“Don't you go to Moretti's any more?” he asked, and then regretted the brusqueness of the question.
“Sometimes,” she said. “Usually when I buy the Oblique I go to a Hartford Lunch. I can sit there as long as I want and read, with doughnuts and coffee.”
Lester had a curious feeling of oscillation somewhere to the left of his middle waistcoat button. As the little girl said on the Coney Island switchback, he felt as though he had freckles on his stomach.
“Will you come to Moretti's with me some night?” he asked.
“I'd love to,” she said. “I must hurry now. Mr. Arundel's waiting for this phone call.”
A little later in the day, after a good deal of heartburning, Lester called her up from his desk. “How about to-morrow night?” he said, and she accepted.
Coursing back to his chamber the next evening, Lester was a little worried about the ceremonial demanded by the occasion. Should he put on white linen and a dinner jacket, becoming the conquering male of the upper classes? But the recollection of the Oblique Review suggested that a touch of négligée would be more appropriate. A clean, soft collar and a bow tie of lavender silk were his concessions to unconvention. He was about to scrub out a minute soup stain on the breast of his coat, but concluded that as a badge of graceful carelessness this might remain. At a tobacconist's he bought a package of cheap Russian cigarettes, such as he imagined a Bolshevik might smoke.
There she came, tripping along the street, with something of the quick, alcaic motion of an Undersmith on high. He waved gayly. She depressed her shift key and reversed the ribbon. He double-spaced, and they entered the restaurant together.
Lester felt an intellectual tremor as they sat down at a corner table. Never had his mind seemed so relentlessly clear, so keen to leap upon the problems of life and tessellate them. It was as though all his past experience had cumulated and led up to this peak of existence. “Now for a close analysis of Female Mind,” was his secret thought as he settled in his chair. He felt almost sorry for this gay, defenceless little shred of humanity who had cast herself under his domineering gaze. A masculine awareness of size and power filled him. And yet—she seemed quite unterrified.