The Last Gentleman

irritated with himself for being garrulous.
    â€œI don’t understand why she didn’t speak before,” said Jamie, thrashing his legs.
    â€œI understand it!” cried Kitty. But then she blushed and turned away.
    The others were not as amazed by the engineer’s somewhat disconnected story as one might expect. For, strange to say, it was understood that it was open to him at that moment to spin just such a yarn, half-serious and curious.
    â€œYes, I know why your stay in the hospital was not so bad,” said Jamie. “You weren’t really sick.”
    â€œI’ll trade with you any time,” said the engineer. “Believe me, it is a very uncomfortable experience to have amnesia.”
    At that moment the Handsome Woman whispered something to Kitty and the two of them kissed the patient, said their goodbyes and left. He waited for another brown-eyed look but Kitty had lapsed into vacancy again and did not seem to notice him. The talkative engineer fell silent.
    Presently he roused himself and took his leave. The patient and his mother asked him to come back. He nodded absently. Mr. Vaught followed him into the hall and steered him to the window, where they gazed down on the sooty moraine of Washington Heights.
    â€œYou come on up here and see Jamie again, you heanh me,” he said, drawing him close and exhaling his old-man smell of fresh cotton and sour breath.
    â€œYes sir. Sir?”
    â€œWhat’s that?” said the old man, giving him a hairy convoluted ear.
    â€œThe lady who just left. Now is that Mrs. Rita Sutter or Miss—”
    â€œMrs. Mrs. Rita Vaught. She married my oldest boy, Sutter Vaught. Dr. Vaught. They’re divorced. But I’m going to tell you, we’re closer to her than to Sutter, my own flesh and blood. Oh, she’s a fine woman. Do you know what that woman did?”
    â€œNo sir,” said the engineer, cupping a hand to his good ear and straining every nerve to get the straight of it.
    â€œWhy, she’s the one who went up to his school when he got sick this time and got him into the hospital. When there was no room. That’s not even a regular hospital room!”
    â€œAnd, ah, Kitty?”
    â€œKitty is Jamie’s sister. You want to know what she’s done for Kitty?”
    â€œYes sir.”
    â€œShe invites Kitty to come up here to New York not for a week but a year, to take ballet. She’s taking her to Europe next month! And she’s not even kin! What are you going to do with a woman like that,” cried the old man, taking the engineer by the blade of muscle at his shoulder and squeezing it hard.
    â€œAll right,” said the engineer, nodding and wincing.
    â€œAnd she’s second in command to the third largest foundation in the world!”
    â€œFoundation,” said the engineer vaguely.
    â€œShe’s executive secretary. She can pick up the telephone andspend five million dollars this afternoon.”
    â€œIs that right?”
    â€œYou come on up here in the morning and see Jamie.”
    â€œYes sir.”
    3 .
    He did go see Jamie but Kitty was not there.
    â€œWhat about Kitty?” he asked Mr. Vaught in the hall. It was not really a bold question since Mr. Vaught had once again set a tone of antic confidence, as much as to say: here we are two thousand miles from home, so it’s all right for me to tell you about my family.
    â€œDo you know what they’ve had that girl doing eight hours a day as long as I can remember?”
    â€œNo sir.” The other, he noticed, pronounced “girl” as “gull,” a peculiarity he last remembered hearing in Jackson, Mississippi.
    â€œBallet dancing. She’s been taking ballet since she was eight years old. She hopes to try out for the New York City Center Ballet Company.”
    â€œVery good.”
    â€œLord, they’ve had her studying up here, in Chicago, Cleveland, everywhere.”
    The engineer wondered who “they” were. Mrs. Vaught? “She must be very good.”
    â€œGood? You should see her prizes. She won first prize two years in a row at the Jay Cee Festival. Last year her mama took her up to Cleveland to study with the world’s most famous ballet teacher. They lived in a hotel for nine weeks.”
    â€œIt must require a great deal of self-sacrifice.”
    â€œSacrifice? That’s all she does.” The other’s eye glittered through the billowing