Hereabouts, nowadays, walk-ups are more ornate. Cassy's dinner that
night was served on rich linoleum and not out of snobbishness either but
because the table had gone from the living-room and though the piano
remained one could not very well dine on that, or, for that matter, on
the sofa. There are details into which a hostess never enters. Cassy--in
black chiffon--did not offer any and Lennox--in evening clothes--did not
ask. He had never dined in a kitchen before and, so far as the present
historian knows not to the contrary, he did not dine in one again. But
he enjoyed the experience. There was cold chicken, a salad, youth,
youth's wine and running laughter. For dessert, a remark.
The rich linoleum then had been abandoned for the other room where Cassy
sat on the sofa and Lennox on the one surviving chair. Beyond was the
piano. Additionally, in some neighbourly flat, a phonograph performed.
Among these luxuries sweets were served. A question preceded them.
"Do you remember the afternoon you were in my rooms?"
Yes, Cassy remembered it.
Then came the remark. "That afternoon I laughed. Until to-night--except
once--I haven't laughed since then."
Very good dessert, with more to follow.
"When you went, the sunlight went with you. It went out at your heels
like a dog. I was thinking about it recently. I don't seem to have seen
the sunlight again, until it played about your rhinoceros."
There are sweets that are bitter. Cassy took one.
"Mr. Jones told me. It does seem such a pity, such a great pity. I saw
her once and I could see she was not merely good to look at but really
good, good through and through."
"May I smoke?" Lennox asked.
Had he wished he could have stood on his head. Cassy nodded at him. He
got out a cigar.
"Miss Austen is all you say. She is a saint. A man doesn't want a saint.
A man wants flesh and blood."
Cassy took another bitter-sweet. "She's that. Any one would know it."
Lennox bit at the cigar. "Too good for me, though. So good that she
threw me over."
Cassy put a finger through it. "She did not understand. Any girl might
have done the same."
Sombrely Lennox considered her. "Would you? You say she did not
understand. I know well enough she did not. But if you cared for a man,
would you throw him over because of a charge which you could not be sure
was true and without giving him a chance to disprove it? Would you?"
He could stand on his head, yes, but it was unfair to grill her. She
flushed.
"I don't see what that has to do with it."
"How, you don't see?"
"Isn't it obvious? Miss Austen and I move in different worlds. On any
subject our views might differ and I don't mean at all but that hers
would be superior."
"There can be but one view of what's square."
"I am sure she meant to be."
Unconcernedly, Lennox smiled. The smile lit his face. From sombre it
became radiant.
"That's all very well. The point is what you would think. Would you
think it square to throw a man over as she threw me?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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