2
Sally had just finished telling her brother Fillmore what a pig he was.
The lecture had taken place in the street outside the boarding-house
immediately on the conclusion of the festivities, when Fillmore, who had
furtively collected his hat and overcoat, had stolen forth into the
night, had been overtaken and brought to bay by his justly indignant
sister. Her remarks, punctuated at intervals by bleating sounds from the
accused, had lasted some ten minutes.
As she paused for breath, Fillmore seemed to expand, like an indiarubber
ball which has been sat on. Dignified as he was to the world, he had
never been able to prevent himself being intimidated by Sally when in
one of these moods of hers. He regretted this, for it hurt his
self-esteem, but he did not see how the fact could be altered. Sally had
always been like that. Even the uncle, who after the deaths of their
parents had become their guardian, had never, though a grim man, been
able to cope successfully with Sally. In that last hectic scene three
years ago, which had ended in their going out into the world, together
like a second Adam and Eve, the verbal victory had been hers. And it had
been Sally who had achieved triumph in the one battle which Mrs.
Meecher, apparently as a matter of duty, always brought about with each
of her patrons in the first week of their stay. A sweet-tempered girl,
Sally, like most women of a generous spirit, had cyclonic
potentialities.
As she seemed to have said her say, Fillmore kept on expanding till he
had reached the normal, when he ventured upon a speech for the defence.
"What have I done?" demanded Fillmore plaintively.
"Do you want to hear all over again?"
"No, no," said Fillmore hastily. "But, listen. Sally, you don't
understand my position. You don't seem to realize that all that sort of
thing, all that boarding-house stuff, is a thing of the past. One's got
beyond it. One wants to drop it. One wants to forget it, darn it! Be
fair. Look at it from my viewpoint. I'm going to be a big man ..."
"You're going to be a fat man," said Sally, coldly.
Fillmore refrained from discussing the point. He was sensitive.
"I'm going to do big things," he substituted. "I've got a deal on at
this very moment which... well, I can't tell you about it, but it's
going to be big. Well, what I'm driving at, is about all this sort of
thing"--he indicated the lighted front of Mrs. Meecher's home-from-home
with a wide gesture--"is that it's over. Finished and done with. These
people were all very well when..."
"... when you'd lost your week's salary at poker and wanted to borrow a
few dollars for the rent."
"I always paid them back," protested Fillmore, defensively.
"I did."
"Well, we did," said Fillmore, accepting the amendment with the air of a
man who has no time for chopping straws. "Anyway, what I mean is, I
don't see why, just because one has known people at a certain period in
one's life when one was practically down and out, one should have them
round one's neck for ever. One can't prevent people forming an
I-knew-him-when club, but, darn it, one needn't attend the meetings."
"One's friends..."
"Oh, friends," said Fillmore. "That's just where all this makes me so
tired. One's in a position where all these people are entitled to call
themselves one's friends, simply because father put it in his will that
I wasn't to get the money till I was twenty-five, instead of letting me
have it at twenty-one like anybody else. I wonder where I should have
been by now if I could have got that money when I was twenty-one."
"In the poor-house, probably," said Sally.
Fillmore was wounded.
"Ah! you don't believe in me," he sighed.
"Oh, you would be all right if you had one thing," said Sally.
Fillmore passed his qualities in swift review before his mental eye.
Brains? Dash? Spaciousness? Initiative? All present and correct. He
wondered where Sally imagined the hiatus to exist.
"One thing?" he said. "What's that?"
"A nurse."
Fillmore's sense of injury deepened. He supposed that this was always
the way, that those nearest to a man never believed in his ability till
he had proved it so masterfully that it no longer required the
assistance of faith. Still, it was trying; and there was not much
consolation to be derived from the thought that Napoleon had had to go
through this sort of thing in his day. "I shall find my place in the
world," he said sulkily.
"Oh, you'll find your place all right," said Sally. "And I'll come
round and bring you jelly and read to you on the days when visitors are
allowed... Oh, hullo."
The last remark was addressed to a young man who had been swinging
briskly along the sidewalk from the direction of Broadway and who now,
coming abreast of them, stopped.
"Good evening, Mr. Foster."
"Good evening. Miss Nicholas."
"You don't know my brother, do you?"
"I don't believe I do."
"He left the underworld before you came to it," said Sally. "You
wouldn't think it to look at him, but he was once a prune-eater among
the proletariat, even as you and I. Mrs. Meecher looks on him as a son."
The two men shook hands. Fillmore was not short, but Gerald Foster with
his lean, well-built figure seemed to tower over him. He was an
Englishman, a man in the middle twenties, clean-shaven, keen-eyed, and
very good to look at. Fillmore, who had recently been going in for one
of those sum-up-your-fellow-man-at-a-glance courses, the better to fit
himself for his career of greatness, was rather impressed. It seemed to
him that this Mr. Foster, like himself, was one of those who Get There.
If you are that kind yourself, you get into the knack of recognizing the
others. It is a sort of gift.
There was a few moments of desultory conversation, of the kind that
usually follows an introduction, and then Fillmore, by no means sorry to
get the chance, took advantage of the coming of this new arrival to
remove himself. He had not enjoyed his chat with Sally, and it seemed
probable that he would enjoy a continuation of it even less. He was glad
that Mr. Foster had happened along at this particular juncture. Excusing
himself briefly, he hurried off down the street.
Sally stood for a minute, watching him till he had disappeared round
the corner. She had a slightly regretful feeling that, now it was too
late, she would think of a whole lot more good things which it would
have been agreeable to say to him. And it had become obvious to her that
Fillmore was not getting nearly enough of that kind of thing said to him
nowadays. Then she dismissed him from her mind and turning to Gerald
Foster, slipped her arm through his.
"Well, Jerry, darling," she said. "What a shame you couldn't come to
the party. Tell me all about everything."
