"It's Mr. Goode, sir. He says he can't give me the message."
God, but I'm ridiculous! "Mr. Goode, eh?" Charles, very abstracted, buttoned on his shirt. "Well, you tell Goode I'll call him later, Johnson." As Johnson, assenting in his delicately servile manner, was turning away, Charles beckoned him back. "Eh, Johnson, just between you and me, while the madam isn't looking. Suppose you bring me up—just a little, you know—Old Scotch. God damn this collar button!"
Johnson, who was a blond young man with a wise subdued air, smiled a little. Finding it flattered his employers, he had cultivated the sad manner of a professional mourner. "Very good, sir."
As Johnson disappeared, Charles's ruminations broke forth afresh. "'Very good, sir!' Damn little son-of-a-gun! He'd do well in a play. Got a fine contempt for the old man, Johnson has. Yep, by God, Catherine has got me on breeding. Servants never bat an eye at her. Might have been born with a gold spoon in her mouth. Well, she's a pink-face and the old boy's a rough-neck. Tra-la-la—" He resumed Musetta's Waltz.
"That Blanche—that damned little hyper-sexed, hyper-sophisticated, hyper-everything—By Jove, she'd pinch the gold plate out of a mummy's tooth!" When Charles talked he allowed his voice gradually to mount the scales until it broke on a falsetto note. It was part of the horseplay with which his dramatic sense responded, in self-derision, to the attitude of those about him. Catherine insisted on his occasional attendance at the opera, and Pagliacci, which he heard first, was his favorite piece. He identified himself with the title part, though it was a little confusing for him to imagine himself a deceived husband. He felt that the author of the libretto had confused the issue. "Blanche, by God, that Blanche!" He referred to a young woman who took minor parts in cinema plays. He wanted to be rid of her. She was statuesque and theatric, but as his intimacy with her had grown she had relapsed into habitual vulgarities which grated on him. Charles revered a lady. Besides, since becoming interested in Julia he wanted to forget everything else. Blanche was realizing that she had destroyed an illusion through which she might have furthered her ambition, and she was growing recklessly spiteful and crude. Only the day before Charles had sent her money which she had kept, though she reviled him for sending it. His humility made it impossible for him to condemn any one, except in extreme moments of self-defense. "Poor little girl! By Jove, I wonder if she did love me a little after all!" He shook his head, and smiled with an expression of sentimental weariness. He put Blanche away as incongruous with the thought of Julia which filled him with happiness.
"Sick o' the whole mess of 'em. That fellow, Goode, making a damn jackass of himself every time a chorus girl winks at him. The whole damn cheap, sporting, booze-fighting lot of nincompoops. Goode's a grandfather and he looks it."
The door moved softly, there was a light rap, and Johnson re-entered with a tray. Charles laid his hair brushes down. "Looks good to me, Johnson." Johnson smiled his sad, half-perceptible smile. "Shall I mix it, sir?"
"No—Johnson. No." With an air of ostentatious casualness, Charles poured whisky into a glass and held it up to the light. "Good stuff." Johnson kept his still smile, but did not speak.
Charles drank with deliberate noisiness. When he set the glass down he drew a deep theatric sigh. His face was solemn. "Better try some, Johnson."
The man flushed slightly. "Anything else?"