“Frankly, I’d just as soon not go into details,” said the young man. He took a cigarette from his own pack, ignoring a transparent humidor on the table, and lit it with his own lighter. His hands were large. They looked neither strong nor competent nor sensitive. Yet he used them as if they had some not easily controllable aesthetic drive of their own. “I’ve made up my mind that I’m not even going to think about it. But I’m just so furious,” he said. “I mean here’s this awful little person from Altoona, Pennsylvania—or one of those places. Apparently starving to death. I’m kind and decent enough—I’m the original Good Samaritan—to take him into my apartment, this absolutely microscopic little apartment that I can hardly move around in myself. I introduce him to all my friends. Let him clutter up the whole apartment with his horrible manuscript papers, and cigarette butts, and radishes, and whatnot. Introduce him to every theatrical producer in New York. Haul his filthy shirts back and forth from the laundry. And on top of it all—” The young man broke off. “And the result of all my kindness and decency,” he went on, “is that he walks out of the house at five or six in the morning—without so much as leaving a note behind—taking with him anything and everything he can lay his filthy, dirty hands on.” He paused to drag on his cigarette, and exhaled the smoke in a thin, sibilant stream from his mouth. “I don’t want to talk about it. I really don’t.” He looked over at Ginnie. “I love your coat,” he said, already out of his chair. He crossed over and took the lapel of Ginnie’s polo coat between his fingers. “It’s lovely. It’s the first really good camel’s hair I’ve seen since the war. May I ask where you got it?”
“My mother brought it back from Nassau.”
The young man nodded thoughtfully and backed off toward his chair. “It’s one of the few places where you can get really good camel’s hair.” He sat down. “Was she there long?”
“What?” said Ginnie.
“Was your mother there long? The reason I ask is my mother was down in December. And part of January. Usually I go down with her, but this has been such a messy year I simply couldn’t get away.”
“She was down in February,” Ginnie said.
“Grand. Where did she stay? Do you know?”
“With my aunt.”
He nodded. “May I ask your name? You’re a friend of Franklin’s sister, I take it?”
“We’re in the same class,” Ginnie said, answering only his second question.