TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES

In the plain text version words in Italics are denoted by _underscores_.

The book cover was modified by the transcriber and has been added to the public domain.

A number of words in this book have both hyphenated and non-hyphenated variants. For the words with both variants present the one more used has been kept.

Obvious punctuation and other printing errors have been corrected.

The Table of Contents was added by the transcriber.

IN A YELLOW WOOD

Novels by Gore Vidal

IN A YELLOW WOOD

WILLIWAW

IN A YELLOW WOOD

By

GORE VIDAL

1947
E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY, INC.
NEW YORK

Copyright, 1947, by E. P. Dutton & Co., Inc.
All rights reserved. Printed in the U.S.A.

FIRST EDITION

No Part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review written for inclusion in magazine or newspaper or radio broadcast.

American Book-Stratford Press, Inc., New York

For Anais Nin

All of the characters, all of the events and most of the places in this book are fictitious.

CONTENT

1
DAY

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveller....

—Frost

From Collected Poems by Robert Frost. Copyright, 1930, 1939, by Henry Holt and Company, Inc. Copyright, 1936, by Robert Frost.

Chapter One

Robert Holton removed several dark hairs from his comb and wondered if his hairline was receding. He squinted for a moment at himself in the mirror and decided that he was not losing his hair, not yet anyway.

Then he sat down on the edge of the bed and put on his shoes. He started to tie the laces of the left shoe when he began to think of his dream. He had many dreams: of flying through the air, of walking in empty rooms, of all the standard things that psychiatrists like to hear about. Unfortunately, in the morning he could seldom recall what he had dreamed the night before. He would remember the sensation of the dream but nothing else. He would remember if it had been good or bad but that was all. Last night his dream had been unpleasant and something in the room had suddenly recalled it to him.

Robert Holton frowned and tried to remember. Was it the carpet? He had looked at the carpet while tying his shoe. He looked at it now. The carpet was dusty and uninteresting. It was a solid brown color; the same carpet that covered the floor of every hotel room in New York. No, the carpet was not connected with his dream.

He had been standing at the dresser while combing his hair. He looked at the dresser: plain dull wood with dull scroll work about the mirror. On the dresser was a dingy white cloth and on the cloth were a pair of brushes, his wallet, and a collection of small things. Nothing suggested an unpleasant dream.

The morning light glowed yellowly through the window shade. There was a band of brighter light between the bottom of the shade and the window sill and here the daylight shone into the square room where Robert Holton lived. He looked at the sunlight a moment and forgot his dream.

He glanced at his watch: fifteen minutes to eight. He had to be at the office at eight-thirty. Quickly he tied his shoes and got to his feet. He searched through the bureau drawers for a shirt. He found a white one and put it on. Before the war he had worn colored shirts but now plain white ones seemed more sound. And then it was a good idea not to be too vivid when you worked for a brokerage house.

His tie was pretty, though. It was a striped one, blue and white. Not a dark sullen blue but a light and casual blue. As he knotted his tie in front of the mirror he noticed his face was pale. He was always pale in the morning, of course; still, he looked unhealthy in the city. This morning he looked paler than usual. There were no pouches under his eyes, though, and he was glad of that. Robert Holton looked younger than twenty-six. His features were boyish and undistinguished and certain women had said that he was handsome. Robert Holton had looked well in uniform.

He put on his trousers and tightened the belt. Robert Holton, though he had never been much of an athlete, had a good build. Sitting at desks, however, would ruin it sooner or later and the thought made him sad. There was nothing he could do, of course, for he would always sit at desks.

He picked up his coat from the chair where he had hung it the night before and put it on. He posed for a moment in front of the mirror. Perhaps he was not handsome but he was nicer looking than a great many people and it is better to be nicer looking than a great many people than to be unusually handsome.

Robert Holton turned from the window and went into the bathroom. His watch was on the tile floor beside the bathtub where he had left it the night before. He set the watch by his alarm clock.

Again he tried to recall his dream. On the wall there was a picture of some apples on a table. A Frenchman had painted the picture twenty years before. It had been reproduced and the hotel had bought several copies because they were cheap and because the manager’s wife had thought the picture pleasant. Robert Holton liked the picture. It seemed to suggest his dream to him more than anything else in the room. He studied the picture but he could not remember the dream. The picture only made him uneasy. He looked away.

He went to the closet and took out his trench coat. He had bought it when he became a lieutenant three years before.

It was almost eight o’clock now. Robert Holton opened the door of his room and stepped out into the corridor.

