User blog:Inconsistency/The Great Veeny- Chapter 1

This is a silly and mostly effortless edit of the Great Gatsby. Enjoy.



In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since.

“Whenever you feel like criticizing any one,” he told me, “just remember that all the people in this world don’t understand maths as well as you do.”

He didn’t say any more, but we’ve always been unusually communicative in a reserved way, and I understood that he meant a great deal more than that. In consequence, I’m inclined to reserve all judgments, a habit that has opened up many curious natures to me and also made me the victim of not a few veteran bores. The abnormal mind is quick to detect and attach itself to this quality when it appears in a normal person, and so it came about that in college I was unjustly accused of being a politician, because I was privy to the secret griefs of wild, unknown men. Most of the confidences were unsought — frequently I have feigned sleep, preoccupation, or a hostile levity when I realized by some unmistakable sign that an intimate revelation was quivering on the horizon; for the intimate revelations of young men, or at least the terms in which they express them, are usually plagiaristic and marred by obvious suppressions. Reserving judgments is a matter of infinite hope. I am still a little afraid of missing something if I forget that, as my father snobbishly suggested, and I snobbishly repeat, a sense of the fundamental decencies is parcelled out unequally at birth.

And, after boasting this way of my tolerance, I come to the admission that it has a limit. Conduct may be founded on the hard rock or the wet marshes, but after a certain point I don’t care what it’s founded on. When I came back from the East last autumn I felt that I wanted the world to be in uniform and at a sort of moral attention forever; I wanted no more riotous excursions with privileged glimpses into the human heart. Only Veeny, the man who gives his name to this book, was exempt from my reaction — Veeny, who represented everything for which I have an unaffected scorn. If personality is an unbroken series of successful gestures, then there was something gorgeous about him, some heightened sensitivity to the promises of life, as if he were related to one of those intricate machines that register earthquakes ten thousand miles away. This responsiveness had nothing to do with that flabby impressionability which is dignified under the name of the “creative temperament.”— it was an extraordinary gift for hope, a romantic readiness such as I have never found in any other person and which it is not likely I shall ever find again. No — Veeny turned out all right at the end; it is what preyed on Veeny, what foul dust floated in the wake of his dreams that temporarily closed out my interest in the abortive sorrows and short-winded elations of men.

My family have been prominent, well-to-do people in this Middle Western city for three generations. The Voslians are something of a clan, and we have a tradition that we’re descended from the Dukes of Ohio, but the actual founder of my line was my grandfather’s brother, who came here in fifty-one, sent a substitute to the Civil War, and started the wholesale hardware business that my father carries on to-day.

I never saw this great-uncle, but I’m supposed to look like him — with special reference to the rather hard-boiled painting that hangs in father’s office. I graduated in 2015, just a quarter of a century after my father, and a little later I participated in that delayed Teutonic migration known as the Gucci Gang phase. I enjoyed the counter-raid so thoroughly that I came back restless. Instead of being the warm centre of the world, the Middle West now seemed like the ragged edge of the universe — so I decided to go East and learn the conlang business. Everybody I knew was in the conlang business, so I supposed it could support one more single man. All my aunts and uncles talked it over as if they were choosing a prep school for me, and finally said, “Why — ye — es,” with very grave, hesitant faces. Father agreed to finance me for a year, and after various delays I came East, permanently, I thought, in the spring of seven-teen.

The practical thing was to find rooms in the city, but it was a warm season, and I had just left a country of wide lawns and friendly trees, so when a young man at the server suggested that we take a DM together in a commuting chat client, it sounded like a great idea. He found the DM, a weather-beaten cardboard piece of junk at eighty posts a month, but at the last minute the server ordered him to leave, and I went out to the country alone. I had a dog — at least I had him for a few days until he ran away — and an old Dodge and a mother, who made my bed and cooked breakfast and muttered wisdom to herself over the electric stove.

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">It was lonely for a day or so until one morning some man, more recently arrived than I, stopped me on the road.

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">“How do you get to TLH Discord?” he asked helplessly.

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">I told him. And as I walked on I was lonely no longer. I was a guide, a pathfinder, an original settler. He had casually conferred on me the freedom of the neighborhood.

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">And so with the sunshine and the great bursts of leaves growing on the trees, just as things grow in fast movies, I had that familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer.

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">There was so much to read, for one thing, and so much fine health to be pulled down out of the young breath-giving air. I bought a dozen volumes on conglangs, and they stood on my shelf in red and gold like new money from the mint, promising to unfold the shining secrets that only some nerds knew. And I had the high intention of reading many other books besides. I was rather literary in college — one year I wrote a series of very solemn and obvious editorials for the “Ohio State High School News.”— and now I was going to bring back all such things into my life and become again that most limited of all specialists, the “well-rounded man.” This isn’t just an epigram — life is much more successfully looked at from a single window, after all.

