It was two o’clock in the morning and time for the men to knock off. In the awkward blue light Martin wiped a smear of oil from his cheek. The mirror was so distorted and the light so penetrating that his face seemed one sided and all the lines about his mouth and eyes were pulling in the wrong directions. He washed his hands and face, glanced again into the crazy mirror, buttoned his pea-jacket and headed for his room in Greenwich Village.
His street was in a dimly lighted section made up of rooming houses occupied chiefly by small tradesmen. He had walked several blocks before he stopped to light a cigarette. It was very quiet and through the shabby elms the night seemed beautiful and lonely. As he started on he heard someone behind him. From the sound of the step, it was a woman. Vaguely, he wondered about her; but he walked on briskly, enjoying this brief, cold freedom, then stopped again, looking with interest straight overhead at the same stars he had watched move in different latitudes and from different ships. For the second time he heard the steps behind him and turned round. At this, they broke off sharply, but not before Martin had caught a distinctive note in them. They had a giddy pitch that was not purely feminine. His curiosity was aroused. He started down the street once more, walking slowly now, with a precise, even stride. Then he stopped abruptly. The feet behind him tapped on for a second, fluttered, hesitated and stopped again. Suddenly, in Martin’s mind, the unmusical gait gathered motif, meaning and form. He remembered a repulsively ardent smile.... “Carol!” he shouted. There was no answer. Again he tried. “Hi! Carol!” This time his follower ran quickly toward him.
“How did you know it was me, Martin?” asked the boy excitedly, all smiles.
Martin, chameleon-like, studied the dregs of his memory for similar situations or, he thought grimly, singular opportunities; for this was not an element to be faced, but one to be absorbed.
“We all have our characteristics, Carol,” he answered evenly.
“Do you like mine, Martin?” Carol’s plaintive tone softened the eager, beseeching import of his question.
Again Martin hesitated. He well knew that the middle path was not as the Romans had worked it out—a smooth highway, without deviation. He knew that the middle path must fluctuate with both extremes to deserve the term—which in this case, he observed to himself further with a certain cynical amusement, was between a bitch and a son-of-a-bitch. He took hold of the young man’s arm and spoke to him in a friendly fashion.
“Let’s go on up to my place, Carol,” he said.
On the dark stairs Carol followed close at his heels. Martin could feel little tugs at his coat as the young man hung on to him in a sort of childish panic and Martin had a distinct impression that Carol was groping for his hand. He could feel the boy’s breath on the back of his neck as they continued to climb; and when they reached the dark landing just outside Martin’s room, Carol was still hanging on to him feverishly. Martin fumbled for the keyhole, succeeded in finding it at last, opened the door and turned on a dim light. Carol followed him into the room, sighed with relief and closed the door quickly behind them.
He stood there, just inside, his hand still on the doorknob, gazing around him with wide eyes and obviously taking notes. There was a pallet on the floor in one corner, an old couch across from it and a writing desk in the center of the room. He could see a T-square, erasers and jumbled pieces of paper on the desk beside a miniature of Deane. He turned his head away suddenly at sight of the picture. In another corner of the room was a washbowl with a screen half around it. There was a general air of carelessness about the place which apparently made him nervous. Martin could see him straightening up things in his mind.