U.S.A_ - John Dos Passos [515]
When they got out on the street J. W. sighed. "Poor Eleanor, I'm afraid she's in for something. . . . Those Russians wil eat her out of house and home. Do you sup-pose she real y wil marry this Prince Mingraziali? I've made inquiries about him. . . . He's al that he says he is. But heavens!""With crowns and everything," said Dick,
"the date's al set." "After al , Eleanor knows her own business. She's been very successful, you know." J. W.'s car was at the door. The chauffeur got out with a laprobe over his arm and was just about to close the door on J. W. when Dick said, "J. W., have you a few minutes to talk about this Bingham account?" "Of course, I was forgetting," said J. W. in a tired voice. "Come on out to supper at Great Neck. . . . I'm alone out there except for the children." Smiling, Dick jumped in and the chauffeur closed the door of the big black towncar behind him. It was pretty lugubrious eating in the diningroom with its painted Italian panels at the Moorehouses' with the butler and the secondman moving around silently in the dim light and only Dick and J. W. and Miss Simpson, the
-490-children's so very refined longfaced governess, at the long candlelit table. Afterwards when they went into J. W.'s little white den to smoke and talk about the Bingham ac-count, Dick thanked his stars when the old butler appeared with a bottle of scotch and ice and glasses. "Where did you find that, Thompson?" asked J. W. "Been in the ceflaz since before the war, Sir . . . those cases Mrs. Moore-house bought in Scotland. . . . I knew Mr. Savage liked a bit of a spot."
Dick laughed. "That's the advantage of having a bad name," he said. J. W. drawled solemnly, "It's the best to be had, I know that. . . . Do you know I never could get much out of drinking, so I gave it up, even before prohibition." J. W. had lit himself a cigar. Suddenly he threw it in the fire. "I don't think I'l smoke tonight. The doctor says three cigars a day won't hurt me . . . but I've been feel-ing seedy al week. . . . I ought to get out of the stock-market. . . . I hope you keep out of it, Dick."
"My creditors don't leave me enough to buy a ticket to a raffle with." J. W. took a couple of steps across the smal room lined with unscratched sets of the leading authors in morocco, and then stood with his back to the Florentine fireplace with his hands behind him. "I feel chil y al the time. I don't think my circulation's very good. . . . Perhaps it was going to see Gertrude. . . . The doctors have final y admitted her case is hopeless. It was a great shock to me." Dick got to his feet and put down his glass. "I'm sorry, J. W. . . . Stil , there have been surprising cures in brain troubles." J. W. was standing with his lips in a thin tight line, his big jowl trembling a little. "Not in schizophrenia. . . . I've managed to do pretty wel in everything except that.
. . . I'm a lonely man," he said. "And to think once upon a time I was planning to be a songwriter." He smiled.
-491-Dick smiled too and held out his hand. "Shake hands, J. W.," he said, "with the ruins of a minor poet."
"Anyway," said J. W., "the children wil have the ad-vantages I never had. . . . Would it bore you, before we get down to business, to go up and say goodnight to them?
I'd like to have you see them."
"Of course not, I love kids," said Dick. "In fact I've never yet quite managed to grow up myself."
At the head of the stairs Miss Simpson met them with her finger to her lips. "Little Gertrude's asleep." They tip-toed down the al white hal . The children were in bed each in a smal hospital ike room cold from an open win-dow, on each pil ow was a head of pale strawcolored hair.
"Staple's the oldest . . . he's twelve," whispered J. W.
"Then Gertrude, then Johnny." Staple said goodnight po-litely. Gertrude didn't wake up when they turned the light on. Johnny sat up in a nightmare with his bright blue eyes open wide, crying, "No, no," in a tiny frightened voice. J. W. sat on the edge of the bed petting him for a moment until he fel asleep again. "Goodnight, Miss Simpson," and they were him for a moment until he fel asleep again. "Goodnight, Miss Simpson," and they were tiptoeing down the stairs. "What do you think of them?" J. W. turned beaming to Dick.