On the next morning she had a virulent headache, and felt thwarted and taciturn, and was quite certain that life was a fraud and that the future held nothing for her. The mood remained with varying intensities, during the next three days, but the resiliency of youth slowly drove it away, and on the third night, as she sat in her room, preparing for a “date” with Rosenberg, she felt quite skittish and intactly hopeful. After all, they hadn’t been able to down her yet. She’d get ahead in the world before she was through, and she’d find the man that she was looking for, and in the meantime, Mister Campbell, and Mister Munson, the stock-broker who had called for her in a limousine on the night before last—her birthday—and Mister Rosenberg, and all the rest of them, would have to jig to her tunes. She gave an idle thought to Munson. He was wealthy, and middle-aged, with a large wart on his broad nose, and his conversation ... his money, and his friends, and what he would do for her. Yet, thousands of girls would simply have jumped at the chance to marry him.... All of these men were just makeshifts along the way, until she came across the man whom she could really love, and where was the selfishness involved?—her presence and her talk were worth just as much as theirs, and if they were not satisfied, there were no ropes tied to them. She never ran after them, did she?
Again, she berated herself for having as much as seriously considered Campbell’s proposal to live with her and support her—in a couple of months at most he would have turned away from her and sought another girl, and then what would she have had? A sold-out feeling, and a wondering where to turn next, and the whole problem of her life still staring at her. And to think that she had been on the verge of giving in to him that night at his apartment! She would have to stay away from liquor for a while—it might turn her into a rank prostitute before she knew what was happening. A girl only needed one good push to throw everything to the winds, and she knew her weakness and would have to be more on guard against it. When she met a man whom she loved, she’d be daring and ardent then and tell the world to go to the devil, without even worrying about how long it might last, and not merely because booze had made her feel jolly and helpless and overheated. At her next meeting with Campbell she intended to tell him that they could never be more than pleasant friends to each other.
As for her family, they were a more concrete bug-bear. She knew that Harry and her father would become pugnacious if she ever deserted her home without marrying a man of their choice, but in a pinch, what could they do except strike her, and if they dared....
She emerged from her room, and Mabel, who was sharing a newspaper with Harry, said: “I heard you come in las’ night, Blan. ’F it wasn’t five bells I’ll eat your gray bonnet. I hope you didn’t let Joe get too frisky, though I wouldn’t blame you much if you did. Only he won’t be liable to marry you ’less you hold him off—you know how men are!”
“I didn’t see Joe last night, but don’t worry, I wasn’t born yesterday,” Blanche answered.
“I guess you’re gonna meet that Jew sissy uh yours,” said Harry. “I’ll give him a boxin’ lesson ’f I run into him.”
“That’s all you ever have on your mind,” Blanche retorted. “I don’t see that all this fighting of yours has ever brought you much.”
“That’s all right, I’m not through yet,” he responded, with an angry look. “You hate a guy that doesn’t let off a lotta cheap gas and wriggle his hips.”
As she left the building to meet Rosenberg at the corner drug store, two blocks away, she did not notice that Harry was following her. When she and Rosenberg had exchanged greetings and were about to cross the street, she heard her brother’s voice cry: “Hey, wait a minnit!” and they turned around, and she asked: “What do you want, Harry?”
He ignored her and spoke to Rosenberg.