging about it,” said Jasper with an aggrieved air. “I only told you how it was. I’m ashamed of myself now, I felt rotten about it all day.”
“If it had been me, I wouldn’t be ashamed,” murmured Wilfred.
“Anyhow, you’re no Joseph!” said Jasper to Stanny. “How about Myrtle?”
A flicker of disgust made Stanny’s face look pinched. “Oh, that was just a common or garden pick-up,” he said; “all conducted according to rule. It’s ended. Two nights ago I blew her to a ride in a hansom. Bowling down Fifth Avenue. Felt like a lord! She spoiled it by getting mercenary. I invited her to get out, and came home alone.”
“Why shouldn’t she be mercenary?” asked Jasper mildly.
“Sure, I’m a sentimentalist!” said Stanny.
Wilfred experienced a pang of sympathy. Glancing in Stanny’s face, he thought: He deserves better than that!
Spaghetti was brought to Stanny and Jasper; and they applied themselves to it. Wilfred, who had finished his meal, lit a cigarette with slightly trembling fingers; and prayed that this might not be the end. In his mind he searched furiously around for interesting matter to carry on the talk; while at the same time another part of his mind warned him not to force the occasion, or it would break down as it always did; but to let the occasion use him. While he was still distracted between these inner voices, the talk started of itself.
Said Stanny: “When I came down-town to-night, I saw that they had taken away the female figures leading up to the Dewey Arch on either side. Charlotte Marshall posed for those figures. She comes here sometimes.”
“I’ve seen her,” said Wilfred. “What a strange creature!”
Stanny smiled at him good-naturedly, in a way that made Wilfred feel very young. Of course! thought Wilfred. I was trying to be wise. I will be natural!
“All legs,” grumbled Jasper.
“Well, that’s the sculptor’s ideal,” said Stanny.
“The degenerate sculptor’s ideal!”
“Anyhow, it looks a lot better without them—or her,” said Stanny. “I like it, though it’s been damaged a bit by the weather, and by the hubs of the busses driving through. Wish you could have seen the pair of drivers I saw to-night, racing through abreast, licking their horses like the chariot race in Ben-Hur.”
“It’s not really good,” said Jasper. “Just a lot of miscellaneous architecture.”
“Well, you ought to know, old Goat and Compasses!”
“I like to look at it,” said Wilfred shyly. “Just because it was run up for a sort of festival. It was a damn fool thing to spend all that money on a monument of lath and plaster. That’s why I like it. Everything else is so damned useful. . . .”
He suddenly became aware that both young fellows were listening to him. Self-consciousness supervened, and his tongue began to stumble. They listen! he thought. I can talk too.
“Do you paint?” asked Stanny.
Wilfred shook his head. “I’m only a millionaire’s office boy,” he said, trying to carry it off with a grin.
“That’s nothing,” said Stanny quickly. “I make line drawings for James Gordon Bennett, and Jasper here, draws plans for a millionaire jerry-builder.”
“Some day I hope to write,” Wilfred said. In that moment his resolution was formed.
“That so?” said Stanny with interest. “We haven’t got a writer in our bunch.”
Wilfred’s heart almost burst out of his breast. Did he mean anything by that? . . . But probably not.
Thenceforward, talk never failed.
The three youths left the restaurant together. A despair had seized upon Wilfred. There was nothing further he could do to prolong the occasion. He had no place where he could ask them to come. This was the end! They paused on the sidewalk.
“Which way you go?” asked Stanny, offhand.
“I live in Eleventh street.”
“Walk around by the Avenue with us.”
So he obtained five minutes reprieve. At the Eleventh street corner they paused again. Wilfred’s heart was low. His tongue clave to his palate.
Stanny said in the forthright manner that became his doughty self so well: “Look here; I’ve got a garret up on Fourteenth street. Jasper’s coming up. Would you like to come and look at my stuff?”
Would he! Wilfred could scarcely reply. “Oh yes!” he murmured. “I was hoping you would ask me.”
Both lads looked at him with quick pleasure. Without knowing it, he had said exactly the right thing. They marched up-town three abreast.
“Got anything to drink?” mumbled Jasper.
“Divil a drop, you sponge!”
“I . . . I wish you’d let me . . . stand treat,” stammered Wilfred. With his fingers, he made sure of the limp dollar bill in his trousers pocket. That was for lunches the balance of the week, but . . . !
“All right,” said Stanny. “We’ll go round by Maria’s, and get a bottle of Nebiola . . .”