He had taken her to dine at one of the French restaurants that garnish the side-streets of Broadway. He was aglow in the momentum of his self-freeing step. He had found his friend at first remarkably atune to the glad impulse in him.
They faced each other over the narrow little table. The unusual surroundings, the packed clamor of the guests, sharpened in each a sense of intimacy with the other. They drank the red wine that had been brought without their asking for it. Quincy was proud of the fresh firm girl that marked him off from the other men with their faded or drab or hectic women. And Clarice was proud, seeing in Quincy a man strong enough to run the race when its rhythm pleased him, without the engulfment that degraded all these other men—their slavish dress, and their inelastic hands and their stamped features.
She lifted her glass; its scarlet made her wrist a mere shred of white.
“Here’s to the new, old unbroken Quincy. May he have the strength he needs!”
The boy did not understand. As they clinked glasses:
“What do you mean?” he said.
“Are you so confident that you don’t feel the need even of a toast to hearten you?”
“What do you mean?” he could do no better than repeat.
She laughed and leaned back in her chair and poised him so.
“There is only one side of you—or is it depth?—that means anything to me, at all. One side only, that I will tolerate. I drank to that.”