Martin Eden

It would never do for Her to come out and see him talking there with them. Quite naturally, as a matter of course, he swung in alongside the dark-eyed one and walked with her. There was no awkwardness on his part, no numb tongue. He was at home here, and he held his own royally in the badinage, bristling with slang and sharpness, that was always the preliminary to getting acquainted in these swift-moving affairs. At the corner where the main stream of people flowed onward, he started to edge out into the cross street. But the girl with the black eyes caught his arm, following him and dragging her companion after her, as she cried:
    “Hold on, Bill! What’s yer rush? You’re not goin’ to shake us so sudden as all that?”
    He halted with a laugh, and turned, facing them. Across their shoulders he could see the moving throng passing under the street lamps. Where he stood it was not so light, and, unseen, he would be able to see Her as she passed by. She would certainly pass by, for that way led home.
    “What’s her name?” he asked of the giggling girl, nodding at the dark-eyed one.
    “You ask her,” was the convulsed response.
    “Well, what is it?” he demanded, turning squarely on the girl in question.
    “You ain’t told me yours, yet,” she retorted.
    “You never asked it,” he smiled. “Besides, you guessed the first rattle. It’s Bill, all right, all right.”
    “Aw, go ’long with you.” She looked him in the eyes, her own sharply passionate and inviting. “What is it, honest?”
    Again she looked. All the centuries of woman since sex began were eloquent in her eyes. And he measured her in a careless way, and knew, bold now, that she would begin to retreat, coyly and delicately, as he pursued, ever ready to reverse the game should he turn fainthearted. And, too, he was human, and could feel the draw of her, while his ego could not but appreciate the flattery of her kindness. Oh, he knew it all, and knew them well, from A to Z. Good, as goodness might be measured in their particular class, hard-working for meagre wages and scorning the sale of self for easier ways, nervously desirous for some small pinch of happiness in the desert of existence, and facing a future that was a gamble between the ugliness of unending toil and the black pit of more terrible wretchedness, the way whereto being briefer though better paid.
    “Bill,” he answered, nodding his head. “Sure, Pete, Bill an’ no other.”
    “No joshin’?” she queried.
    “It ain’t Bill at all,” the other broke in.
    “How do you know?” he demanded. “You never laid eyes on me before.”
    “No need to, to know you’re lyin’,” was the retort.
    “Straight, Bill, what is it?” the first girl asked.
    “Bill’ll do,” he confessed.
    She reached out to his arm and shook him playfully. “I knew you was lyin’, but you look good to me just the same.”
    He captured the hand that invited, and felt on the palm familiar markings and distortions.
    “When’d you chuck the cannery?” he asked.
    “How’d yeh know?” and, “My, ain’t cheh a mind-reader!” the girls chorussed.
    And while he exchanged the stupidities of stupid minds with them, before his inner sight towered the book-shelves of the library, filled with the wisdom of the ages. He smiled bitterly at the incongruity of it, and was assailed by doubts. But between inner vision and outward pleasantry he found time to watch the theatre crowd streaming by. And then he saw Her, under the lights, between her brother and the strange young man with glasses, and his heart seemed to stand still. He had waited long for this moment. He had time to note the light, fluffy something that hid her queenly head, the tasteful lines of her wrapped figure, the gracefulness of her carriage and of the hand that caught up her skirts; and then she was gone and he was left staring at the two girls of the cannery, at their tawdry attempts at prettiness of dress, their tragic efforts to be clean and trim, the cheap cloth, the cheap ribbons, and the cheap rings on the fingers. He felt a tug at his arm, and heard a voice saying:-
    “Wake up, Bill! What’s the matter with you?”
    “What was you sayin’?” he asked.
    “Oh, nothin’,” the dark girl answered, with a toss of her head. “I was only remarkin’—”
    “What?”
    “Well, I was whisperin’ it’d be a good idea if you could dig up a gentleman friend—for her” (indicating her companion), “and then, we could