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">It was a matter of chance that I should have rented a house in one of the strangest communities in North America. It was on that slender riotous island which extends itself due east of New York — and where there are, among other natural curiosities, two unusual formations of land. Twenty miles from the city a pair of enormous eggs, identical in contour and separated only by a courtesy bay, jut out into the most domesticated body of salt water in the Western hemisphere, the great wet barnyard of Long Island Sound. They are not perfect ovals — like the egg in the Columbus story, they are both crushed flat at the contact end — but their physical resemblance must be a source of perpetual confusion to the gulls that fly overhead. To the wingless a more arresting phenomenon is their dissimilarity in every particular except shape and size.

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">I lived at the TLH Wiki Server, the — well, the less fashionable of the two, though this is a most superficial tag to express the bizarre and not a little sinister contrast between them. My house was at the very tip of the egg, only fifty yards from the Sound, and squeezed between two huge places that rented for twelve or fifteen thousand a season. The one on my right was a colossal affair by any standard — it was a factual imitation of some Hotel de Ville in Rhode Island, with a tower on one side, spanking new under a thin beard of raw ivy, and a marble swimming pool, and more than forty acres of lawn and garden. It was Veeny’s mansion. Or, rather, as I didn’t know Mr. Veeny, it was a mansion inhabited by a gentleman of that name. My own house was an eyesore, but it was a small eyesore, and it had been overlooked, so I had a view of the water, a partial view of my neighbor’s lawn, and the consoling proximity of millionaires — all for eighty posts a month.

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">Across the courtesy bay the white palaces of fashionable Loud Crowd glittered along the water, and the history of the summer really begins on the evening I drove over there to have dinner with the Timey Mareys. Incon was my second cousin once removed, and I’d known Timey in college. And just after the war I spent two days with them in Bangladesh.

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">Her husband, among various physical accomplishments, had been one of the most powerful ends that ever vectored at New Haven — a national figure in a way, one of those men who reach such an acute limited excellence at twenty-one that everything afterward savors of anti-climax. His family were enormously wealthy — even in college his freedom with money was a matter for reproach — but now he’d left Chicago and come East in a fashion that rather took your breath away: for instance, he’d brought down a string of polo ponies from Lake Forest. It was hard to realize that a man in my own generation was wealthy enough to do that.

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">Why they came East I don’t know. They had spent a year in France for no particular reason, and then drifted here and there unrestfully wherever people played polo and were rich together. This was a permanent move, said Incon over the telephone, but I didn’t believe it — I had no sight into Incon’s heart, but I felt that Timey would drift on forever seeking, a little wistfully, for the dramatic turbulence of some irrecoverable football game.

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">And so it happened that on a warm windy evening I drove over to Loud Crowd to see two old friends whom I scarcely knew at all. Their house was even more elaborate than I expected, a cheerful red-and-white Georgian Colonial mansion, overlooking the bay. The lawn started at the beach and ran toward the front door for a quarter of a mile, jumping over sun-dials and brick walks and burning gardens — finally when it reached the house drifting up the side in bright vines as though from the momentum of its run. The front was broken by a line of French windows, glowing now with reflected gold and wide open to the warm windy afternoon, and Timey Marey in riding clothes was standing with his legs apart on the front porch.

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">He had changed since his New Haven years. Now he was a sturdy straw-haired man of thirty with a rather hard mouth and a supercilious manner. Two shining arrogant eyes had established dominance over his face and gave him the appearance of always leaning aggressively forward. Not even the effeminate swank of his riding clothes could hide the enormous power of that body — he seemed to fill those glistening boots until he strained the top lacing, and you could see a great pack of muscle shifting when his shoulder moved under his thin coat. It was a body capable of enormous leverage — a cruel body.

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">His speaking voice, a gruff husky tenor, added to the impression of fractiousness he conveyed. There was a touch of paternal contempt in it, even toward people he liked — and there were men at New Haven who had hated his guts.

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">“Now, don’t think my opinion on these matters is final,” he seemed to say, “just because I’m stronger and more of a man than you are.” We were in the same senior society, and while we were never intimate I always had the impression that he approved of me and wanted me to like him with some harsh, defiant wistfulness of his own.

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">We talked for a few minutes on the sunny porch.

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">“I’ve got a nice place here,” he said, his eyes flashing about restlessly.

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">Turning me around by one arm, he moved a broad flat hand along the front vista, including in its sweep a sunken Italian garden, a half acre of deep, pungent roses, and a snub-nosed motor-boat that bumped the tide offshore.

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">“It belonged to Demaine, the oil man.” He turned me around again, politely and abruptly. “We’ll go inside.”