There was a difference in smell. The corridor smelled old and dusty as though no one had walked down it in years. Robert Holton in the one year he had lived in this hotel had never seen anyone else come out of a room. Sometimes he wondered if he might not be the only person living on this floor, or in this hotel, or in the world.

The ceiling of the corridor was high and he enjoyed walking under such a high ceiling. He walked to the elevator and pressed the button marked “Down.”

There was a large pot filled with white sand beside the elevator door. He had always wanted to put something into that white sand. A cigarette butt, anything at all to spoil the white smooth surface. One day he would spit on the sand; he made himself that promise.

There was a clatter as the elevator went past his floor. That always happened. He pushed the button angrily.

Robert Holton tried to recall what he was supposed to do that day at the office. He could think of nothing very important that had to be done. In the afternoon he was supposed to go to a cocktail party and he looked forward to that. Mrs Raymond Stevanson was giving it and she was a very proper person to know. She had been a friend of his mother’s and she had been nice to Robert Holton when his mother had died several years earlier. His father thought Mrs Raymond Stevanson was stupid but his father was often harsh and she was, after all, important socially. When one was starting out in the brokerage business contacts were important. He began to map his day in detail.

There was a loud rattling and the elevator stopped at his floor. The door opened and Robert Holton stepped into the elevator.

“Good morning, Mr Holton,” said the elevator boy, a young man in his middle teens.

“Good morning, Joe. What kind of a day is it?”

“Wonderful out. Real warm for this time of year. Real Indian summer outside. Real nice weather.”

“That’s fine,” said Robert Holton, glad to hear that the weather was good.

“Any news on the market?” asked Joe, stopping at the seventh floor.

“Nothing new.” A middle-aged man, tall and thin, came into the elevator. Robert Holton had seen him almost every day for a year but they never spoke. The middle-aged man wore a black shiny topcoat and he carried a large leather brief case in which the outlines of an apple could be seen.

“I guess there’s nothing for me to put my money in, I guess,” said Joe.

“I shouldn’t advise buying now,” said Robert Holton. It was a daily joke of theirs. Joe would pretend he had money to invest and wanted advice.

They stopped at the second floor and another tall thin man in a shiny black overcoat got into the elevator. This man had a red face, though, and the other man had a white face. Neither of them ever spoke. Robert Holton often wondered what they did for a living, whether they had wives or not.

“Well, here we are,” said Joe, opening the door. “We made it all right this time.”

“We certainly did.” Robert Holton followed the two older men out of the elevator and into the lobby.

The lobby was high-ceilinged and old-fashioned. Tropical bushes grew in buckets and a gray chandelier was suspended from the center of the ceiling. At the desk sat a faded little woman.

She nodded to Robert Holton and he nodded to her. They never spoke. He picked up a newspaper from the desk, looked at his mail box to see if he might have overlooked something the night before. Finding nothing, he put three cents in a saucer beside the newspapers.

Robert Holton went outside. The morning was clear and cool. There was a depth, a golden depth in the air. There was no time of the year as pleasant as autumn, thought Robert Holton; unless it was spring. He liked spring, too.

He walked down the not yet busy side street where he lived. His footsteps sounded sharp and loud on the pavement. The brownstone houses that lined the street seemed large and significant this morning. Perhaps it was because of the clearness of the day. He noticed details in the stone that he had never noticed before. For instance, one of the houses was built of oddly pitted stone. He had seen another place built of pitted stone. He thought a moment: Notre Dame, the cathedral in Paris. During the war he had seen it. He had even walked up a great many winding steps to get to the top. At the top he had noticed the pitted stone which had proved, somehow or other, that the building was very old.

Sleepy children were coming out of the houses. They walked down the street to the bus stop, schoolbooks under their arms. There was a smell of bacon and coffee in the air and Robert Holton’s stomach contracted hungrily.

At the end of the street was the subway station. Every morning he disappeared down it and every evening he came up out of it. He spent a lot of time in the subway.

He went down the dirty cement steps. He put a nickel into the turnstile and walked out onto the cement platform. Twenty or thirty men and women stood on the platform with him, waiting for the downtown train.

The express went crashing by them. The noise of these trains was terrific. After it had passed he had to yawn several times to clear the deafness from his ears. Then the local stopped and he got aboard.

He sat next to a stout man who lived in his hotel. Occasionally they would speak.

“How’s the market?” asked the fat man, deciding not to read his paper.

“The market’s doing fine, should go up.”

