General Grant, it is likely, never stayed at the boarding house of Miss Hetty Venable in West 13th street. But the mark of his régime was on it, particularly in its interior decorations. In Edwin Dell’s room on the second floor, rear, hung heavy velvet portières that still smelled faintly, from the campaign cigar some roomer had smoked there during the Hayes-Tilden election. The furniture was massive and glum; the marble mantel was covered with a cloth with yellow tassels; in the bathtub were painted purple and green tulips of decalcomaniac tendencies; the gas jets suffered from chronic asthma and halitosis. The view from the window embraced four back-yards as similar as pocket-dictionaries, with frescoes of clothes-lines, and a liberal sprinkling of ash-barrels, elderly shoes and used cats. Edwin rubbed his hands with satisfaction; it seemed to him an ideal place to write his kind of book.
Four days after Edwin Dell came to New York and to West 13th Street, Miss Venable’s cook left to accept a position in the moving pictures, and Edwin, who had had his meals in his rooms till then, was now forced to seek his nourishment outside. Was it he who impersonated a serpent in a garden some eons ago who led Edwin Dell to select for his meals the Scarlet Hyena Tea Room, dinner eighty five cents, with soup or salad, one dollar; chicken Sundays? He thought he chose it because it lay on his route to the Greenwich Village branch of the public library.
It was during his second dinner there that Edwin Dell, looking up from page 512 of Bishop Groody’s masterly defense of the theory of infant damnation, saw the girl. He had been aware that there were many girls in New York, but he had ignored them. This girl was hard to ignore. She was looking at him, looking directly and smiling a slight, shameless smile. Edwin frowned, dropped his eyes to his book, and felt uncomfortable. In his confusion he salted his cocoa, and, on tasting it, sputtered. He heard her only partly suppressed titter. He knew that he was flushing. He tried to look up without meeting her eye but he ran straight into her gaze; she was smiling most provocatively. He gulped down his cocoa, salt and all, and fled from the restaurant.
How fresh and pure seemed the air of Seventh Avenue as he crossed it! How reassuring the presence of the traffic policeman! Edwin picked his way along through the crisp December evening. The sound of steps on the sidewalk behind him made him glance over his shoulder. His heart fluttered. Somebody was following him.
Under the arc light he could see her unmistakable dress, an unrestrained maroon batik affair besprint with ochre fish pursuing mauve worms. It was she, the one who had smiled. Edwin Dell’s backward glance was hasty, but hasty as it was, it saw her smile, and her wink. Something close akin to panic gripped him and he lengthened his strides; from the lap, lap, lap of her sandals he knew she too had increased her pace. With anxious eyes he glanced at the numbers; he had forty houses to go before he reached Miss Venable’s. His breath began to come jerkily. Thirty numbers more. She was gaining on him, and was clearing her throat with a loud “Ahem” that even to his inexperienced ears sounded manufactured. Twenty more numbers; and the girl drew nearer, nearer. Edwin broke into a species of canter; lap, lap, lap, lap—she was cantering, too. Just in time he reached the brown stone steps of Miss Venable’s house; with two leaps he reached the door and miraculously hit the key-hole the first stab. He slammed the door shut behind him, and sank down, almost fainting on the derby hats of the other roomers on the hall hat-rack.
Next day before Edwin Dell went forth, he stood for a long time looking at a steel engraving he had brought with him from his home in the country and had tacked to the rose-dappled wall-paper. It was a picture of Ralph Waldo Emerson. New courage rushed into his system like air into a tire as he gazed into the wise, kind, understanding eyes. He ate a push-cart apple for breakfast and another for lunch, and entrenched himself in the library behind the bulwark of Bishop Groody’s ponderous tome. It was past seven that evening when Edwin Dell had intimations that he had a grosser side and must appease it with food. He set forth to do so.
Edwin Dell’s acquaintance with Freud was as limited as Freud’s acquaintance with Edwin Dell. Edwin Dell knew no more of the theory of the subconscious than a trout does of trigonometry. Little did the country lad realize that he was an iceberg with one-third of him projecting above the surface of consciousness, and the other two-thirds plunged deep down in the murky realms of the subconscious. So, with the utmost innocence of intention (ah, little did he reck of the tricks of the subconscious!) he found himself well into the fried atmosphere of the Scarlet Hyena before he remembered that he had resolved never to set foot in that place again. He wheeled about to leave, but a vigilant waiter herded him into a seat in a corner and affixed him there with a napkin, a glass of water and butter. Edwin peered round, and saw no cause for alarm. The girl was not there. Her bobbed red head was nowhere visible in the forest of black, brown, yellow and brindle bobbed heads. With a relieved sigh he ordered chicken liver omelet and weak tea.
He was seeking for vestiges of chicken liver with one eye and reading Groody’s epoch-making chapter, “Have Babies Adult-sized Souls?” with the other, when he became aware that someone had taken the vacant seat across the table from him. Of course he did not look up; he hadn’t the slightest interest in knowing who it was. But the person addressed him.
“I beg your pardon, but will you give me a light,” the voice said. He had to look up then. It was she.
He wished to leave at once, but he was too well-bred, so he said, with impersonal politeness: