Katharine Brush

“ The dinner-coated functionary has to incline his ear to your lips to hear you say, "A table near the floor if you have it," and you have to incline yours to his to hear him reply that he hasn't it but that he'll give you something in a corner.
The room beyond the screen is enormously large, and looks even larger because its walls are dusky-black and seem to mingle with the night in an infinitude of darkness. ”

“ Terrace Tavern is long and low and sprawling, made of stucco. It has a red tile roof, innumerable windows bonneted with red-and-white striped awnings, and below the window, boxes, in which things assorted grow. A liveried negro with a flashing white grin holds the door wide for you to enter, then lets it whisk to behind you so abruptly that you feel as though you had been swept in by a broom. ”

“ All of which, in view of the fact that he was suited by Brooks Brothers, worked at journalism, and seldom went out of New York if he could help it, was quite absurd.
Jock had never met a man he liked so well on sight, and as the four of them (Bill Olmstead had arrived, breathless and propitiatory, on the heels of Johnny) sat drinking tea around a table a little later, the liking grew into something deep and strong and destined to last. ”

“ And women in rather becoming hats. Women always manage that, somehow. Vain, even in wassail.
Confetti lay on the dance floor in little parti-hued puddles, and marked trails between the tables. It flecked the dark-coated shoulders of men, and glistened in women's hair, and stuck like beauty marks to their moist warm skin. Colored streamers looped from the central chandelier, bunched about the feet of the dancers and tripped them, stacked itself in corners as though a giant ticker-tape basket had upset. ”

“ To begin with, it is bored. With itself, with its neighbor, with all things. It has lived hard and swiftly, the roadhouse crowd, and now it is burned out and bored; and so it cries for White Rock and cracked ice, and mixes itself illegitimate drinks, and downs them, and mixes more, and downs them . . . that it may forget how bored it is, that it may become merry and loud and hysterical . ”

“ X The patrons of Terrace Tavern liked the new entertainers, liked them immediately and immensely, and learned to anticipate them with increasing impatience. "Wait'll you see this red-head!" the men would say, smacking their lips. The women, saying nothing, would fasten their glances on the little door at the right of the orchestra's alcove and watch for the dark tall boy with the crooked impersonal—so darned impersonal!—smile. There would be a hush of expectancy over all the room . . . a flare-up of bright lights . . . a crash of clapping as the little door opened and Yvonne and Jock appeared. ”

“ My dear Madelaine, surely you don't think any twentieth century college boy is going to faint away at the sight of a roulette wheel?"
And Mrs. Hamill always retorted, "No. I don't. But a woman who conducts a gambling joint, however exclusive and dignified, is nothing more or less than—a woman who conducts a gambling joint! Jock would hate the idea, and he isn't going to find out if I can help it." ”

“ Every so often the wash of the world eddies together two souls so essentially congenial that they admire each other at once, love each other thereafter, and entertain each other to the point where everything said by one, however slight, excites the risibilities of the other. Jock and Johnny were thus. ”

“ And of the rather incredible sums, a goodly portion would come to permanent rest at last in the soft small hands of Madelaine Hamill. Of course. One does not convert one's home into a casino of Chance for nothing.
Hour after hour she moved through the crowded rooms, smiling, greeting, exchanging badinage, seeing to it that highball glasses were often refilled and that matches were plentiful, noting mechanically whose chips towered high on the roulette tables and whose dwindled. ”

“ Jock guessed rather than heard how popular she had become. "Several people were nice to me at the beach this summer," she said, and he in his mind's eye saw whole stacks of straw hats with fraternity ribands, and droves of white flannel trousers. "I took in most of the big games this fall and the dances that went with them, and had quite a different time from the one I had at that prom at your college"—and Jock visualized relay after relay of eager stags. You could not know young men, and know Cecily as she was now, and not see how inevitably she must attract them. ”

“ Public fancy is a mysterious thing. Professionals may labor years and fail to catch it, and a rank amateur like Jock, all unawares, may call it his on the strength of a bow and a deprecatory grin.
He was having, as he said himself, the time of his life. The work was holiday—not work at all, really, but fun. They appeared only twice in an evening, at nine and again at twelve; and between times, aside from Yvonne's change of costume, there was nothing to do but wait. ”

