“I know I’m rough and crude. In a lot of ways Bernie was right. I know there are times when perhaps I shock you with those crudities. But it isn’t because I haven’t the desire to learn. If you’ll only be patient, I’ll try my best——”
“Let’s not talk about it, laddie. Of course I know you’ll try your best. I’ve seen you eager to do your best so many times it’s often brought tears to my eyes. You never knew. Of course there are old habits you’ve been almost thirty years forming that can’t be broken in a moment. They’re deeper than your conscious mind. Yes—I know all that! I guess it’s because you’re trying so hard that I’ve gone on loving you more and more. No man need despair of becoming a polished, courtly gentleman who has a basic love of beauty in his heart. All else is a matter of practice and contact. Anyway, you suit me, and if you keep on the way you’ve been going the past six months, at forty I’m going to drop right down on my bony old knees and worship you—the little tin god that I’ve made!”
“No woman ever talked to me as you do, Madelaine. It would be a pretty cheap fellow who couldn’t respond to your ‘handling.’ You don’t scold or preach, like all the rest, and make me more self-conscious than ever. There’s something you radiate that simply won’t let a fellow be a boor while you’re around. And I love you! Dear God, how I love you! What can I ever do to show it? I wonder what?”
“Well, dear, just now you might kiss me,” Madelaine responded, pinching his hard ruddy hand. “For the present that will be quite sufficient.”
Music started somewhere on the decks below.
“A waltz!” cried the girl. “Come on, Natie, let’s dance.”
“I can’t dance,” confessed Nathan bitterly.
“Well, what the stuff-and-nonsense difference does that make? I’m here to teach you, am I not? Come on, you horrible troglodyte! You’re going to get your first lesson in waltzing under the absolutely impersonal instruction of your Girl-Without-a-Name!”
And he did.