“I didn’t speak to you before,” Joe went on, “because of that gang I was with. They’re gone now, thank God! and I can be myself.” He dropped into the chair opposite Wilfred. “What you drinking? Grenadine au Kirsch? Nothing but apple water! Have an absinthe with me.” He signalled a waiter. “Hey, garçon! Deux absinthes au sucre.”
Joe Kaplan speaking French! A yell of laughter inside Wilfred.
To have the effulgent Joe sitting opposite, attracting all eyes to their table, made Wilfred exquisitely conscious of the discrepancies of his own dress. Joe’s brilliant personality beat him to the earth; he hated himself for being so easily overcome. He couldn’t meet those hard bright eyes. He was full of indignation that Joe had presumed to sit down without waiting to be asked; and at the same time he was amazed that Joe deigned to notice him at all. Surely he could not be so insignificant as he seemed to himself if. . . . But vanity was slain by the hateful suggestion that it gratified Joe to sit there displaying the contrast between them to the assembled company.
How Wilfred writhed under that thought! Yet it would have been too ridiculous for him to get up and walk out of the place. He had not courage enough for that. He sat there, enduring it, until people forgetting them, looked elsewhere. Then curiosity began to burn in him, and he no longer wished to go. What a chance to learn the truth about Joe! If he could be induced to talk about himself; to reveal his commonness; it would destroy the absurd, splendid, evil creature of Wilfred’s imagination, and cure his envy.
“Funny how we always run into each other,” said Joe; “big as the town is! What you doing now?” He was only giving Wilfred half his attention; the black eyes were roving around.
“I work for the Exchange Trust,” said Wilfred.
“Oh, Amasa Gore’s bank. Did he put you in there? I haven’t seen Gore for near four years. How is the old stiff? . . . And Dobereiner? And Harry Bannerman?”
“I don’t know,” said Wilfred. “I never go there.”
“Still living with the Aunts?”
“No. I have my own place now.”