“ There isn't a thing to cry about. We're taking care of you now. Nothing's the matter, child—is there? Tell us all about it."
The united efforts of Yvonne and Jock finally elicited from Cecily the news that she felt "awfully funnee" and a series of sobbing speculations as to what her mother would say when she went home. "And how'm I going to get home," she wound up, lifting a tragic wet face. ("Anyway," Jock told himself, "she cries a lot prettier than she used to. Why, she cries the prettiest of any girl I ever saw!") ”

“ We really have a quite wonderful clientele, Jock. Some of the names would astound you. Every newcomer is introduced and sponsored as though into a blueblooded club, and has to present all the credentials you can think of—with the possible exception of a letter from his clergyman! We've been extremely cautious. And I've acquired a tidy fortune. I was able to pay Saunders back in full in five years, and the rest has gone into investments, or toward your schooling—what's the matter, Jocky?"
"Nothing. Only I must be God's dumbest white creature!" . . . Yvonne, then Eunice, shadowed his mind. ”

“ The idea was Jock's. "No percentage in staying on in this house. Darn thing's too big! Why rattle around like a couple of bugs in a bucket? Let's sell it, and take an apartment in the city." It seemed feasible. A New York dwelling would be convenient to "the office" (so spake Jock, laughing at himself) and wonderfully convenient to Yvonne; and now that Mrs. Hamill's coterie had fallen in number from sixty to a nightly bridge-mad three, space was no longer requisite. So they hunted, and found what they wanted—eight livable rooms in an apartment house overlooking Central Park. ”

“ Mrs. Hamill gave vent to a few calm whys and wherefores, characterized the whole affair as "simply mad," and washed her hands of it. To Saunders Lincoln only did she confide her true attitude.
"There wasn't any use making a fuss," she said. "Though goodness knows I wanted to! Just imagine Jock, of all boys in the world, contenting himself with playing the banjo in a cheap wayside dancehall! I don't know what's come over him. Yes, I do too, it's that Yvonne, she has him wrapped around her little finger. He's so dazzled, he can't see beyond his own nose. ”

“ And she said in her normal voice, "Why, hello, dear."
"Hello, mother," said Jock, and bent to kiss her. "What goes on, anyway? Old Home Week or something? There must be a million machines parked around."
"I'm giving a little party," replied Mrs. Hamill. She laid hands on Jock's coat and pulled him so that the porch lights fell full on him. "Look at me, rascal! Have you been expelled? Don't keep your poor mother in suspense. And where's your hat? Did you—Jock, you didn't come all the way from college on a winter night without a hat?" ”

“ He had never spoken more truly than when he told Yvonne that he felt "sort of responsible." Cecily, in this condition, stabbed his conscience. "Oh, good Lord!" he moaned mentally. "I bet I did this! I started it, anyhow, I know that. And she's taken all my advice and then gone to the other extreme!"
Yvonne's dressing room was a cubbyhole containing a table messy with cosmetics, a huge mirror framed in electricity, two kitchen chairs, and an assortment of gowns that peeped from behind a sheet stretched across one corner. ”

“ He lay late abed every morning, and took a combination breakfast and lunch with Yvonne, either at her apartment, where they made electric coffee and electric toast and chafing-dish scrambled eggs, or at his own apartment, where the ubiquitous Bennett served them, Then they sallied forth. Sometimes to a matinee. Sometimes to a vaudeville show, for business reasons. Sometimes to buy new ragtime selections at a little Broadway shop, and take them back and try them out together. Sometimes, if the day was hot, to scoot into the country in the roadster, or to swim at some not too populous beach. ”

“ Yvonne chose this unfortunate moment to enter the room, in a negligée of Nile green chiffon and lace that foamed behind her like a boat's wake. The negligée was very lovely and Yvonne was very lovely. But ten a. m. and a little beauty like Cecily are a combination hard on even the loveliest of women grown. For the first time in his life, Jock thought Yvonne looked old. ”

“ Jock scoffed, "I know you eighteen-year-olds. You're always in love with somebody, or pretending you are. You've always got somebody in your minds to get maudlin about when there's moonlight. Now, which one is it, Cecily? ”

