Gigolo | Page 8

back to-night."
"You're crazy!"
"I know it," she agreed, "and it's wonderful.... Can you play the Tommy
Toddle?"
"Yeh. It's kind of hard, though, where the runs are. I don't get the runs
so very good." He played it. She kept time with head and feet. When he

had finished and wiped his lips:
"Elegant!" She took the harmonica from him, wiped it brazenly on the
much-abused, rose-coloured handkerchief and began to play, her
cheeks puffed out, her eyes round with effort. She played the Tommy
Toddle, and her runs were perfect. Nick's chagrin was swallowed by his
admiration and envy.
"Say, kid, you got more wind than a factory whistle. Who learned you
to play?"
She struck her chest with a hard brown fist. "Tennis ... Tim taught me."
"Who's Tim?"
"The--a chauffeur."
Nick leaned closer. "Say, do you ever go to the dances at Englewood
Masonic Hall?"
"I never have."
"'Jah like to go some time?"
"I'd love it." She grinned up at him, her teeth flashing white in her
brown face.
"It's swell here," he said, dreamily. "Like the woods?"
"Yes."
"Winter, when it's cold and dirty, I think about how it's here summers.
It's like you could take it out of your head and look at it whenever you
wanted to."
"Endymion."
"Huh?"

"A man said practically the same thing the other day. Name of Keats."
"Yeh?"
"He said: 'A thing of beauty is a joy forever.'"
"That's one way putting it," he agreed, graciously.
Unsmilingly she reached over with one slim forefinger, as if compelled,
and touched the blond hairs on Nick's wrist. Just touched them. Nick
remained motionless. The girl shivered a little, deliciously. She glanced
at him shyly. Her lips were provocative. Thoughtlessly, blindly, Nick
suddenly flung an arm about her, kissed her. He kissed her as he had
never kissed Miss Bauers--as he had never kissed Miss Ahearn, Miss
Olson, or just Gertie. The girl did not scream, or push him away, or
slap him, or protest, or giggle as would have the above-mentioned
young ladies. She sat breathing rather fast, a tinge of scarlet showing
beneath the tan.
"Well, Pan," she said, low-voiced, "you're running true to form,
anyway." She eyed him appraisingly. "Your appeal is in your virility, I
suppose. Yes."
"My what?"
She rose. "I've got to go."
Panic seized him. "Say, don't drive back to-night, huh? Wherever it is
you've got to go. You ain't driving back to-night?"
She made no answer; parted the bushes, was out on the gravel path in
the sunlight, a slim, short-skirted, almost childish figure. He followed.
They crossed the bridge, left the island, reached the roadway almost in
silence. At the side of the road was a roadster. Its hood was the kind
that conceals power. Its lamps were two giant eyes rimmed in precious
metal. Its line spelled strength. Its body was foreign. Nick's
engine-wise eyes saw these things at a glance.

"That your car?"
"Yes."
"Gosh!"
She unlocked it, threw in the clutch, shifted, moved. "Say!" was wrung
from Nick helplessly. She waved at him. "Good-bye, Pan." He stared,
stricken. She was off swiftly, silently; flashed around a corner; was
hidden by the trees and shrubs.
He stood a moment. He felt bereaved, cheated. Then a little wave of
exaltation shook him. He wanted to talk to someone. "Gosh!" he said
again. He glanced at his wrist. Five-thirty. He guessed he'd go home.
He guessed he'd go home and get one of Ma's dinners. One of Ma's
dinners and talk to Ma. The Sixty-third Street car. He could make it and
back in plenty time.
Nick lived in that section of Chicago known as Englewood, which is
not so sylvan as it sounds, but appropriate enough for a faun. Not only
that; he lived in S. Green Street, Englewood. S. Green Street, near
Seventieth, is almost rural with its great elms and poplars, its frame
cottages, its back gardens. A neighbourhood of thrifty, foreign-born
fathers and mothers, many children, tree-lined streets badly paved.
Nick turned in at a two-story brown frame cottage. He went around to
the back. Ma was in the kitchen.
Nick's presence at the evening meal was an uncertain thing. Sometimes
he did not eat at home for a week, excepting only his hurried early
breakfast. He rarely spent an evening at home, and when he did used
the opportunity for making up lost sleep. Pa never got home from work
until after six. Nick liked his dinner early and hot. On his rare visits his
mother welcomed him like one of the Gracchi. Mother and son
understood each other wordlessly, having much in common. You
would not have thought it of her (forty-six bust, forty waist,
measureless hips), but Ma was a nymph at heart. Hence Nick.
"Hello, Ma!"