“Beef to the heel!” That puzzled me, too.
We had drained our coffee cups when two people who sat at a table behind us passed—a man and a woman—Bobby Haralson and Dicky. I recognized Bobby as I came in; the lovely droop of Dicky’s back is not unfamiliar to me, either.
“That’s Bob Haralson—you’ve heard of him—one of our biggest men, and his biggest work is still in him. He’s the nicest, most lovable, queerest fellow you ever did see. He has hosts of friends, but mostly, he lives to himself. He’d give his last dollar to a friend and go hungry himself; and once I knew him to refuse to be introduced to a rich fellow of power in the literary world because that man belonged soul and body to a corporation—had been bought. That’s Bob Haralson! I often see him here, but I never saw him here with a woman before. Come to think of it, I never saw him anywhere before with a woman—not much in his line, women. But they seemed to be having a corking time. I never saw him so animated. That little witch—pretty, wasn’t she?—has got him going. I’d have asked him over to be introduced had he been alone.”
As we left the restaurant Mr. Elliott asked me to go with him to a little theatre where the one-act plays were all thrills. I couldn’t tell him that if I had any more thrills he’d probably have to call an ambulance and send me to a hospital; I couldn’t explain that as far as I was concerned the play was done, curtain down, and lights out.
We went. We sat in darkness. The darkness was a great relief. Mr. Elliott could not see me. I sat there with tightly shut eyes until, at a stir among the people about me, I heard some one say a man had fainted. “It gets my goat!” I murmured. Fortunately there was quite a little stir about us and Mr. Elliott did not hear me.
April 18th.
Some hours ago, when I left New York, having decided to run up to Plymouth and finish up the work on the book by the sea, Mr. Elliott put me in the coach, having showered me with books, flowers, and magazines. I opened the flowers in the cab, and I stared at them and at him.
“Don’t you like them?”
Did I like orchids and lilies of the valley? Bobby’s Christmas gift to me? I pulled up. I wasn’t going to be beef to the heel. I joined the New York procession—and I think I made good.
There’s a little slit of a mirror in the coach, right here by my chair, and I take a peep at myself. Blessings on Mrs. Christopher, I don’t look like a spinster, and from Marsville. And then—then I bury my face in nice Mr. Elliott’s flowers, drinking in their perfume, and splashing them with some very big and salty tears.