“ He had pulled Yvonne on to his knees, and hence had little interest in the forthcoming answer, if any.
She put her hands against his chest and scrutinized him soberly. "Jock Hamill, how would you like to go into partnership with me—no, wait, my dear! I'm serious about this. Listen to me just a minute. I have to work—keep still till I finish, for goodness' sake!—and you're going to work too, when you get your lazy old self around to it, so why shouldn't we work together, playing and singing in a——"
"Salvation Army!" crowed Jock. "Just the thing!" ”

“ He was best man, you know, and instead of attempting to cheer poor Johnny up he kept whispering 'She snores,' and little brotherly things like that, all the time I was moseying down the aisle! What else did you ask me? Oh, yes—why, we're living here. Down in Greenwich Village. Johnny's father owns the New York Log, and Johnny—here he comes now! On time, for once in his life. Act as if you're in love with me, Jock—I think that's good for husbands——"
People were always conscious of a surprised sensation the first time they saw Johnny Havens. ”

“ And people would kiss one another, and cheer, and bawl felicitations, and whistle, and spit the confetti out of their mouths, and do all the things with which good Americans usher in another first of January. ”

“ Hamill's dressing room, she stretched at full length on a wistaria taffeta sofa, Jock seated near in a wistaria chair as incongruous to him as lace would be on a football jersey, their cheerfulness dropped from them and they were grave and constrained. He spoke first, after a protracted wait. "Maybe you'd like to go to bed yourself, mother? You must be dog-tired. ”

“ After this Cecily vanished into the bedroom, muttering something about "safety pins," and Jock and Yvonne were alone. He kissed her gently, his hands framing her face. "I wish you'd come," he said.
"Honestly, my dear, I don't feel like it."
They exchanged a long look, Jock's quizzical, Yvonne's even and smiling. "What is the trouble?" she asked at last. "If a person just doesn't want any breakfast——"
She let the sentence hang there, and presently Jock opened a new topic. "What did you do about Cecily's mother?" ”

“ There a girl trying to climb on to her table, breaking glass, upsetting dishes. There a sophomoric individual being assisted out by two companions, assuring them as he went that "S'all fun." There a whole party owlishly intent on making a spoon jump into a tumbler by means of another spoon . . .
At eleven-thirty Jock and Yvonne left Barney Blaine's table and vanished . . . to reënter a few minutes later through the little painted door and to walk to the middle of the dance floor through a storm of hammering and tooting and clapping that threatened never to subside. ”

“ Hamill
Book Four
I MRS. HAMILL was entertaining. All her guests were men, and at first glance there appeared to be hundreds of them, so wholly did they fill her house with tailored black and starched white and polished leather. As a matter of fact they numbered sixty. Bennett, the butler, had counted them, afterward sidling to his mistress to whisper the total. "Sixty tonight, Madam." And Mrs. Hamill had inclined her shingle-bobbed silver head in satisfaction. Sixty was quite as it should be. ”

“ He thought that some of the boys in their caps and gowns were "hot sketches," that it was an unconscionable lot of pother about nothing after all, and that Eunice, whom he spied at a distance, was getting much too fat. Aside from that, he felt nothing. . . . It was July, and his mother had gone to York Harbor. And Bones Allen, from Paris, was sending him characteristic postcards. "The French women are 'way overrated," said one of them tersely. "The French women have dirty necks," said another, on the reverse side of a tinted picture of the Arc de Triomphe. . . . It was August . ”

“ Car after car leaves the highway and twists along a serpentine side-road, until its headlights are one with the light that blazes like noon in the clearing at the end. August Schultz has ever been a firm believer in electricity for outdoor use. ”

“ It's got to be!"
"What's Yvonne like?" Saunders Lincoln queried.
"Beautiful as a dream, wise as all the ages, shallow, superficial, rather notoriously immoral—I've had her looked up, of course—and at least six years older than Jock," said Mrs. Hamill all in a breath. "And, strange to say, really in love with him, unless my intuition dep ceives me as it never did before. Why she doesn't marry him is quite beyond me, for she could have him tomorrow if she whistled. He says she's trying to make him wait a year. I hope she succeeds! ”