"My good friend," I whispered back, "none of us are beyond reach of the coarse natured."
"That's so," he answered, "but a wallop in the jaw's good for 'em."
An hour later we took the boat back. The little girl slept all the way home, in her father's arms. Frances gazed dreamily on the water. Little Mrs. Sullivan sat on a chair very close to her husband, with the baby secure on her lap. Her head soon rested on the young prizefighter's shoulder, and she dozed off. I am sure he endured exquisite discomfort with pins and needles rather than disturb her.
And I, like a fool, worried on account of a man perpetually scented with gasoline and spotted with transmission grease who had taken the infernal liberty of winking at me because of my being with poor Frances, taking the air on a proletarian pier.
"The world," Gordon had told me, one day, "utterly refuses to permit a man and woman to be merely good friends. Since the days of Noah's Ark, it has been recognized as an impossibility, and, therefore, society has ever frowned down upon any attempt in so foolish a direction."
I replied hotly that the world was evil-minded, at times, and he retorted that the world was all right, but some men were jackasses. He remarked that Carlyle had been too lenient when he declared that his countrymen were mostly fools. But then, Carlyle was insular, after all, and unduly favored the inhabitants of his isle, as any British subject would. Nearly all men all over the world were fools, Gordon asserted. Coyotes and foxes had an instinctive dread of traps, but men walked into them so innocently that merely to behold them was enough to drive a man to drink.
After all, I don't care what O'Flaherty and such cattle think! As long as I can save Frances, or any other good woman, from shedding one more tear than has been ordained for her, I shall do so. I refuse to be envious of the intelligence of foxes and coyotes, and I will always resent uncouthness and mean thoughts.
She looked rather tired when we came down the steps of the elevated road. I begged her to let me take Baby Paul in my arms, and she finally consented, after first declining. It did not awaken him, and we reached the house in becoming tranquillity. Some of our fellow lodgers were on the steps and greeted us civilly. They were the three young men and the two girls. Thank goodness they appeared to be too unversed in the wickedness of this world to entertain such ideas as must have passed through the bullet-head of O'Flaherty!
On the next day, I went up to Gordon's studio, and I confess it was with the purpose of looking again at that picture. He was superintending the packing of his suit cases and a trunk. I told him something of my experience, my indignation throbbing in my throat.