Our telephone was completed without a hitch and was in running order, as I soon ascertained by ringing up Moore. Then we settled down to a well-earned sleep, Larry at least in a state of pleasurable excitement.
The following week marked the début of Moore and myself in the social game. Moore took a studio in Greenwich Village, furnished it superbly, dabbled in sculpture and invited his ever-growing circle of friends and acquaintances to come to tea, discuss art and view what he described to me as his atrocities.
For my part, I visited old friends in search of introductions in what I thought might be likely quarters and followed these up assiduously. Moore maintained his dilettante pose and went in for the milder forms of dissipations and indiscretions, doing his best to attain the appearance of evil without boring himself with the thing itself. I followed his advice and took to myself the pose of a disillusioned worldling of esthetic tastes.
Night after night we held long conversations over our telephone, comparing notes so as to avoid each other’s tracks as much as possible. In this way we seldom saw each other.
However, I came across his traces once or twice. In answer to a charming letter from Mrs. Furneau, I called and did my best to convince her that I had given up all hope of finding Margaret. I was cynical, disillusioned and self-centered to a point where I wondered how she could stand having me in the house.
However, she was most charming and sympathetic, introduced me to a number of her friends and invited me to become a regular caller at her pretty brown-stone house. She had a distinct charm of manner, arising from her perfect confidence in herself and her power to please, and I found her circle a wide one and promising for my purpose. Here one afternoon, much to my amazement, I overheard two feminine social butterflies discussing Moore.
“You know, my dear, he must have heaps of money to keep that place going—and he never works except at his sculpting, and I’m sure he never makes any money at that.”
“They say he’s fearfully dissipated,” cut in the other. “But I thought he was charming. Such a bored air and so perfectly self-possessed. He told me that I understood him as no one else did.”
“Yes, I dare say,” answered the first, unsheathing a claw. “He really needs some pure young thing like you to take him in hand and reform him. It’s such a pity to see him going to pieces like that.”
At this point I moved away, overcome by my emotions; but I repeated the whole conversation to Moore later on and advised him to seize his chance of reform if she gave it to him.