“Well, that sure is good news. I’ve a little bit that I’d like to put in it. I’d like to put it in something safe, though. You know of something safe? Something that’s going to go way up, say?”

“Well, that’s a hard question. It’s very hard to tell just yet. Sugar’s doing well,” said Robert Holton. He always said the same things to these questions. No one cared what he said. They would repeat it to acquaintances, saying that a friend of theirs in Wall Street had advised them to buy sugar but they didn’t feel it was such a good buy at this time.

“You was in the army, weren’t you?” asked the stout man suddenly.

Robert Holton nodded.

“Been out long?”

“Over a year.”

“I’ll bet you was glad to get out. To get away from all those rules and things, those restrictions. I was in the army in the last war. I guess the one before last, you’d call it now. I was sure glad to get out.”

“Everyone is,” said Robert Holton and he thought of the things that he had done in London. He had liked London.

“You went to college, didn’t you?” asked the stout man; he was trying to clear up something in his mind.

“That’s right.”

“That’s what I thought. Me, I never had the opportunity. I had to go to work,” said the stout man with pride. “I had to work when I was a youngster. I never went to college.”

“It’s a good experience,” said Robert Holton, wishing the man would read his paper and stop asking questions. The train went around a corner noisily; blue electric sparks sparkled outside the window. Then the train straightened out again.

“I’m in the grocery business,” said the stout man.

“I know,” said Robert Holton, “we’ve talked about that before.”

“I started right in at the bottom,” said the stout man.

“That’s the best place to start,” said Robert Holton, feeling that there was no answer to this. He was wrong.

“Well, I don’t know. It’s hard to say. How did you like the army?”

“It wasn’t bad.”

“It wasn’t good neither. I never got overseas last time, I mean time before last, but we had it rough in training.”

“I can imagine.” Robert Holton looked away and the stout man stopped talking. Robert Holton looked at the upper moulding of the car to see if there were any new advertisements. There weren’t any. His special favorite, a girl advertising beer, was behind him and he couldn’t see it. Gloomily he examined a fat red child devouring a piece of bread. This was the advertisement he liked least. He looked away.

A woman with a small child sat across from him, directly under the bread advertisement. The woman was heavy with a roll of flesh around her middle; she wore a tight black dress. The child with her was about the age of the one in the picture. This child was pale, though, pale and fat.

A Negro was asleep next to the woman and child. He was long and thin and his bare ankles and wrists looked like brown wood. Two Jewish secretaries with yellow hair talked brightly together. They were young women and wore gaily colored clothes and their plump legs were hairless and pink.

An old woman with gray hair and deep lines in her face looked at the two young women and seemed to hate them in a secret womanly manner. Several young boys, wearing discarded army clothing, sat in a corner, their schoolbooks beside them. They talked in hoarse changing voices. Robert Holton could not hear what they were saying but their voices seemed to speak of sexual things.

The train stopped at a station and the stout man left. Two more stops and Robert Holton would get off.

The car was beginning to empty. Only the two girls were opposite him. They still talked brightly and laughed too loudly, conscious that he was watching them.

The train made its two stops and the girls got off. No one sat opposite him now. He studied the advertisements.

Then his stop was made. Quickly he got up, his trench coat under his arm. He went out onto the platform and before the train left he looked in again through the window. Slightly to the right of where he had been sitting was the picture of the girl advertising beer. He looked at her until the train pulled out.

When the train was gone he turned and walked up the dirty cement steps and as he walked he wished that he had a girl as pretty as the one who advertised beer.

Chapter Two

“Hurry up, Marjorie. Let’s get those tables cleaned up.”

“Yes,” said Marjorie Ventusa, “yes, Mrs Merrin, I certainly will,” she spoke sweetly, hoping that Mrs Merrin would get the sarcasm in her voice but Mrs Merrin was already at the other end of the restaurant talking to another waitress.

Marjorie pushed her natural blonde hair out of her eyes. She was never able to keep it in order; perhaps she should have it cut shorter, wear a snood perhaps. Mrs Merrin was watching her, she noticed. Quickly Marjorie began to put the dirty dishes on her tray.

People were coming in and out of the restaurant. It got a lot of the less wealthy Wall Street trade. Clerks and secretaries and stenographers had breakfast and lunch here and the lonelier ones had supper here. When her tray was full she went back to the kitchen.

On the other side of the swinging doors the cooks, wearing fairly clean aprons and white hats, were cooking at ranges. There was always steam and the smell of soap in the air. People shouted at one another and it was like a war. Marjorie hated the kitchen. The front part of the restaurant was all right. She had been a waitress off and on for fifteen years and she didn’t mind noisy people and the clattering of dishes.

She put some glasses of water on her tray before she left the kitchen. Then Marjorie Ventusa gave the swinging door a kick and walked back into the dining room. She had five tables to take care of.

Two women were seated at the table she had just cleared. She could tell from the backs of their heads that they were secretaries and older women; this meant they would be very particular and leave a ten-cent tip for both of them.

“Good morning,” said Marjorie Ventusa, smiling brightly and thinking of nothing at all. She put the water glasses on the table. The two women were frowning at their menus.

“How much extra is a large orange juice?” asked one.

“It’s ten cents more if you take it with the breakfast.”

“All right, I’ll take a double orange juice, some toast and coffee. Do you have any marmalade?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Well, bring some of that, too.”

The other woman said, “The same for me.” Marjorie Ventusa picked up their menus. As she was turning to go she saw Robert Holton come into the restaurant and she was suddenly happy. She smiled at him and he, seeing her, smiled back. She pointed to one of her tables and he sat down at it. Quickly she went back to the kitchen to give her orders. She pushed her hair back from her face and promised herself that she would get a snood the next day.

Marjorie Ventusa liked Robert Holton. For a year he had been coming into the restaurant; he always spoke pleasantly to her and they would joke together. She had never seen him anywhere except in the restaurant. She knew that he never really noticed her but she was always glad to see him and she was delighted when he talked to her and smiled at her; his smile was pleasant and he had nice teeth. She thought him handsome.

“Good morning, Mr Holton,” she said, putting a glass of water and some silverware on his table.

“How’re you today, Marjorie? You look perfect.”

“Sure, sure, I do; I’m a real beauty.” Marjorie always felt awkward with him, as though she couldn’t think of the right words to say. She was older than he was, too. Marjorie was thirty-seven; she had known a lot of men and still she was awkward with him.

“What you going to have this morning?” she asked.

“Well....” He drawled the word as he looked at the menu and she had a strong urge to touch the short dark hairs on the back of his neck. She tried to think of some excuse to do so. Then she was angry with herself for having thought of such a thing.

“I guess I’ll have some orange juice and scrambled eggs and bacon.”

“Is that all you going to eat? Why, how you ever going to get big and strong?”

He laughed. “Not sitting at a desk and eating your cooking.”

“Oh, is that so?” Marjorie Ventusa walked slowly back to the kitchen. She felt strained as she walked for she could feel he was watching her. She wished suddenly that her hips weren’t so big and that her legs were slimmer.

She shouted his order to the cooks, then she took the two secretaries’ breakfasts out to them. They complained bitterly about the size of the orange juice and one said that it was too sour and the other said that there were seeds in it.

“I’m sorry,” said Marjorie, “would you like something else?”

They said they would not and acted as if she had grown the oranges badly and had put seeds in the juice. One of her other tables was full now and she went and took their order.

Out in the kitchen his breakfast was ready and she put it on her tray. There were some seeds in the orange juice which she carefully removed with a spoon.

He was reading his paper when she came back. He didn’t look up as she arranged the dishes on his table.

“Well, here’s your breakfast,” she said. “You better eat it while it’s hot.”

“Oh, sure.” Robert Holton folded his paper and laid it on the table. She watched him as he drank the orange juice.

“Sour, isn’t it?” she asked.

“A little bit, maybe.”

“I’m glad you’re not going to complain. The rest, they all complain all the time. I get so tired sometimes I could get sick; I get so tired of listening to them.”

“Just don’t take them seriously. Everybody feels awful in the morning. You’ve just been awake longer and you feel better than they do, that’s all.”

Marjorie Ventusa laughed admiringly. “I wouldn’t have ever thought of that,” she said. “You might be right. Anyway a girl gets pretty tired of being shouted at all the time like it’s her fault.”

“Well, just relax. I like the food and the service.”

“Thank you,” she said, trying to sound elegant and funny at the same time.

“When you going to go out dancing with me?” Robert Holton asked, sawing a piece of bacon in half with a blunt knife.

“I’m pretty busy,” she said; she always said that when he asked her that question. He would say it because he thought it was funny and she would answer him as though she thought it was funny too. She wished that he meant it now. She had always wished that he meant it. “I’m pretty busy,” she said. “I got so many people asking to go out with me. You’d have to wait couple of weeks, maybe.”

“I can wait,” he said, smiling at her; smiling the way he would to a child, she thought suddenly. She watched him eat.

“Marjorie,” said a voice behind her.

“Yes, Mrs Merrin, I’m coming. I’ll be right with you. I was just cleaning this table.”

Mrs Merrin was tall and stout with a wide loose mouth which she could make look stern and harsh when she wanted to. She made it look that way now.

“Marjorie,” she said in a low voice, “you stop your hanging around and talking to the customers. I tell you I won’t stand for it.”

“I’m sorry, Mrs Merrin. I was just cleaning the table.” Mrs Merrin smiled warmly at Robert Holton and walked away.

“She’s an awful bitch,” said Marjorie Ventusa.

“What did she say?” asked Robert Holton. “I didn’t hear her.”

“She was just running off at the mouth, that’s all. She thought I was talking too much to you.”

One of her tables called for a check and she walked over quickly and put their used plates on her tray. Then she went back to the kitchen. More orders were ready for her. She loaded her tray and went back to work.

As she worked she watched Robert Holton. It was twenty minutes past eight and she knew that he had to be at his office at eight-thirty. She hoped that he would stay as long as possible. His office was only a block away and he would be able to stay until eight-thirty. He ate slowly, she knew, and he would read his paper as he ate.

She hurried back to the kitchen. Two waitresses were talking and laughing together in a corner. They were young and pretty and would probably marry in another year and never work again; in another year Marjorie Ventusa would still be waiting on tables.

She stopped in front of the mirror behind the swinging doors. Mrs Merrin always said that neatness was an important thing.

Marjorie Ventusa rubbed the kitchen steam from the mirror. Her hair was back in her face again. She pushed it viciously out of her eyes. She hated its color. It was pale blonde, a real pale blonde. But because she was getting older and because she was part Italian everyone thought that she dyed her hair. She wondered if perhaps she shouldn’t have it colored black. Her eyebrows were dark, thin and dark, and that made the color of her hair look even more suspicious.

A sailor she had seen several times during the war had told her that she had a beautiful figure and she had tried to believe him. She was too heavy, though. Well, she hadn’t been heavy at that time. At least not quite so heavy as she was now. She wondered what kind of women Robert Holton liked.

“Marjorie,” said Mrs Merrin. That was all Mrs Merrin said as she walked by. Marjorie Ventusa was glad. One day she would lose her temper and get fired.

The mirror had steamed up again. She took her tray and went out into the dining room. More customers had come. She put glasses of water and silverware on their tables and took their orders and gave them instructions in how to order and how to avoid paying extra for what they wanted.

Robert Holton was halfway through his breakfast. She looked at the clock over the kitchen doors. It was twenty-seven minutes after eight o’clock. She would work very hard now to get her orders taken care of and then she would have a few minutes to talk to him before he left. She usually couldn’t talk to him at lunch because he was always with someone else.

Marjorie Ventusa traveled quickly back and forth from kitchen to dining room and back again. Her hair was hopelessly out of shape now and she was perspiring.

Finally her last customer was satisfied for the moment. She wandered casually over to Robert Holton’s table.

“Breakfast good?” she asked.

“Never better.”

“That don’t make it so good.” They laughed. He was always so polite with her. That was why she liked him, she thought. He was very kind. He was handsome, too, but that wasn’t as important as being polite. A lot of fine people were not handsome.

“What’s in the paper?” she asked. She never quite knew what to talk about when she was with him.

“Not much. The same old stuff. Election stuff mostly.”

“Seems like there’s always an election.”

“There’re a lot of them.”

“I almost don’t read any newspapers. I don’t seem to get time to read them. I’ll bet you read a lot of them.”

“I have to. I read all about the market.”

“That’s right, you’re in Wall Street. That must be exciting. Working there where all those big deals are made.”

“They don’t make them where I am.” He laughed. “I’m just another worker.”

“I thought you were way up in one of the big houses.”

“Well, sort of a clerk which doesn’t pay much. It’s a good way to starve.”

“You ought to do something different. Suppose you marry some girl....”

“I’m not getting married for a long time.”

“I suppose,” said Marjorie Ventusa calmly, “that you got some nice society girl all lined up.”

Robert Holton shook his head. “I haven’t any girl anywhere.”

“Isn’t that like life. All the handsome men don’t have girls and they wonder why so many of us are old maids.”

“You’re not an old maid yet, Marjorie. By the way, what’s your last name? As long as I’ve known you I’ve never known your last name.”

“Ventusa.” She spelled it for him.

“Italian name?”

“My father was Italian, my mother was Irish.”

“That’s a good combination. I knew a lot of pretty girls when I was in Italy.”

“Were you there in the war?”

“I was there over a year.”

“I always wanted to travel. I guess I’d rather travel than do anything. My father, he used to tell me stories about Italy. He came from Sicily. Were you ever in Sicily?”

“Yes, I was in Sicily.”

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”

“Beautiful.”

“Must be real messed up now.”

“Not too bad. The scenery’s still there.”

“I’m going to go there someday,” said Marjorie Ventusa, knowing that she never would.

“You’ll like it.”

Mrs Merrin was looking at her and she pretended to be busy at his table.

“Let me get you some more coffee,” she said. She picked up the plates from his table and put them on her tray. Her arm touched his hand. He pulled away unconsciously, and she walked back to the kitchen.

She got a cup of coffee for him. Two other orders were ready for her. She put them on her tray and returned to the dining room.

She noticed a girl was walking over to Robert Holton’s table. She had seen the girl often before. She worked in Robert Holton’s office. Occasionally they would have lunch together. She was a pretty girl. Her hair was dark and her skin white. Her lips were full and painted a deep red. She had a slim figure and slim legs and her eyes were blue, a deep vivid blue that Marjorie Ventusa envied. The girl spoke to Robert Holton. He stood up. Then they both sat down.

Marjorie Ventusa took care of two tables and then she went to Robert Holton’s table and placed his cup of coffee before him.

“Good morning,” she said to the pretty girl.

“Good morning,” said the pretty girl absently. “I’ll have some grapefruit juice. That’s all I want. I’m reducing,” she said to Robert Holton and she patted her slim waist.

“What on earth are you reducing for?”

“You think I look all right this way?” she asked, pretending surprise.

Marjorie Ventusa hurried to the kitchen. She hated this pretty girl. All day long Robert Holton was with her. Perhaps even at night they were together. She pushed her blonde hair back out of her face. If only she had been pretty and young. Of course, she had been young but she had never been pretty. She was far from old now. They said that if one wanted something badly enough one would get it. That was foolish; Marjorie Ventusa had never gotten anything she wanted, except a yellow satin dress. When she was a child she had wanted a yellow satin dress and her father had bought her one. The dress was in a box in her closet now; she had not looked at it in fifteen years. She picked up a glass of grapefruit juice and put it on her tray.

The pretty girl was laughing when she came back to their table and Robert Holton was watching her. She wore a gray suit buttoned tightly across her small breasts.

“Here’s your grapefruit juice.”

“Thank you very much,” said the girl, paying no attention to Marjorie Ventusa, saying the words mechanically.

The waitress began to clean the table next to Robert Holton’s. She rubbed the gray damp cloth over the shiny black table-top and she listened to Robert Holton and the pretty girl as they talked.

“But Caroline” (her name was Caroline then), “I didn’t know you were expecting me last night.”

“Well, we weren’t really. I just thought you might come on over, that’s all. We had quite a gang. Jimmy Hammond, he was at Yale about the same time you were.”

“I went to Harvard.”

“That’s right, you did. Well, you would’ve liked Jimmy Hammond. He was in the army, too. And there were a whole lot of people around. I just thought you’d have liked to come.”

“I certainly would’ve but I didn’t remember your inviting me.”

“That’s all right,” said Caroline, drinking her grapefruit juice and making a face as she did. “God, but this stuff is sour.”

Marjorie Ventusa, having cleaned the shiny black table-top cleaner than it had ever been before, turned to another table. She was still close enough to hear what they said.

“What did you do last night, Bobby?” She called him Bobby. Marjorie Ventusa wondered if she would ever be able to call him that.

“Not a thing. I went home to bed early.”

“Next time I’ll send you an engraved invitation when I want you to come to the house.”

“You do that. What time’s it getting to be?”

Caroline looked at the clock. “It’s not much after eight-thirty. Let’s take our time.”

“We don’t want to be too late.”

“You haven’t been around long. Nobody gets there on time. What’re you bucking for, Mr Holton?”

He grinned at her. Robert Holton had dark blue eyes. Marjorie Ventusa had never noticed them before. They were beautiful eyes, she thought suddenly.

One of the waitresses came over to her and said, “Boy, you sure must like that guy in the corner.”

“What do you mean? What you talking about?”

“Nothing at all. You needn’t get so excited. I was just noticing you talking to him all the time. I couldn’t help noticing, Marjorie. You was there so long talking to him.”

“He comes in here a lot and we talk, that’s all. I hope you don’t mind.”

“I don’t mind at all, Marjorie. I was just kidding you.”

Marjorie Ventusa picked up a cup of coffee and went back to the dining room. The waitress had irritated her. She didn’t want anyone to think that she would fall for a man at least ten years younger than she was. Well, perhaps not ten years. Robert Holton could be thirty. The difference between thirty and thirty-seven was not so great.

She walked over to Robert Holton’s table. They were talking.

“I don’t see what you have against Dick. He’s an awful nice fellow.”

“I don’t have anything against him. He just doesn’t like me. He thinks I’m trying to get his job.”

“Well, are you?”

Robert Holton smiled. “I don’t want anything; didn’t you know that?”

“Well, aren’t you the saint. You mean you wouldn’t like to take his job? Not even if it was offered to you?”

“I suppose if it were easier to take a job than refuse it I’d take the job. I’m easy to please.”

Caroline sighed. “You’re easy to please. I guess that’s what war does to you.”

“I was always like that. I was like that at college.”

“Just lazy?”

“Just lazy.”

“Good Lord, it’s almost nine! We have to get out of here.”

Robert Holton waved to Marjorie Ventusa. She came over to their table slowly. She didn’t want him to leave any sooner than he had to.

“Got my check, Marjorie?”

“I’ll get it for you.” She went to the cashier and had his check totalled for him. Then she brought it back and he paid her, leaving a ten-cent tip under his water glass.

Caroline stood up and put her gray coat about her shoulders. Robert Holton picked up his trench coat and slung it over his arm.

“I’ll see you at lunch, Marjorie,” he said.

“See you,” said Marjorie Ventusa and she watched them as they went out the door into the bright autumn morning.

“Say, Marjorie,” said one of her regular customers, “how about some more coffee.”

“O.K., O.K.,” she said.

“When are you going to get those tables cleaned?” said Mrs Merrin who was back in Marjorie Ventusa’s corner. “I wish you’d try to get them done right after the customers leave. I wish you’d make some effort, Marjorie.”

“I’m sorry,” said Marjorie Ventusa.

She began to clear Robert Holton’s table.

“What about my coffee?” asked the customer. “When I going to get it?”

“Right away.” Marjorie Ventusa finished cleaning Robert Holton’s table. Almost sadly she pocketed the ten-cent tip which he had left under the water glass.

Chapter Three

The elevator door opened and Caroline Lawson and Robert Holton stepped out of it and into the New York office of Heywood and Golden, members of the New York Stock Exchange and other organizations equally sound.

The entrance hall was modern and dignified. The walls were clean and white and there was a thick carpet on the floor. Two heavy leather couches furnished the entrance. A dark genteel girl sat behind a reception desk.

“Good morning, Caroline,” she said in a nasal voice. “Good morning, Bob.”

“Hello, Ruth,” said Robert Holton, and Caroline Lawson smiled at her.

“Anything new?” asked Robert Holton.

“Not a thing, Bob, not a thing. Everything’s just as dull as ever. Of course, it’s still early.”

“Sure,” said Caroline, amused at the thought of anything interesting happening to them, “the day’s just started.”

“Is the boss in yet?” asked Robert Holton. He was terribly afraid of getting in bad, thought Caroline, looking at him. He was rather cowardly but nice. Perhaps having been in the war had changed him. Perhaps he would improve.

Ruth shook her head. “No, he’s not in yet. He hasn’t come in yet. He’s always late, Mr Murphy is.” Mr Murphy was the head of the Statistical Section where Robert Holton worked. Caroline was Mr Murphy’s secretary.

“Well, I’m glad,” said Robert Holton.

“You certainly are eager,” said Ruth, looking up at him, her head slightly to one side: the way that movie actresses looked.

Robert Holton laughed. “I guess I am.”

“And after all you’ve been through, too! Why, if I’d seen what you’ve seen I wouldn’t worry what nob ... anybody thought.”

“That’s what I used to say,” said Robert Holton.

“Come on, Bob,” said Caroline. “Let’s get back to the salt mine.”

Ruth nodded to them and they walked into a long room. On one side of the room were the doors of offices; the other side was covered with tremendous pictures of factories and ships and railroads. The pictures were Mr Golden’s idea. He wanted to explain to customers the real meaning of the stocks they were buying. Mr Golden always wanted people to feel that the stock market was a creative, a productive thing.

Women of all ages sat typing at small desks in the long room. The light was indirect and modern and very even. One could see that Heywood and Golden was a well-organized house.

People murmured good mornings to Caroline and Robert Holton as they walked together between the desks. At the end of the room there was a glass door behind which were a large blackboard, ticker tape machines, and men recording the prices of the various stocks.

“Look busy, don’t they?” commented Caroline.

“They certainly do. I wouldn’t have that job for anything.”

“I think it’d be sort of exciting.”

“Too much running around for me. I like to sit still.”

“It takes,” said Caroline, “all kinds to make up a world.”

“Isn’t that lucky?” said Robert Holton and Caroline didn’t know whether he was laughing at her or not. Sometimes he bothered her. She liked him. Almost everybody did because he was nice-looking and quiet. He was weak, though, she thought. She didn’t like a man to be weak. She wanted someone that she could lean on. Caroline Lawson was one of those pretty girls who could never bear weak men and yet, by nature, hated those who were stronger.

They stood and watched the ticker tape machines through the glass door. A tall white-faced boy was slowly marking figures on the blackboard. He stood on a small stepladder and as he wrote the figures his left foot tapped regularly and rhythmically on the top step of the ladder. Caroline wondered what tune he was making.

“You like to dance, don’t you?” she asked suddenly.

“What? Dance? Sure, I like to dance. Why?”

“Oh, I don’t know. I was just thinking, that’s all. I like to dance a whole lot. When I was at college we used to have wonderful dances.”

Robert Holton laughed. “That wasn’t so long ago, when you were at college. Don’t you go out any more?”

“Of course I do. You know I do, all the time, and I’m not trying to get you to ask me out either.”

He laughed at her and that was all.

Caroline looked at him and tried to guess what he was thinking. He was probably thinking that she was very pretty and that he would like to ask her to go out with him. She wouldn’t go out with him, he knew. Not now, not after she had said these things. Later, perhaps, when they had forgotten the words she had said. Caroline sighed as she thought of her own strength and of his weakness.

“Let’s get back to the office,” said Holton.

They walked down a short corridor. At the end of the corridor was the Statistical room. Here a dozen men and women worked at desks. They compiled figures for the executives and the customers and everyone else in the house.

Through a noise of automatic welcomes, Caroline and Robert Holton went into the office. Most of the desks were on the side of the room away from the windows. The windowed end of the room was protected by a railing; behind the railing was Mr Murphy’s desk and at a respectful distance from his desk was Caroline Lawson’s.

“See you later, Bob,” said Caroline and she opened the door of the railing and went into the windowed section of the room. She let the door swing creakily shut and went to her desk. Glancing sideways, she watched Robert Holton go to his desk at the other end of the office. Then she sat down.

The desk was neat. A new blotter was in the center. An inkwell, without ink in it, and a penholder, without a pen in it, held the top of the blotter down. A slim imitation silver vase sat on one corner of the desk. Occasionally Mr Murphy would put a flower in the vase and she would smile at him when he did that and Mr Murphy would wink at her.

One of the two phones on her desk rang. She picked up the receiver. “Hello?” Someone asked for Mr Murphy. “He isn’t in right now; shall I have him call you? You’ll call back later? Thank you.” She cleared her throat, cleared her professional telephone voice away.

She moved the blotter to one end of the desk. Then she lifted the front of her desk and a typewriter appeared. She ran her fingers over the keys, professionally, like a pianist before he begins to play.

She opened the left-hand top drawer of the desk. This was her personal drawer. Here were several compacts in various stages of use. A slightly crushed box of pale green Kleenex, a carton of cigarettes, and a box of fairly expensive candy. The lid of the candy box was off and Caroline Lawson decided that, since her breakfast had been small, a little candy wouldn’t hurt her. She picked the largest piece and put it in her mouth.

“Good morning, Caroline. How’s the girl?” It was Mr Murphy.

Caroline swallowed quickly. “Fine, fine, Mr Murphy. How’re you today?”

“Me? I’m just fine today. Certainly is a wonderful day today. Makes you feel like going out in the country somewhere. Out to Long Island or some place like that. Go some place to get away from the city.” Mr Murphy sighed. He had spent all his life in the city and he wanted to go live in the country. He would not like the country, of course, but then he would never leave the city and it made no difference.

“Look what I brought you,” said Mr Murphy. He pulled a slightly rumpled white carnation from his buttonhole. “We had a big blowout at the Astor last night. It was quite a show we had.”

“Thank you,” said Caroline, smiling at him. She smelled the white flower; a strong odor of cigar smoke spoiled the scent. “Thank you,” she said again and she put the white flower in the tall vase.

“Any calls? Anything new?”