After supper Binks had become delightfully silly. A special bond united Wilfred and Binks; the kids of the crowd, exactly the same age. They had to conceal their kiddishness from the older fellows, but might reveal it to each other when alone. They were intensely jealous of each other. Wilfred had to be content with second place, because Binks surpassed him in everything. Binks at nineteen already had his drawings in the best magazines. Wilfred was enslaved by his admiration of Binks’ elegant air that was not dependent upon dress, his outrageous audacity; his faculty for making friends. Binks was nonchalantly one with gangsters, and with the Four Hundred. What a Godsend that would be to me, thought Wilfred; if I had it. Amazing fellow, Binks! He had said: “My boss asked me to lunch on Wednesday. He runs what he calls the Simple Life Club. Not so damn simple. Has in the fellows who write and draw for his magazine to amuse the society dames he knows. I sat next to Mrs. Van Buren. . . .” “Mrs. Peter Polk Van Buren?” asked Wilfred, amazed. “Yes, that’s her.” “The most beautiful woman in New York!” said Wilfred, “and the greatest name!” “That so”? Well, she was a peach all right. As we took our places she kicked my foot under the table. She begged my pardon, and I said: ‘Oh, go as far as you like!’ It sort of broke the ice. She said she was dying to smoke; but she didn’t know how the other women would take it. I said: ‘Oh, go ahead. When they see you start they’ll all smoke themselves black in the face!’ Across the table sat:” he named names that took Wilfred’s breath away. “Some party! . . . I came home afterwards, and carried down the washing from the roof for my mother.” By degrees Wilfred had perceived that Binks’ affections were not warm like Stanny’s and Jasper’s. With sharpest pain he thought: The fellows he met last night for the first time are just the same to him as us. . . . Oh well, that’s his nature. You have to take him as he is. When Binks got drunk, and, no longer clever, made believe that the studio was a skating rink, Wilfred felt like a father to him. At any rate I can carry my liquor better than Binks, he told himself. After supper there came a point when Jasper burst into flower like that night-blooming plant whose name Wilfred couldn’t remember. He stood behind a chair, haranguing them in the manner of a rabbit-toothed curate with his spectacles slipping off his nose. A rag-tag parody of biblical quotations, and pulpit jargon. The congregation rolled helplessly on the floor. At such moments, Wilfred thought, Jasper under his unsure manner revealed richer ore than any of them.