The girl was explaining about their Christmas date. Sam felt a rush of affection for her as she leaned forward.
“Don’t bother,” he told her. “I knew you couldn’t help breaking the date. I was a little sore when you called me, but I got over it; never-hold-a-grudge-against-a-pretty-girl-Sam, I’m known as. How about lunch?”
“Lunch?” She gestured distractedly. “I promised Lew, Mr. Knight, that is—But he wouldn’t mind if you came along.”
“Fine. Let’s go.” This would be helping Lew to a spoonful of his own medicine.
Lew Knight took the business of having a crowd instead of a party for lunch as badly as Sam hoped he would. Unfortunately, Lew was able to describe details of his forthcoming case, the probable fees and possible distinction to be reaped thereof. After one or two attempts to bring an interesting will he was rephrasing for Somerset Ojack into the conversation, Sam subsided into daydreams. Lew immediately dropped Rosenthal v. Rosenthal and leered at Tina conversationally.
Outside the restaurant, snow discolored into slush. Most of the stores were removing Christmas displays. Sam noticed construction sets for children, haloed by tinsel and glittering with artificial snow. Build a radio, a skyscraper, an airplane. But “Only with a Bild-A-Man can you—”
“I’m going home,” he announced suddenly. “Something important I just remembered. If anything comes up, call me there.”
He was leaving Lew a clear field, he told himself, as he found a seat on the subway. But the bitter truth was that the field was almost as clear when he was around as when he wasn’t. Lupine Lew Knight, he had been called in law school; since the day when he had noticed that Tina had the correct proportions of dress-filling substance, Sam’s chances had been worth a crowbar at Fort Knox.
Tina hadn’t been wearing his brooch today. Her little finger, right hand, however, had sported an unfamiliar and garish little ring. “Some got it,” Sam philosophized. “Some don’t got it. I don’t got it.”
But it would have been nice, with Tina, to have got it.