“Of course not.” Martin stood up. “I have to go now.”
The little girl put on her shoes.
“I wish you’d come again to-morrow. If you do, I’ll bring my ball.”
“That will be fun,” called Martin as he walked away. Going back to his hotel he thought of this blue-eyed youngster and how great it would be to tell her fairy tales every night and buy her sandals and her frocks. And with this picture came once more the vision of all the rest of it—a wife’s head on his shoulder, a fireplace, and yes—a pipe. He wondered then where in the world a finer shadow was leading him—a search for mysteries without substance or reason. At that moment he was a tired and a lonely man, quite willing to exchange a pound of mysticism and ideals, hard-won from depth to depth, for one ounce of level complacency. But after the first bitterness had worn off he was the same desperate young lover of the physiostatic tides of force that subtly pull and push until out of sheer pity they permit the frail skeleton to slip up on the sands of its desire where the hollow star, so followed, lies desolate and discontent.
The next day he was glad to see the child again. Her good humor freed him—was pure liberation from the constriction of the Bowery. She called out to him at once.
“Hello, teacher.”
“I’d rather you said ‘Martin.’”
“Is that your first name?”
“Yes.”
“And you don’t mind if I call you that?”