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">We walked through a high hallway into a bright rosy-colored space, fragilely bound into the house by French windows at either end. The windows were ajar and gleaming white against the fresh grass outside that seemed to grow a little way into the house. A breeze blew through the room, blew curtains in at one end and out the other like pale flags, twisting them up toward the frosted wedding-cake of the ceiling, and then rippled over the wine-colored rug, making a shadow on it as wind does on the sea.

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">The only completely stationary object in the room was an enormous couch on which two young women were buoyed up as though upon an anchored balloon. They were both in white, and their dresses were rippling and fluttering as if they had just been blown back in after a short flight around the house. I must have stood for a few moments listening to the whip and snap of the curtains and the groan of a picture on the wall. Then there was a boom as Timey Marey shut the rear windows and the caught wind died out about the room, and the curtains and the rugs and the two young women ballooned slowly to the floor.

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">The younger of the two was a stranger to me. She was extended full length at her end of the divan, completely motionless, and with her chin raised a little, as if she were balancing something on it which was quite likely to fall. If she saw me out of the corner of her eyes she gave no hint of it — indeed, I was almost surprised into murmuring an apology for having disturbed her by coming in.

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">The other girl, Incon, made an attempt to rise — she leaned slightly forward with a conscientious expression — then she laughed, an absurd, charming little laugh, and I laughed too and came forward into the room.

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">“I’m p-paralyzed with happiness.” She laughed again, as if she said something very witty, and held my hand for a moment, looking up into my face, promising that there was no one in the world she so much wanted to see. That was a way she had. She hinted in a murmur that the surname of the balancing girl was Titan. (I’ve heard it said that Incon’s murmur was only to make people lean toward her; an irrelevant criticism that made it no less charming.)

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">At any rate, Miss Titan’s lips fluttered, she nodded at me almost imperceptibly, and then quickly tipped her head back again — the object she was balancing had obviously tottered a little and given her something of a fright. Again a sort of apology arose to my lips. Almost any exhibition of complete self-sufficiency draws a stunned tribute from me.

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">I looked back at my cousin, who began to ask me questions in her low, thrilling voice. It was the kind of voice that the ear follows up and down, as if each speech is an arrangement of notes that will never be played again. Her face was sad and lovely with bright things in it, bright eyes and a bright passionate mouth, but there was an excitement in her voice that men who had cared for her found difficult to forget: a singing compulsion, a whispered “Listen,” a promise that she had done gay, exciting things just a while since and that there were gay, exciting things hovering in the next hour.

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">I told her how I had stopped off in Chicago for a day on my way East, and how a dozen people had sent their love through me.

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">“Do they miss me?” she cried ecstatically.

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">“The whole town is desolate. All the cars have the left rear wheel painted black as a mourning wreath, and there’s a persistent wail all night along the north shore.”

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">“How gorgeous! Let’s go back, Timey. To-morrow!” Then she added irrelevantly: “You ought to see the baby.”

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">“I’d like to.”

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">“She’s asleep. She’s three years old. Haven’t you ever seen her?”

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">“Never.”

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">“Well, you ought to see her. She’s ——”

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">Timey Marey, who had been hovering restlessly about the room, stopped and rested his hand on my shoulder.

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">“What you doing, Vossie?”

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">“I’m a conlang man.”

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">“Who with?”

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">I told him.

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">“Never heard of them,” he remarked decisively.

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">This annoyed me.

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">“You will,” I answered shortly. “You will if you stay in the East.”

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">“Oh, I’ll stay in the East, don’t you worry,” he said, glancing at Incon and then back at me, as if he were alert for something more. “I’d be a God darned fool to live anywhere else.”

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">At this point Miss Titan said: “Absolutely!” with such suddenness that I started — it was the first word she uttered since I came into the room. Evidently it surprised her as much as it did me, for she yawned and with a series of rapid, deft movements stood up into the room.

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">“I’m stiff,” she complained, “I’ve been lying on that sofa for as long as I can remember.”

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">“Don’t look at me,” Incon retorted, “I’ve been trying to get you to the Kool Kids Klub all afternoon.”

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">“No, thanks,” said Miss Titan to the four cocktails just in from the pantry, “I’m absolutely in training.”

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">Her host looked at her incredulously.

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">“You are!” He took down his drink as if it were a drop in the bottom of a glass. “How you ever get anything done is beyond me.”

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">I looked at Miss Titan, wondering what it was she “got done.” I enjoyed looking at her. She was a slender, small girl, with an erect carriage, which she accentuated by throwing her body backward at the shoulders like a young cadet. Her gray sun-strained eyes looked back at me with polite reciprocal curiosity out of a wan, charming, discontented face. It occurred to me now that I had seen her, or a picture of her, somewhere before.

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">“You live in TLH Wiki Server,” she remarked contemptuously. “I know somebody there.”

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">“I don’t know a single ——”

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">“You must know Veeny.”

