A Treasury of Stories (Collection of novelettes and short stories)

Flower in His Buttonhole

Every evening at half-past eight she climbed a long flight of stairs on Broadway. Not on one of the side-streets, but right on Broadway itself. When she got to the top, she always said, “Hello, big boy!” She had learned that expression. “Big boy” was usually leaning an elbow on the shelf of the ticket-seller’s window, with one eye on his watch and one on the stairs. He was the manager. As a rule he condescended to nod when she said this. Once or twice he had even gone so far as to grunt in reply. She had gone in by now, anyway; through a pair of swinging glass doors that flashed closed after her. There was a big empty room before her, with a dark shiny floor and a row of windows curtained in pink and a platform for the musicians. She didn’t stop to look at any of this; it was nothing to her. She walked toward a curtained alcove at the back, and as she walked she was already stripping off her hat and coat for action. Sometimes when she felt particularly good and some other girl was there to watch her, and there weren’t any men around, she would push her hat far to the back of her head and let her coat slip down her back to her elbows and give a comical shuffle across the floor with her feet spread out. This was supposed to be an imitation of Chaplin. When she hadn’t felt so good, she had entered trailing her coat along the floor after her, just like a child with a broken kite.

In the curtained alcove there were a mirror and some chairs, and there were hooks for coats and hats. No hangers, but just hooks fastened to a board. Hers was the one on the end, and she’d penciled her name under it— Faith. As she was hanging up her things, the brisk tap-tap of high heels sounded across the polished floor outside, punctuated by the swish of the swinging glass doors. She smiled faintly. She knew that walk.

A few moments later the curtain was tossed back and her friend Trixie entered the alcove. With Trixie came a large quantity of red hair, a smaller quantity of Chypre, rebottled at the five-and-ten, a fair share of the town’s good looks, and an encouraging feeling that the world wasn’t such a bad place to live in, after all.

“Here already?” she remarked. “Not sick or anything, are you?”

“What brings you so early?” Faith asked.

“That’s what Simon Legree just asked me at the door. He cracked his whip and handed me this: ‘I’m thinking of firing you for being on time.’ ‘Oh, yeah?’ I said.”

Faith laughed. “I know; I heard you. So did the traffic cop up at Columbus Circle probably.”

Trixie planted her hand dramatically upon her chest.

“Me?” she said in surprise. “I never speak above a whisper!” Others came in until all of them were there. A preliminary tuning-up sounded outside. It had very little chance of topping the amount of conversation going on in the dressing room, however. They were all talking at once. Half of them were lined up before the mirror powdering their noses, while the rest clustered just in back of them, waiting to get at it. Someone lighted a cigarette and it was promptly snatched away from her and stepped on. “As though it isn’t stuffy enough already!”

“Now, now, don’t shove! Mamma’s nearly through.” This from Trixie, who was in the front line and intended staying there until she was satisfied with her appearance, no matter what the cost. Faith insinuated herself at her shoulder and Trixie promptly made room for her at the expense of the girl on the other side. One’s friend always came first in a crisis of this sort.

“New?” remarked Faith, looking straight into the glass. She could see it there.

“Yeah, green,” replied Trixie. This latter fact was self-evident. Startlingly so, in fact. Beside the gleaming emeraldine hue of Trixie’s, the mild green of Faith’s own frock paled into nothingness.

At any other time Faith would most likely have retorted: “No kidding? I thought it was red.” Tonight, however, she appeared vaguely troubled by the fact that Trixie’s dress was the color of her own. “I hope he doesn’t get mixed up,” she said, as though communing with herself.

“Who?” Trixie asked sharply.

Faith, absorbed in some weighty problem of her own, allowed the question to pass unheeded. “If I had known, I would have picked another color.” She tapped her lower lip reflectively. “But I only have green and blue, and Adelaide is always in blue.”

Trixie’s curiosity, never very weak, had been aroused by this soliloquy. She tapped her friend commandingly on the shoulder.

“Would y’ mind telling me what you’re talking about? Or is it too sacred for words?”

Faith seemed willing enough to comply. “Come on over in the corner,” she said, and added provocatively: “This is just between the two of us. I’m not broadcasting it.”

Smoke and flame could not have kept Trixie from following her after hearing that. She extricated herself with some difficulty from her place before the mirror, not without arousing considerable sarcastic comment.

“Well, well, well! So the Statue of Liberty has moved at last!”

“Are you quitting for good? Or is it just a little vacation you’re taking?”

“Look, there’s moss growing where she was standing!”

“Ladies, ladies,” remonstrated Trixie with an injured air, elbowing her way through them, “you forget who I am.” She joined Faith and faced her expectantly.

“Well, you see,” Faith explained in a guarded undertone, “I have a date with someone on the floor outside, and I’ve never seen him before.”

“What’d you do, advertise in the papers?”

“Do you remember what I told you one night about someone calling me up by mistake and asking if it was a Chinese hand-laundry?”

“Sure I do!” giggled Trixie delightedly. “And you were feeling clownish that night and said it was, only the management had changed hands and it was now being run by Americans, and begged him to send his wash around and give you a trial!”

“Well, I never told you the rest of it, what happened after that,” Faith went on breathlessly. Once started she decided to tell all.

“Oh, was there more to it?” Trixie arched her brows. “I kind of thought so.”

“Well, the next day he sent all his wash around, even his socks, and you never saw such holes! The landlady found it in the vestibule and she was going to throw it out, so I told her it was for me and I took it upstairs—”

“Oh, this is swell!” Trixie squealed zestfully.

“Well, when I saw all those shirts with the buttons off, I hated to send the things back to him the way they were, and I thought about it and thought about it until finally—”

“Don’t tell me you went ahead and did it yourself!” the horrified Trixie forestalled her, palms lifted. “You did!” she went on, scrutinizing her friend’s flushed face more closely. “I can tell by your expression.” Then she added dolefully, as one who laments an evil tendency in somebody else, “You always were sort of domestic.”

The repentant Faith gazed at the floor in embarrassment, confessing her fault.

“I mended the socks and things in my spare time,” she admitted in a small voice. “It was an awful lot of trouble, but it was awfully soothing. I felt just like I was married.”

“Only you don’t get paid for it then,” Trixie reminded her callously.

“Then I pressed the whole batch with a flatiron the lady downstairs lent me.”

Trixie covered her eyes in great grief. “Say it isn’t true, pal; say it isn’t true!”

“But I had an accident. The iron got too hot or something and I smelt smoke and when I looked, his best shirt had a big piece eaten out of it—”

“Served him right, the big chiseler,” observed Trixie.

“How was he to know?” protested the victim. “He thought I was really a laundry. He called up and was very angry, of course. I didn’t blame him. So I told him I would pay for the shirt, but after a while he said that it didn’t matter. He never sent me any more wash, but from then on he used to ring up about once a week and say ‘How’s the Faith and Charity Hand Laundry getting along?’ That was the name I had made up for it in the beginning. He was never fresh or anything over the phone — know what I mean? — and he had such a nice voice that it got so I liked it when he rang up. And tonight he’s going to be out there—” she nodded toward the dance floor, already crawling with couples “—wearing a white flower in his coat so that I’ll know him when I see him. And I told him I’d have on a green dress.” She sighed and clasped her hands.

The white flower had arrested Trixie’s attention, it seemed.

“Maybe he’s a floorwalker,” she remarked apprehensively.

At this juncture a large and none too aromatic cigar thrust its way between the curtains of the alcove and a voice just in back of it inquired truculently:

“What do you two think you’re doing in there, holding a wake?”

“We’re making mud pies; love to have you join us,” Trixie replied instantly, without even turning her head. At this rebuff the cigar was withdrawn. Trixie had a way with her that even kept managers in their place. “Come on, babe,” she said, “let’s go outside and jump through our paper hoops.” Unexpectedly chucking her friend under the chin, she remarked, “I’m wearing a green dress too but don’t worry. If he picks me out by mistake, I’ll bring him over to you. Lots of luck and bigger and better laundries.” Then she sallied forth, shimmying slightly in time to the music.

When Faith came out after her, the glass prisms were spinning around in the ceiling, sending down a shower of sparks, and under them in the dim light couples glided silently over the floor like shadows. She stood still and shut her eyes for a second. She was making a wish, half audibly:

“Make him so that I can like him, will you? Not fresh or wise or anything—”

Her eyes flew open abruptly. Someone had touched her to attract her attention. She gave a single hopeful glance; then her hopes were indefinitely postponed. She reached out mechanically, took the ticket, tore it across, and returned half of it, keeping the rest herself. The dance was on.

An hour and a half went by. Over each strange shoulder Faith’s eyes busily, expectantly roved the room. Looking for a very small thing, looking for a small white flower, as out of place there as a bird or a ray of sunlight. For the fast, “hot” pieces they used magenta lights; for the slow “sweet” ones blue and green lights mixed, causing a sort of dreamy twilight to fill the ballroom as though it were a grotto or undersea cavern. Incidentally, also causing green dresses to appear blue, and vice versa.

She brushed by Trixie, the latter damsel favoring her with grimaces of spiritual anguish to indicate that her partner was a trial to her. Trixie seemed to have a strange attraction for the meek, the halt, and the aged, likewise those who were in need of special instruction, which consisted in leading them to a far corner of the room and endlessly repeating, “One, two, three! Now just watch my feet. One, two, three. That’s it!” This was highly lucrative but pretty much of a strain on Trixie. As they swayed close to one another, Faith found time to murmur anxiously:

“See anybody?”

“Not yet,” Trixie assured her. “Cheer up, sugar,” she added hearteningly. “Not you,” she informed her partner coldly. “I was speaking to my friend.”

The lights went up, then down again. Half-past eleven and no sign of him. Time seemed to drag so tonight. She had taken these same gliding steps a thousand times before, or maybe a million. Dancing was supposed to be fun. But not when you earn your living at it. Sometimes she wished she would never have to listen to another saxophone again as long as she lived. She also found herself praying that she was invisible, so that no one would come near her for at least half an hour. But someone did almost at once. And stood there grinning foolishly and holding out his ticket.

“What’s the joke?” she inquired frostily, as she took it and tore it in two.

“These darned lights,” he said. “They blur everything up. What color dress is that you’re wearing?” The greenish-blue lights had gone on just before he came over to her, drowning out the shade of her dress.

Her eyes had flown automatically to his lapel but it was barren; there was nothing there. She felt like saying “Oh, go away!” What was he to her, anyway? Still, it was quite a coincidence, his asking her about her dress like that. Maybe he had lost the flower, or forgotten to buy one.

So she decided to play safe and not reveal herself until she had found out a little something about him.

“Blue,” she lied. And then, “What made you ask that?”

“Just curiosity,” he answered.

“Is there — er — any particular color you were looking for?” she wanted to know.

“Originally, yes,” he said smoothly, “but I changed my mind as soon as I saw you.” So he was as fickle as all that, was he? Well, she was glad she’d found out in time. He wasn’t the type for her, all right. He just didn’t click somehow, that was all. But the chief thing was to get away from him before the lights went up again and revealed her in her green dress. Otherwise she was stuck for the night.

Then, at the crucial moment, assistance came to her. She happened to look over his shoulder and catch Trixie’s eye and she read unmistakably in it that Trixie had a message for her.

The two couples drew closer, the men still imagining they were leading and not realizing that their footsteps were being guided for them. When they had come up to each other, Trixie nodded vigorously.

“Got him for you,” she breathed huskily. “Right here!” All Faith could see was the back of his head and the fairly broad shoulders that cut Trixie off below the chin. She had to take Trixie’s word for it about the flower part of it. “Meet me down at the refreshment-stand as soon as this is over,” Trixie instructed her in clear ringing tones, and was wafted away. The muscular gentleman stationed in the middle of the floor for the purpose of preserving order and decorum frowned unfavorably upon her as she went by.

“How many more times, Red,” he remarked ungrammatically, “have I gotta tell you to quit talkin’ on the boss’s time?”

“You’ve got about a dozen to go,” Trixie informed him insouciantly. “After that maybe I’ll listen to you. And if you don’t mind, it’s Miss Red to you.”

The music stopped at last. Faith had counted each tinny note that came out of the saxophone and thought it would never end, but now the lights went up and she saw Trixie and the man waiting for her down at the end of the room. However, there was an obstacle to be overcome before she could get over to them.

Her present partner stared down at her figure in surprise.

“Why,” he stammered, “why, that’s a green dress you’re wearing! I didn’t notice—”

“Yes, it is,” Faith interrupted hastily, beginning to back away from him, “but not nearly as green as the one my friend is wearing. See her down there? Much better dancer than I am. Wait, I’ll send her over to you.” Then she walked away and left him standing there with his mouth open as though he had wanted to say something and hadn’t had time.

As she walked toward them, doing her best to be casual about it, all she had eyes for was a little dot of white in the distance; a carnation that had already shed several of its petals, nestling against the coat of the very tall, very likable young man standing beside Trixie. When Faith came up to them Trixie said: “Look what I’ve got for you,” and with a gesture somewhat like that of a referee: “Now remember, Marquis of Queensberry rules and no hitting in the clinches. Anything else I can do for you? Just say the word.”

Faith glanced back over her shoulder. “Him,” she said unfeelingly. “He’s sort of sticky and might come around again.”

Trixie appeared to understand perfectly what was expected of her. “A pleasure,” she announced, and started over toward him, a young lady attired so unmistakably in green that even the color-blind would have had to take cognizance of it.

Faith’s new-found hero smiled at her, and she smiled back at him, bashfully. “I guess it’s you,” she breathed almost inaudibly.

“It isn’t my brother,” he answered. “Well, shall we dance?” he went on.

“Must we?” she smiled.

So they didn’t dance. Each time the music sounded, she took another ticket from him and tore it up in full view of the manager. “Anyway, it saves the wax floor,” she laughed. They sat together in one of the little stalls provided with tables that overlooked Broadway, a wax-paper cup of untasted orangeade standing in front of each of them.

“I knew you’d be like this,” she said softly after a while. “Something told me. You see, I play hunches, and I’ve never yet been wrong.”

He seemed glad to hear her say that and yet at the same time more than a little surprised.

“You mean before you even laid eyes on me you knew what I was going to be like?”

“Why, yes,” she said. “I could tell by your voice.”

“My voice?” He seemed completely taken back.

“Over the telephone, silly,” she explained. “How else?”

He was about to say something to that, but just then the young man with the slide trombone stood up in his seat and emitted noises that drowned out everything else.

Faith was more used to these sudden blasts of melody, if they could be called that, than he was.

“Funny place, isn’t it,” she laughed, “to sit and try to carry on a conversation with any one?”

“Then let’s go to some other place, shall we?” he suggested eagerly. “Someplace where we can be by ourselves and really talk to one another.”

This was not the first time anyone had suggested her going out with him. It was the first time, however, that she would go. This was different, this was all right. It had to be, or there wasn’t any sun anywhere, there weren’t any blue skies, there wasn’t any love, there wasn’t anything good and decent in the whole wide world. She knew she couldn’t be wrong; there was just one man who would and could love her the way she wanted to be loved — and this was the man. She’d waited a long time but he’d come. She was perfectly willing to go with him wherever he suggested.

“You’ll have to buy two dollars’ worth of tickets if you want to take me out before the session’s over,” she said. She blushed while she said it. He missed seeing that; he missed seeing a miracle on Broadway — the blush of a taxi-dancer. She blushed because — well, everyone knew what it meant when a customer took one of the hostesses out. Only this time they were wrong; it didn’t mean that. Let them think what they wanted to. She knew better.

“I won’t be a minute,” she said, and went to get her hat and coat. She found Trixie recuperating in the alcove, one leg crossed high above the other, mournfully rubbing her instep.

“Did the stretcher-bearers get here yet?” Trixie wanted to know. “I’m going to try arnica first, and if that doesn’t work, Christian Science. Well, how are you two getting along?” was the next thing she asked, getting up and ludicrously pretending to limp toward the mirror.

“I’m going out with him,” Faith said, starry-eyed.

Trixie, that peerless judge of the heart’s emotion, darted a swift keen glance at her.

“So you’ve fallen at last!” She acted sort of worried, Faith thought. “Are you sure you know what you’re doing?” she went on. “Listen, kid. I’m your friend. I’m the only one here that knows for a fact what the others don’t want to believe about you — that you’re straight, not like the rest of us. The only reason you’ve gotten away with it is that it never entered the heads of all the guys that hang around here that there could be such an animal as a virgin dancing in a dime-mill; otherwise you would have taken the count long ago. Many a time, without you knowing it, I’ve steered the manager himself away from you by telling him that you were the private property of a guy that went around carrying two guns and wouldn’t think anything of turning this place into a shooting-gallery if anyone made a pass at you. Don’t ask me why, or what I get out of it. Maybe I’m not so tough underneath. Maybe I keep thinking how I was just like you five or six years ago, and I don’t want the same thing to happen to you that did to me.” She bent her fingers and looked down at her five bright red nails. When she raised her eyes, they were all wet and shiny.

“Honey,” she went on quietly, “there’s nothing so lovely in the whole wide world as an on-the-level kid. Stay that way. I don’t know why, but just stay that way! Maybe it makes the tough grind a little easier for me to know you’re like you are.”

“But I am staying that way,” protested Faith. “Don’t you see? He’s not like the others. I know. I know! For months he’s been talking to me on the telephone and never said anything he shouldn’t, never tried to see me, never tried to suggest anything out of the way. He’s the one, the one I’ve been waiting for, I tell you! I couldn’t pass this by. It would never come again.” She choked. “I’m sick of dancing night after night, sick of being pawed and kneed, sick of running the gauntlet downstairs at the door to get home alone each night. He’s so sweet! Oh, I knew he was waiting for me someplace or other along the way. It all seems too good to be true.”

“That’s the trouble; it probably is,” said Trixie dismally. She laughed but without much enjoyment. Her cynicism, briefly discarded, had returned. “Wet your finger like this and run it down the side of his face; if it’s rough and scratchy — and if he talks way down deep in his throat and, and if he’s got on a collar and tie and big flat shoes — go home alone. I wouldn’t trust anything in pants as far as I could throw that big bass drum out there!”

“They aren’t all on the make,” protested Faith impatiently. “They aren’t all like that—”

“No,” agreed Trixie, “but those that aren’t haven’t been born yet or they’re dead already. So you won’t listen to me?”

“No, I won’t listen, because for once you’re wrong.”

“Then my advice to you,” murmured Trixie, “is to keep your fingers crossed and don’t walk under ladders!” And she gripped Faith’s arm for a moment, then seeing it was useless, dropped the subject. “Incidentally, who do you think is waiting around outside to take me home? That dark horse you steered me into tonight. Remember him?”

“Is he pretty awful?” Faith asked vaguely. She hardly remembered him any more by now. Just someone who had asked her what color her dress was and hadn’t worn a flower in his coat.

“Awful or not,” promised Trixie vengefully, “he’s going to be taken for a sleigh-ride he’ll never forget. I’m going to lead him to that chop suey joint that has a fire-escape right outside the ladies’ room — know the one I mean? I’m going to eat my fill of fried noodles, and then when he thinks it’s about time to get some return on his investment, I’m going to leave him for a minute and go powder my nose. Long after I’m home asleep in my little beddsie-weddsie, he’ll still be sitting there waiting for me to come out.”

Faith laughed as she turned to go.

“One of these times one of them is going to come around here the night after and give you a black eye.”

“None of ’em has yet,” Trixie called after her. “They wouldn’t want anyone to know what a fool I made out of them.” But as the curtains fell back in place and Faith was gone, her face sobered up again. She stared moodily into the glass. It won’t work out, she thought. It never has since Broadway stopped being a cow-path, and it won’t tonight. I know what’s going to happen just as though I was there in her place. That kid’s in for a tough time of it tonight. And tomorrow at this time, just another busted heart — just another little tramp like the rest of us, wiggling at a dime a throw. She shook her fist at the saxophone blaring its summons outside. “Coming, damn you, coming!” she growled.

Faith went up to where the man stood waiting with that carnation in his lapel and gave him a happy smile and said: “I’m ready.” Strangely enough she wasn’t tired any more, even though she’d danced miles already tonight. He offered her his arm, the way a sweetheart should, a lover should, and side by side they went down the stairs. He and Faith — Faith of the appropriate name, who had always believed a night like this would come, when there would be someone waiting to take her home, someone special, someone she could look up to and respect, admire and adore. Oh, this was the way to go home all right! The snakes were all coiled up at the door as usual, but tonight she passed through them unscathed, unafraid, head in air. No winks, no leers tonight, no wise remarks, no clutching hands to buck, no one to follow her and try to find out where she lived. She could feel their stares following her as she walked along beside him, could almost but not quite catch what they were saying to one another in whispered undertones. Maybe it would have been better if she had heard, but she didn’t know that.

She wouldn’t have listened anyway, any more than she had to Trixie.

They walked a block or two along glaring midnight Broadway; it was Broadway’s “noon” hour, and instead of one sun there were hundreds to light their way. She gave him another confident smile.

“Everything seems so different tonight. I almost like the lights and crowd — walking through them with you. Do you understand that?”

He didn’t seem to. “Shall we hop a taxi?” he said.

“What! And have you throw away your good money? I should say not!” He gave her a peculiar look as though he couldn’t believe his ears. “Because I know how it is,” she assured him. “I have to work hard enough for my money. Why should we be extravagant? If I like anybody, I like them for themselves and not just for how much they can spend. Chase.”

“Chase?” he said blankly.

“Well, that’s your name, isn’t it? You said it was over the phone. That was the name you gave me when you sent your wash that time.”

“Oh — er — yeah,” he said lamely. “I forgot for a minute. I wondered how you knew. Yeah, when I sent my wash, that’s right.” And he eased his neck around inside his collar. They passed one of the glaring all-night Broadway delicatessen-restaurants. It seemed to give him an inspiration. “As long as you want to be economical,” he suggested, “suppose I stop in and get some sandwiches and ginger ale and we take ’em around to your room and have a little party by ourselves. We can get better acquainted that way.”

She halted momentarily and her eyes sought his. “You’re sure you haven’t any wrong impression about me?” she asked doubtfully. Trixie’s warning returned to her. He was a man after all — and she worked in a dance-hall.

“You trust me, don’t you?” was all he said. “You don’t think I—” Had Trixie been present she would have sighed impatiently and asked her friend: “What did you expect him to say, you little fool? They all say that. It doesn’t cost them anything. You didn’t think he’d come out openly and say, sure, I’m on the make, did you?” But Trixie wasn’t there; Faith was on her own now.

“You won’t let me down,” she said. It wasn’t a statement; it was a plea. “All right, go ahead; I’ll wait here for you. And never mind the ginger ale. I’ll make us some coffee to go with the sandwiches. I make very good coffee; wait’ll you see!” she said happily. She stood there by the curb while he went in, and she tapped her toe and hummed a little song, she felt so swell. There were a million stars hanging low over Broadway while she waited there for her love. “What did you do, buy out the store?” she laughed when he came back to her burdened with brown-paper parcels, and insisted on sharing them with him.

A brownstone house split up into furnished rooms way over west on one of the Fifties. She struggled with her latch-key and they went in. A flight of stairs painted white, a dim little apricot bulb at each landing, a door on the top floor front.

“Don’t mind the way it looks,” she said, snapping on the light. “Here, we’ll leave the door open like this.”

“Nah,” he said tersely. “Too much of a draft.” And took a step back to close it.

“But that wouldn’t look good,” she said unsuspectingly. “I don’t want to get in any trouble here—”

Almost at once, as though summoned by her remark, a hard-faced, middle-aged woman appeared in the open doorway without any warning sound of footsteps whatever. “Could I see you a minute, Miss Moore?” she remarked, staring vacantly over their heads.

“No, it’s me you wanna see,” the man said, and he stepped out into the hall and partly closed the door after him. “Here, forget it,” he murmured and slipped something into her hand. “You know how it is. The kid works late and don’t get much chance to talk to her friends.”

“Oh, I know how it is,” agreed the landlady with a shrug. “She can talk to her heart’s content — only keep the door closed and don’t kick up any row. I — er — knew this was coming sooner or later; she’s held out longer than I gave her credit for. Matter of fact,” she confessed, carefully tucking what he’d given her into the recesses of her wrapper, “I’ve had a bet on for quite a while with one of the other tenants that she’d give in.” She chuckled. “I stand to collect ten dollars on you two tonight.”

He nudged her in the ribs with typical Broadway camaraderie. “It’s in the bag,” he said behind the back of his hand. Her laughter went trailing down the hallway. He turned and went back into the lighted room. Faith was emptying the contents of the paper bags onto two rather chipped plates.

“Landlady says it’s gotta stay closed,” he told her, and fitted the door tightly into place behind him. The triangle of yellow light that had splashed out into the hall narrowed, disappeared, leaving only darkness. A key turned slyly in the lock. It couldn’t have been heard unless one’s ear was up against the keyhole.

“Only trouble with these little chinkie cups without handles,” Trixie was saying, “is you’re liable to swallow one whole if you’re not careful.” She eyed hers comically, then put it down. “Whew! Is there chow mein coming out of my ears? If there isn’t, there should be, I’m up to here.” He laughed a little. “You’re sort of a bashful guy, aren’t you?” she went on. “Didn’t know they came like that any more.”

“Am I?” he said. “I thought you knew that by now.” He stared down at the tablecloth. “You know,” he said abruptly, “you’re not exactly a shrinking violet by any means. I don’t mean I expected you to bring along your Bible or anything—”

“Don’t have to,” she flipped. “I know the whole thing by heart. Read a chapter every night in a different hotel room.”

To her surprise he scowled at that. “Quit talking that way,” he ordered almost roughly. “Somebody’s going to come along some day and take you at your word.”

“Am I to infer that you’re not going to?” she wanted to know. She loved to bait them even when she knew she was going to give them the slip.

But he didn’t seem to have much of a sense of humor.

“What do you think?” he asked her. “Have I been acting phoney with you up to now?”

“No,” she admitted, “but you can’t always go by that. Still waters run deep, you know.”

He flung his napkin down irritably and signaled for the check. Trixie collected her things and prepared to put her disappearing act into execution. “I’ll be right with you,” she said, “just go back there a minute and powder my nose—”

“Don’t bother making yourself beautiful,” he said suddenly. “Not for me, anyway. We’re not going any place together. I’ll just take you downstairs and put you in a taxi at the door—”

“What is this?” she cried in amazement. “Am I getting the bum’s rush?”

“That’s what I want to know,” he told her. “We got our wires crossed, I guess, that’s all. No offense, but you’re not my type at all. You had me fooled completely until I met you tonight. You weren’t this way at all, all these months over the wire. I had you figured entirely different. So suppose we just call all bets off and chalk it up to experience.” The waiter brought his change and he pocketed it. “Coming?” he said without even looking at her.

But Trixie had suddenly stopped kidding. She was a little white under her rouge and staring at him with unblinking intensity.

“Let’s get this straight,” she said in a hoarse voice. “You — you had a blind date on the floor of that shimmy-palace tonight, with — with a girl in a green dress. Am I right?”

“Why the post mortem? You know that as well as I do.”

She was almost incapable of speech. She pointed at the lapel of his jacket.

“Flower,” she said incoherently. “You were supposed to—”

“I did have one,” he said shortly. “Must have dropped it coming up the stairs. I’m not used to wearing them anyway. What’s the difference? I ran into you, didn’t I — for all the good it did?”

She shaded her eyes with one hand for a minute. Faith flashed through her mind. My God! she thought. My God! That kid went off with the wrong— She whipped her hand across the table and seized his wrist convulsively.

“Will you do something for me?” she panted.

“I thought so,” he said wearily. “It’s right in character.” And reached for his inside pocket. “How much— Your little brother’s sick of course and has to have an operation.”

There was no time to explain. She cleared the misunderstanding out of the way by slapping his hand aside impatiently. The gesture would have been funny at any other time but this.

“No; you don’t get me! All I’m asking you to do is — sit tight, will you for a minute, until I come back. Please don’t leave this table — please!” She jumped up and ran toward the back instead of the main entrance. She knew that if he saw her leave, go out into the street, he’d never stay there and wait; he wasn’t interested enough in her for that. He wouldn’t believe she was coming back and he’d get up and go — and she’d never be able to find him again. There was no time to tell him where she was going and what she was trying to do — and even if there had been, he wouldn’t have believed her, so foul was the impression he had of her by now. She fled toward the dressing-room at the back, wailing over her shoulder: “Wait for me, now! Wait for me!”

If only she could tip off Faith in time, let her know that she was with the wrong man! She remembered him vaguely now; she had danced with him first herself. Too good-looking to be trustworthy, and just the type who would be able to put one over on a kid like that. And no good, he had n.g. written all over him for those who could read. That was why she’d put up such a beef about it in the dressing-room when Faith had told her she was going with him. She’d known instinctively but hadn’t known how to get it across to Faith.

The good old fire-escape window was wide open, the way it always was, to give a little circulation of air to the stuffy place. She climbed through it, the way she had so very many times before — but for a different reason this time. The colored woman in attendance looked up from her newspaper. She knew Trixie by sight and wasn’t at all concerned.

“Whut, again?” she drawled. “Thass the third time this week for you, ain’t it? Happy landing!” she waved.

“Leave it open. I’m coming back in again in a little while, I hope,” Trixie explained. She started down the side of the building, dropped lightly to her feet in a narrow cement alley below, skirted a couple of garbage cans, and came out on Broadway looking fresh as a daisy. “Taxi!” she shouted and dived in head first. “West Fifty-first, hurry up!”

“What did you close the door for?” Faith rebuked mildly. The man didn’t answer but the smile he gave her spoke for itself. Something about that smile chilled her a little; the first premonition of something ominous struck at her, but she wouldn’t admit it even to herself. She was just imagining things. She mustn’t begin finding fault this early in the game. When they got to know one another better, little things like this wouldn’t alarm her; she’d understand him.

She turned to prepare the sandwiches. The two arms that dropped over her shoulders and coiled around her like snakes a moment later were anything but imaginary. Their grip hampered her breath, and sudden stark fright dissipated what was left of it. She tried not to lose her head.

“Don’t!” she said, and even tried to force a friendly laugh. “It’s late — I want to get going on these sandwiches.”

“You and your sandwiches!” he muttered thickly close to her ear. Then in a louder voice, “I ain’t in the sandwich mood. Skip it.” His lips were like hot pincers on the cool back of her neck, forcing her head down. Kisses that almost bit, they were so fervent. Panic descended like a blinding curtain; she struggled and writhed in such sheer animal terror for a moment that he released her without meaning to. She whirled and faced him, her face gone white. What was he trying to do, make something furtive, shameful, out of this love she had so freely given him? He mustn’t; she wouldn’t let him; she hadn’t given it for that; it wasn’t that kind of love! The suddenness of the transformation he had undergone shocked her to the marrow.

She had entered this room a few minutes ago with a sweetheart, a sweetheart whose image she had built up in her heart over a period of months; now she suddenly, hideously, found herself behind a closed door with a gorilla. The image began to rock, to sway. There was still time to save it, the misunderstanding could still be cleared up, but if once it toppled, shattered, then she had nothing left.

She struggled frantically to preserve it, prop it up. She tried to beat the barrier that he was building between them like a brick wall, that rose until it all but hid him from her.

“You don’t want me to think you’re like all of them, do you? You — you shouldn’t act like that,” she panted. “I wouldn’t have let you come up here with me. Don’t you remember, on the street I asked you not to misunder—”

He wouldn’t let her finish. “What are you trying to do, hold out? Where are your wings, sister, and where’s your halo? Two nickels rents you where you work, and now you’re trying to act hard-to-get!” She shrank back; her eyes were so big they suddenly seemed to cover her whole face. He took a step after her, caught her by the wrist. “Who d’ya think you’re kidding?” he said brutally. “Come over here!” She saw his other hand go back, groping for the light switch.

“No!” she pleaded agonizedly. “No! Don’t let it turn out like this!” But the plea was no longer to him; it was to the vault high above the two of them. “I’ve waited so long for you; you’ve been with me night and day—”

“And in the morning you’ll wonder who the hell I was and what the hell I looked like!”

He said that!

He didn’t hear the crash within her, as the image crumbled to dust and left her — nothing. She was so limp all at once, so like a rag, that his arms dropped as though she had slapped him. His ardor cooled; there was something here he couldn’t understand; it chilled him. He reached for his hat, dented it, and slapped it on. He was going. There were too many other fish in the sea. He chucked her briefly under the chin.

“You’re a lovely kid and all that — but what a disposition!”

She gave a moan so low it could scarcely be heard. She staggered to retain her balance.

“No high-jinks,” he warned her. “I’ve got the landlady eating out of my hand—” He watched her, waiting for the scream that he felt sure was coming. He was going to clip her one across the mouth and shut her up. It had worked lots of times before. But no scream came. She just stood there shivering.

“All right, all right,” he grunted sourly. “If you didn’t learn the facts of life at that place where you work, better buy yourself a book and study up on ’em.” The real horror of the situation lay in that. She couldn’t make him understand what he was doing to her, turning everything sordid, killing everything in her. There was no heart there for her to touch no matter how hard she tried; nothing there for her to appeal to. They didn’t speak the same language at all.

“Get out!” she said hoarsely. The shivering had become almost epilepsy. “Get out, I say, get out!”

He saluted her grimly by flicking his index finger at his temple. The door closed after him. A moment later the empty sandwich-plate shattered against it. Then the other one. She was beside herself. She kept saying “Get out!” over and over long after he was gone. Then the sobs came, dry sobs like hiccoughs, like the rustling of dead leaves on a windy day. They brought no relief; they stopped again.

She was still dressed in the tawdry satin thing she wore at work, that she’d come home in tonight. She bent close to the glass, made a horrid scar with lipstick over her mouth as though she was going out again. She was, but not by the door, not to dance any more. She threw up the window as wide as it would go, looked out, looked down on Fifty-first Street four stories below. Everything was dark, the sky was dark, the street was dark, the world was dark, her soul was dark. What was that she had said to herself? No sun anywhere, no blue skies, no love, nothing good and decent anywhere in the world — if this went wrong. Well, it had.

She slipped sidewise across the sill, brought her legs over, took her hand off the window-sash above her head. She felt like a little girl dabbling her feet in cool water on a very hot day. That cool water was eternity; when she slipped into it altogether, it would refresh her, wash her clean.

A piercing scream welled up from the dark street. Someone had seen her, sitting on a fourth-floor window-ledge in a dance frock at four in the morning.

“Faith! Fa-a-aith!” It was like a nail-head scratching glass. She looked down. A cab was parked at the door of the house and Trixie was standing there directly under her. You could hear everything she said — how strange! “No — wait, wait! Don’t jump! Just give me a minute; let me tell you some—”

Faith only shook her head and smiled down at her. The light coming from the window behind her showed the smile. She’ll go in, try to run up the stairs, thought Faith; then I’ll do it before she gets up here.

But Trixie craftily stayed where she was, directly under her, and cleverly changed her plea. “Don’t! You’ll hit me; you’ll kill me! Don’t. You’ll fall on top of me!”

“Then get out of the way!” warned Faith. Arms suddenly whipped around her from in back, around her slim waist, around her throat, pulled her back into the room. The door stood open. The landlady and a male tenant held her between them, slamming down the window.

“Now you quit carrying on, young lady, or I’ll call the police!” warned the landlady tersely.

“Why couldn’t you mind your own business?” Faith sobbed. Trixie came hurtling in, collapsed into a chair as though it was she who had just been rescued.

“Thank God you two heard me!” she panted. “I was afraid to budge away from there.” And then to Faith, ferociously: “What’s the idea? You trying to frighten the wits out of everyone?” She thumbed the other two to the door. “She’ll be all right. Just let me talk to her. I’ve come to take her some place.” And when they had gone: “Now, honey, listen to me very closely and pay attention to what I say.”

It wasn’t long after that the two passed the other pair still lingering at the front door to talk over what had happened. The taxi Trixie had come in was still waiting there. Trixie ushered Faith into it; the latter was docile now but still acted as though she were sleep-walking.

“Where you going with her?” whispered the landlady curiously.

“You won’t believe me,” answered Trixie, “but I’m taking her to a chop-suey joint.”

The landlady nearly fell over. “These dance-hall girls!” she bleated. “Well, see that she stays there; she can’t stay in my house any more.”

“She won’t have to!” snapped Trixie, banging the cab door. “She’ll probably have a little flat of her own in Flatbush before the week’s out and be darning her husband’s socks a mile a minute! Let that hold you, poison-face!”

They walked into the Chinese restaurant a few minutes later, a very frightened girl with her arm around a very dazed one. Trixie was the frightened one. Then she saw him still there at the table and she wasn’t frightened any more. He was a gentleman to the end; he’d intended ditching as soon as they left, but he’d had the decency not to leave without her, was still waiting there for her. So many things could have gone wrong; one of the waiters could have tipped him off that she, Trixie, always left like that and never came back. But he hadn’t asked and he hadn’t been told, so he was still there. God had smiled down on a little taxi-dancer tonight.

“Go over there, darling,” she urged tenderly. “See him? That’s him. Go over there — you’ve got a little back happiness coming to you; go over there and collect.”

“But what’ll I say?” whispered Faith.

“You don’t have to say anything; just look at him, and he’ll look at you — and you’ll both know. They tell me,” Trixie added wistfully, “that love is like that. They tell me that love is — pretty swell. I wouldn’t know personally.” She gave Faith a little push forward and then she turned and walked slowly out to Broadway again — alone.