“I know Carol’s extravagances,” she went on, “but I hate to see him hurt.”
Martin wheeled around. “And I don’t want you hurt,” he answered. “Carol’s bad luck. He’s a fool and a parrot.” Then, raising his voice a little, he repeated, “They’re all damned bad luck.”
All this time Carol was walking down the street. His walk was unusual but convincing. His hips had no vertical motion. They jerked horizontally, hesitated, and jerked to the other side. He knew that his hips did this. He liked it and did it on purpose, for he had always liked the abstract movement of a woman. So Carol went down the street, aware and proud of his unusual attraction. But he kept thinking of Deane and Martin. He shuddered. “They are like animals—they!” He looked swiftly at a man crossing the street. Then he shrugged his shoulders and thought again of Deane and Martin. “How carnal! How obvious! Why, even now they might be looking at each other—holding each other.” The thought was too repugnant and he held a handkerchief to his lips. Yes; such things were—he waved his handkerchief almost imperceptively—well, beyond endurance. Gently he picked up his cross and strapped it over his shoulders, basking in tribal strength. His friends had said: “Man and woman?—ah, yes,”—(with a yawn). Carol held the handkerchief closer.
He walked along the Avenue to Washington Square and sat down on a bench. A thin, blonde-haired woman with a pretty face passed him slowly. She thought rapidly, came back and sat down beside him.
Carol’s mind was drifting pleasurably. He remembered a boy in Chicago who could quote poetry beautifully and whose blue eyes were oriental. The boy’s hands were so strong that they could crack a walnut; and yet, they could be so gentle. Carol smiled, a sweet, remembering smile. The girl on the bench smiled, too. She thought he was affecting indifference and her interest increased. But he did not even know that she was there until she held a cigarette toward him.
“Pardon me. Do you have a match?” she asked.
Carol was taken from his dream. Not entirely. A moment, a memory, a little beauty remained. But this slender, light-haired creature had destroyed everything he felt most closely. He looked at her calmly. He knew women.
“I do not have a match. I do not smoke.” He looked at her and she understood. Both had an expression of loathing. Each typified the thing in the world they disliked most. The girl stood up. She didn’t know how to tell him what she felt, but an obscene, contemptuous movement of her hips sickened him. He looked in the other direction, praying that she would leave swiftly. It was humiliating.... The evening shadows hid her as she walked away and Carol tried to reminisce again. But it was no good. His dreams had gone.