Young Peoples Pride | Page 5

say."
Both are completely serious now.
"Bon. Very glad," says Oliver in a low voice.
"I can stand it. I was awful afraid I couldn't when I first got back. And law interests me, really, though I've lost three years because of the war. And I'm working like a pious little devil with a new assortment of damned and when you haven't any money you can't go on parties in New York unless you raise gravy riding to a fine art. Only sometimes--well, you know how it is--"
Oliver nods.
"I'll be sitting there, at night especially, in that little tin Tophet of a room on Madison Avenue, working. I can work, if I do say it myself--I'm hoping to get through with school in January, now. But it gets pretty lonely, sometimes when there's nobody to run into that you can really talk to--the people I used to play with in College are out of New York for the summer--even Peter's down at Southampton most of the time or out at Star Bay--you're in Melgrove--Sam Woodward's married and working in Chicago--Brick Turner's in New Mexico--I've dropped out of the Wall Street bunch in the class that hang out at the Yale Club--I'm posted there anyhow, and besides they've all made money and I haven't, and all they want to talk about is puts and calls. And then you remember things.
"The time my pilot and I blew into Paris when we thought we were hitting somewhere around Nancy till we saw that blessed Eiffel Tower poking out of the fog. And the Hotel de Turenne on Rue Vavin and getting up in the morning and going out for a café cognac breakfast, and everything being amiable and pleasant, and kidding along all the dear little ladies that sat on the terrasse when they dropped in to talk over last evening's affairs. I suppose I'm a sensualist--"
"Everybody is." from Oliver.
"Well, that's another thing. Women. And love. Ollie, my son, you don't know how very damn lucky you are!"
"I think I do, rather," says Oliver, a little stiffly.
"You don't. Because I'd give everything I have for what you've got and all you can do is worry about whether you'll get married in six months or eight."
"I'm worrying about whether I'll ever get married at all," from Oliver, rebelliously.
"True enough, which is where I'm glowingly sympathetic for you, though you may not notice it. But you're one of the few people I know--officers at least--who came out of the war without stepping all through their American home ideas of morality like a clown through a fake glass window. And I'm--Freuded--if I see how or why you did."
"Don't myself--unless you call it pure accident" says Oliver, frankly. "Well, that's it--women. Don't think I'm in love but the other thing pulls pretty strong. And I want to get married all right, but what girls I know and like best are in Peter's crowd and most of them own their own Rolls Royces--and I won't be earning even a starvation wage for two, inside of three or four years, I suppose. And as you can't get away from seeing and talking to women unless you go and live in a cave--well, about once every two weeks or oftener I'd like to chuck every lawbook I have out of the window on the head of the nearest cop--go across again and get some sort of a worthless job--I speak good enough French to do it if I wanted--and go to hell like a gentleman without having to worry about it any longer. And I won't do that because I'm through with it and the other thing is worth while. So there you are."
"So you don't think you're in love--eh Monsieur Billett?" Oliver puts irritatingly careful quotation marks around the verb. Ted twists a little.
"It all seems so blamed impossible," he says cryptically.
"Oh, I wouldn't call Elinor Piper that exactly." Oliver grins. "Even if she is Peter's sister. Old Peter. She's a nice girl."
"_A nice girl?_" Ted begins rather violently. "She's--why she's--" then pauses, seeing the trap.
"Oh very well--that's all I wanted to know."
"Oh don't look so much like a little tin Talleyrand, Ollie! I'm not sure--and that's rather more than I'd even hint to anybody else."
"Thanks, little darling." But Ted has been stung too suddenly, even by Oliver's light touch on something which he thought was a complete and mortuary secret, to be in a mood for sarcasm.
"Oh, well, you might as well know. I suppose you do."
"All I know is that you seem to have been visiting--Peter--a good deal this summer."
"Well, it started with Peter."
"It does so often."
"Oh Lord, now I've got to tell you. Not that there's anything--definite--to tell." He pauses, looking at his hands.
"Well, I've just been telling you how I feel--sometimes. And other times--being with Elinor--she's been so--kind.