But the attic party was a fizzle for me. I didn’t have the pleasure of seeing Leon take even one too many. Furthermore my disappointment was increased by the fact that all those imitation artists actually went wild over Leon’s poetry and the more they praised him the more he read to them. He didn’t have time to take a drink. It was a terrible evening for me. I wouldn’t have minded being proud of him, if the facts warranted it; but how anyone could feel other than ashamed of a brother who would read the stuff he read—and then boasted of writing—was beyond me. The only good thing he read to them they immediately squelched because they said it sounded too conventional, too formalized. Just because it made sense and was almost rhythmic!... I think my complete loss of hopes for my dear brother dated from that evening with those asses of the arts. Furthermore I was beginning to be depressed again, because Jay-Jay was not the sort of fellow one could put up with forever. I mean, he was the kind you either had to submit to or fight with; there could be no happy medium of friendship for very long. I remember that we went to a Christmas blow-out in town and the entire party was well ossified, so naturally Jay-Jay was in his element, the more so because all the people were of the theater and knew him as his father’s son. That one evening convinced me that show people are worse handshakers than politicians and my escort gave me acute shooting pains with his self-satisfied manner. He simply exuded manly confidence. He looked and acted as if he could take any girl he wanted, and then on the way home he was deeply grieved and insulted, not to say dumfounded, because I wouldn’t let him manhandle me. Said I, “It would take a better man than you, I’m sure.” To which the simple fool merely said, “Keep on hoping, honey; I’m improving all the time!” A week later, at a New Year’s affair, he changed his tactics completely and made really decent and ardent love to me, just like a movie hero. He did everything except ask me to marry him. I was so surprised at his change of attack that I almost forgot myself. But then I remembered that you have to fight for anything you want to keep and it also occurred to me to wonder why he never had asked me to marry him.... Thinking it over afterwards, I concluded that it was his idea that one marries only as a last resort, after all other attempts have failed.... And I concluded also that the chief reason he was so eager in pursuit of me lay in the fact that he was beginning to doubt that he would ever have me. You’d have thought, with all the women in New York available for him, that he wouldn’t have bothered with me. But I suspected then, and have since confirmed my suspicions, that the old wheeze about denial engendering desire may be a chestnut but at least its kernel is good....