“All right!” he said loftily. “Have it your own way!”
He turned away his head, though he was a little alarmed as he did so. He had always felt that chivalry required him to keep his head turned rigidly toward Madeline, to atone for the fact that she stood while he sat. Of course, that was not his fault. Madeline being a waitress, and he a customer, anything more gallant was impossible.
He certainly did not enjoy being waited on by this splendid girl. In fact, he so bitterly disliked it that he would have ceased coming to Compson’s Chophouse, if he had not realized that in his absence she would very likely be waiting on some other man, possibly not so chivalrous.
It was altogether a sacrifice on his part, because the food did not conform to his standards. He could not get here the well balanced rations necessary for building up his physique. Of what use to work night and morning with a patent exerciser, if he did not get the proper muscle-building foods? This worried him very much, for he desired a fine physique as greatly as he desired a master mind.
Then, too, he often had to wait a long while for Madeline to be free to attend to him, and he fretted at the waste of time. He couldn’t light a cigarette to beguile his tedium, for he knew that the smoker cannot have a fine physique. If he saw a smoker who looked as if he had one, Ritchie knew him to be a whited sepulcher, with a failing heart, exhausted lungs, and no will power.[Pg 92]
To be sure, he might have passed the time with some improving book. He always carried in his pocket a volume of a set he had bought—a set guaranteed to broaden his mind, and to contain all that he ought to read; but he couldn’t keep his mind on a book when Madeline was about.
“Have it your own way,” he repeated.
This time he said it with a new significance. He meant that, as far as he was concerned, Madeline might have everything her own way forever.
Unfortunately, she wasn’t there to hear him. She was waiting on a man at another table. She never so much as glanced at Ritchie. He knew she wouldn’t look at him, and he took a gloomy pleasure in staring at her.
She was worth looking at, was Madeline. Tall, spare, straight, in an austere white uniform and a sleek coiffure, she was a miracle to irradiate any chophouse. Her features were subtle—a delicate nose, a rounded chin, a mouth very red in her pale face. Her black brows made an incomparable line above her dark, steady eyes.