Carroll felt that he was overwhelmed, beaten, at bay before utter ignominy. The thought flashed across him, as he tried to swallow some more of the soup, that in some respects, if he had been a murderer or a great bank defaulter with detectives on his track, the situation would at least have been more endurable. The horrible pettiness of it all, constituted the maddening sting of it. While he was thinking this the girl they called May came flying back, her blond crest bobbing, her cheeks blazing. She looked like a beautiful and exceedingly vulgar little fury. She came close to Carroll, while the other girl's voice was heard at the door pleading with her to come back.
“I won't come back till I have said my say, so there!” she called back. Then she addressed Carroll very loudly. She was transformed for the time. Hysteria had her in its clutch. She was half-fed, half-clothed, made desperate by repeated failures. There was also a love affair in the background. She was, in reality, not so very far removed from the carbolic-acid crisis. “I say,” said she. “I say, you! You'd better look out! You'd better pony up pretty quickly or you'll get into trouble you don't count on. There was a man at the office that morning after you quit, and if he should happen to walk in here and see you, you'd have a policeman after you. You'd better look out!”
Carroll felt his face flush hot. For the first time in his life he was conscious of being actually down. He realized the sensation of the under dog, and he realized his utter helplessness, his utter lack of defence against this small, pretty girl who was attacking him. Everybody in the place seemed listening. Some of the people at the farther tables came nearer, other's were craning their necks. The girl gave her head an indescribable toss, at once vicious, coquettish, and triumphant. Her blond crest tossed, the scoop of her red hat rocked.
“I thought I'd just tell you,” said she. Then she marched, holding her skirts tightly around her, with a disclosure of embroidered ruffles and the contour of pretty hips, and there was a shout of laughter in the place. Carroll pushed away his bowl of soup and turned to a grinning waiter near him.
“My check,” he said.
“I ain't your waiter,” replied the man, insolently.
“Bring me my check for this soup and coffee,” repeated Carroll, and the man started. There was something in his look and tone that commanded respect even in this absurdity. In reality, for the time, he was almost a madman. His fixed idea reasserted itself. At that moment, if it had been possible that his enemy, the man who had precipitated all this upon him, could have entered the room, there would have been murder done, and again for the moment his mind overlapped on the wrong side of life, and the desire for death was upon him. There was that in his face which hushed the laughter.
“They had better not hound that man much farther,” one man at the table on the right whispered to his companion, who nodded, with sharp eyes on Carroll's face. They were both newspaper-men.
When Carroll had paid his bill and passed out, one of the men, young and clean-shaven, pressed close to his side.
“Pardon me, sir,” he said, “but if you would allow me to express my regrets and sympathy—”