She tried to thrust him away from her, with wobbly arms, and said: “You’ve got to let me go home, Joe, I’m not myself, I’m not. You wouldn’t want me to give in to you just because I’ve drank too much—not if you love me like you say you do. ’F I ever come to you I don’t want to be coaxed—I want to do it of my own accord, and be glad about it.”
“I can’t, you’ve got me up in the air,” he answered, trying to embrace her again.
This time she repulsed him with more vigor.
“I’d like to see you stop me,” she said. “’F you try it you’ll wish you hadn’t.”
She walked to the couch and started to put on her hat and coat. His mind began to work swiftly, repressing his impulse to follow her and change it to a battle. The determination in her voice might not be real—he had subdued other girls by resorting to a mingled physical struggle and pleading at the last moment—but he had a hunch that it was genuine in her case. She was that rare kind of girl who had to be handled with extreme, inhuman care, and who had a fighting spirit within her and became sullenly stubborn when she thought that a man was trying to force himself upon her. If he controlled himself now, it might give him the halo of a “real gentleman” to her, and then afterwards she would come to him of her own accord, just as she had said. He walked up to her and held one of her hands, gently.
“What do you think I am—a gorilla ’r something?” he asked. “I’d never try to keep you here against your will, don’t be silly. I thought you didn’t mean it ’r else I’d never have acted this way. You’ve got the wrong slant on me, Blanche. I’ll get a cab for you now and see you home.”
She looked at him more softly and said: “Maybe I have, Joe, maybe. You can’t be blamed ’f you want me, but you’ll just have to wait till I come to you myself, ’f I ever do.”
They descended to the street and he rode home with her. He kissed her lightly, as they stood in the hallway of her building, and said: “When can I see you again, dear?”
“I’m too dizzy to think ’bout anything now,” she replied. “Call me up real soon and we’ll make a date.”
She managed to reach her room with no greater heralding than a collision with a chair in the kitchen, and after she had undressed and turned out the light, she pitched herself upon the bed, as though she were violently greeting a tried and deliciously safe friend. For a while, fragments of thought eddied through the growing fog in her head. Hadn’t she acted like an idiot—like one of those movie queens in the pictures, always struggling around with some man, like they were ashamed they had bodies? She was alone now—she’d had her way, and she was winding up with nothing, nothing except another day of hard word at the “parlor,” with a heavy head to carry around. Oh, gee, where was the man with a big chest, and a handsome face—it wouldn’t have to be pretty, like that of a cake-eater—and a complete understanding of all her longings, and a wonderful mind, and ... her head grew blank and she fell asleep.