Thelma’s laughter: “Only boneheads need booze. I’m tryin’ and tryin’ to like tea. Ever since I been comin’ here, I been tryin’. But I can’t just. I’m a bonehead.”
“Wisht I had your wits,” said Mildred. She was blonde, doll-petite. Her lips curled lecherous in her narrow face.
“What d’ya mean? I have wits?” Thelma’s laughter. “I’m a damn fool. Ask Jack. That’s why I love him.”
She turned her face—honest face with square chin and high clear cheekbones—to the pretty boy she loved. It was plain she loved him.
—My friends! These boys, these girls. Jack Baruch who picks pockets. Wesser who handles men like Baruch and the gunmen for Mangel and for Statt—Wesser who was the Diplomat of pool-rooms, with his sharp smooth chin and his excellent English, and his intelligent calm. These girls—
Thelma got up. She kissed Jack, she kissed Fanny. She paid no attention to the other two.
“Me for my afternoon’s walk. Good-by.”
“You’re sensible, dear,” said Fanny: the lithe full body moved half in a prance away.
Wesser was still.—Where is the calm of Wesser? Wesser was troubled. The absence of Thelma who meant laughter and noise seemed to make him uncovered. He picked at his trousers. He smoked his cigar with a harsh swiftness ... he who was so smooth. Jack was jolly. He who had brought into the too hard sureness of the House a bloom of adolescent melancholy, laughed now loudly.
Jim Statt came in.