Unfortunately for Wilfred, these fellows, unlike the party at the center table, talked low and all he could get of it was a phrase here and there. He had gathered that they were all artists, though they wore their hair short, and dressed like anybody else. They forced him to reconsider all his notions about artists. Art! the word rang hopefully in Wilfred’s consciousness; it was a way other than business, of making one’s living. Of course he couldn’t be a painter, because his fingers were all thumbs. But a writer, perhaps; that was an art, too. Years ago, his grandfather had told him he had imagination; he had been hugging the assurance ever since. Nobody else had ever suggested that he had any worthy quality. Still, a writer!—how ridiculous to dream of such a thing, when he lacked a college education.
For many nights Wilfred had been watching these happy fellows. Such friends! What would he not have given for one friend, and each of these had three! Talk boiled out of them. Sometimes at a heard phrase, Wilfred’s own breast would froth up like yeasty beer. It was so extraordinary to discover that they talked about the same things that troubled his mind! They were clever. They poked sly fun at the other diners. Once Wilfred caught Stanny’s nickname for the writer who looked like a poodle: “Flannel-belly!” Inexplicably right! he laughed whenever he thought of it.
Wilfred had taken two of the four to his heart; Stanny and Binks. But his feelings toward them were different: for the one he felt a violent affection and sympathy; for the other, a violent, helpless admiration. One or another of these two, or both of them, linked arms with Wilfred in his waking dreams; and into their attentive ears he poured the frothy stuff that choked his breast. When he came to himself, he would smile, to think how in his dreams, he did all the talking.
On this night none of the fellows had come, and Wilfred was obliged to swallow his disappointment. Ceccina had finally been obliged to give their places to a party of overdressed strangers from up-town, who stared rudely around the room, and made audible comments. Such people cheapened everybody in the place. Wilfred cursed them under his breath.
Then the bell rang, and Stanny and Jasper entered the room, a good half hour after their usual time. Wilfred’s heart leaped like a lover’s; then set up a tremendous pounding; for the only two vacant places together, were at his table. The two crossed the room as a matter of course; and Stanny asked him politely if they might share his table.
“Certainly!” stammered Wilfred, keeping his eyes down. He simply had not the courage to look at them so near to.
They sat down side by side opposite him. Wilfred’s breast was in a commotion. His confusion must have affected the other two, for they were silent at first. Undoubtedly they thought him a churl, who hugged his solitude. He could not bring himself to look at them. He was bitterly upbraiding himself. You fool! What a poor figure you are cutting! Why can’t you be natural? These are simple, likable fellows, willing to be friends. They are your kind. What a chance! And you’re throwing it away! You won’t get another such chance. This is what comes of dreaming! Unfits you for the reality. . . .
Their soup was brought; and they hungrily applied themselves to it, with encomiums upon its flavor. While waiting for their next course, they picked up a conversation that had evidently been dropped a little while before. They spoke low; but Wilfred’s sharpened ears heard every word.
“I think you’re foolish,” said Stanny, “after working in the office all day, to sit in your basement nights, hacking away at your carving. With a book of Italian verbs open besides you, too. Or if you’re not there, you’re sitting in Madame Tardieu’s stuffy room, droning French with that tiresome old soul!”
“She needs the money,” mumbled Jasper. His shy, unsure utterance endeared him to Wilfred.