“Did any of you see what happened?” he demanded. There was a chorus of “noes” and “not me’s.”
“Yeh, you always take it in but you get blind afterwards,” he said, angrily—he was a new policeman and brassily anxious to make arrests and acquire a record. “Go on, beat it now, don’t stand around blocking up the corner. And you, girlie, you’d better take him in this drug store and have his face fixed up.”
He waved his club as he dispersed the bystanders.
Blanche helped Rosenberg into the drug store, and the clerk applied a poultice to Rosenberg’s eye and gave him some iodine for his mouth. Blanche felt an enormous pity for him—he was physically weak but he was not a coward, and she wished that she could love him, for he certainly deserved it. She had a sense of guilt at having caused him all this pain and trouble, and she became confused at the impossibility of making any amends to him. More kisses and huggings?—they would only lead him to an eventual disappointment. Only her love could make him happy, and that couldn’t be manufactured, no matter how much you respected a man. Oh, darn, was there ever an answer to anything?... One thing was certain, though—for his own good she would have to stop seeing him. Otherwise, she would only continue to lure him into danger without offering him any reward.
On his own part, Rosenberg felt a determined resentment—if he was going to get his head knocked off for her sake, she would have to give him much more than friendship. There was no sense in fighting for a girl who didn’t love you, or refused to surrender herself.
They sat for a moment on one of the drug-store benches.
“You’d better go home now, Lou,” she said. “We’ll get a cab and I’ll ride up with you. Your face must be hurting you terribly. Gee, I can’t tell you how sorry I am that all this happened, Lou. Harry’s nothing but a low-down cur, and if he ever dares to do anything like this again, I won’t stay home another twenty-four hours. I’ve simply got to show them they can’t walk all over me.”
“Never mind about me, I’ll be all right in a couple of days,” he answered. “I’ve got something to say to you, Blanche, but we’ll wait’ll we’re in the cab.”
As they rode uptown, they were silent for a while, and then he said slowly: “We’ve got to have a show-down, Blanche. ’F I’m going to buck your whole family and that rotten gangster brother of yours, I want to be sure you’ll marry me, first. I’d be a fool otherwise, you know that.”
“I know,” she answered, despondently, “and I don’t blame you a bit. I like you lots, Lou, I’ve told you that enough times, and you’ve helped me so much, showing me how stupid I was, and ... I feel blue about it. I don’t love you—you give me a sort of peaceful feeling, and I like to hear you talk, and I don’t mind your ways ... but that isn’t love.... Oh, I’ve tried to love you, but it just wouldn’t come. It just wouldn’t.... I guess you’d better stop seeing me, Lou. I’d only bring you more trouble, and it wouldn’t be fair to you.”