Many a foolish woman, irreproachable and counting
herself unapproachable, would have been strangely and memorably
perturbed by an amorous glance from Jim Dyckman.
But Jim did not want what he could get. He was hungry for
the companionship of Charity Coe.
When he saw her lord and master, Peter Cheever, with Zada, Dyckman
was enraged. Cheever owned Charity Coe; he could flatter her with
a smile, beckon her with a gesture, caress her at will, or leave her
in safe deposit, while he spent his precious hours with a public
servant!
Dyckman could usually afford to do what he wanted to. But now he
wanted to go to that table and knock the heads of Cheever and Zada
together; he wanted to make their skulls whack like castanets. But
he could not afford to do that.
He was so forlorn that he went home. His sumptuous chariot with
ninety race-horses concealed in the engine and velvet in its wheels
slid him as on smoothest ice to his father's home near the cathedral.
The house was like a child of the cathedral, and he went up its
steps as a pauper entering a cathedral. He gave up his hat and stick
and went past the masterpieces on his walls as if he were a visitor
to the Metropolitan Art Gallery on a free day. He stumbled up
the stairway, itself a work of art, like a boy sent to bed without
supper: he stumbled upstairs, wanting to cry and not daring to.
His valet undressed him in a motherly way and put him to bed.
The valet was feeling very sad.
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