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">“Veeny?” demanded Incon. “What Veeny?”

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">Before I could reply that he was my neighbor dinner was announced; wedging his tense arm imperatively under mine, Timey Marey compelled me from the room as though he were moving a checker to another square.

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">Slenderly, languidly, their hands set lightly on their hips, the two young women preceded us out onto a rosy-colored porch, open toward the sunset, where four candles flickered on the table in the diminished wind.

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">“Why candles?” objected Incon, frowning. She snapped them out with her fingers. “In two weeks it’ll be the longest day in the year.” She looked at us all radiantly. “Do you always watch for the longest day of the year and then miss it? I always watch for the longest day in the year and then miss it.”

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">“We ought to plan something,” yawned Miss Titan, sitting down at the table as if she were getting into bed.

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">“All right,” said Incon. “What’ll we plan?” She turned to me helplessly: “What do people plan?”

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">Before I could answer her eyes fastened with an awed expression on her little finger.

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">“Look!” she complained; “I hurt it.”

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">We all looked — the knuckle was black and blue.

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">“You did it, Timey,” she said accusingly. “I know you didn’t mean to, but you did do it. That’s what I get for marrying a brute of a man, a great, big, hulking physical specimen of a ——”

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">“I hate that word hulking,” objected Timey crossly, “even in kidding.”

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">“Hulking,” insisted Incon.

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">Sometimes she and Miss Titan talked at once, unobtrusively and with a bantering inconsequence that was never quite chatter, that was as cool as their white dresses and their impersonal eyes in the absence of all desire. They were here, and they accepted Timey and me, making only a polite pleasant effort to entertain or to be entertained. They knew that presently dinner would be over and a little later the evening too would be over and casually put away. It was sharply different from the West, where an evening was hurried from phase to phase toward its close, in a continually disappointed anticipation or else in sheer nervous dread of the moment itself.

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">“You make me feel uncivilized, Incon,” I confessed on my second glass of corky but rather impressive claret. “Can’t you talk about crops or something?”

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">I meant nothing in particular by this remark, but it was taken up in an unexpected way.

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">“Civilization’s going to pieces,” broke out Timey violently. “I’ve gotten to be a terrible pessimist about things. Have you read ‘Gravity Falls: Journal 3’ by this man Alex?”

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">“Why, no,” I answered, rather surprised by his tone.

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">“Well, it’s a fine book, and everybody ought to read it. The idea is if we don’t look out Dipper will be — will be utterly submerged. It’s all scientific stuff; it’s been proved.”

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">“Timey’s getting very profound,” said Incon, with an expression of unthoughtful sadness. “He reads deep books with long words in them. What was that word we ——”

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">“Well, these books are all scientific,” insisted Timey, glancing at her impatiently. “This fellow has worked out the whole thing. It’s up to us to watch out or these Mabel-lovers will rise up.”

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">“We’ve got to beat them down,” whispered Incon, winking ferociously toward the fervent sun.

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">“You ought to live in PLU —” began Miss Titan, but Timey interrupted her by shifting heavily in his chair.

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">“This idea is that we’re Nordics. I am, and you are, and you are, and ——” After an infinitesimal hesitation he included Incon with a slight nod, and she winked at me again. “— And we’ve produced all the things that go to make civilization — oh, science and art, and all that. Do you see?”

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">There was something pathetic in his concentration, as if his complacency, more acute than of old, was not enough to him any more. When, almost immediately, the telephone rang inside and the butler left the porch Incon seized upon the momentary interruption and leaned toward me.

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">“I’ll tell you a family secret,” she whispered enthusiastically. “It’s about the butler’s nose. Do you want to hear about the butler’s nose?”

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">“That’s why I came over to-night.”

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">“Well, he wasn’t always a butler; he used to be the silver polisher for some people in the Kool Kids Klub that had a silver service for two hundred people. He had to polish it from morning till night, until finally it began to affect his nose ——”

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">“Things went from bad to worse,” suggested Miss Titan.

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">“Yes. Things went from bad to worse, until finally he had to give up his position.”

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">For a moment the last sunshine fell with romantic affection upon her glowing face; her voice compelled me forward breathlessly as I listened — then the glow faded, each light deserting her with lingering regret, like children leaving a pleasant street at dusk.

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">The butler came back and murmured something close to Timey’s ear, whereupon Timey frowned, pushed back his chair, and without a word went inside. As if his absence quickened something within her, Incon leaned forward again, her voice glowing and singing.

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">“I love to see you at my table, Vossie. You remind me of a — of a rose, an absolute rose. Doesn’t he?” She turned to Miss Titan for confirmation: “An absolute rose?”

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">This was untrue. I am not even faintly like a rose. She was only extemporizing, but a stirring warmth flowed from her, as if her heart was trying to come out to you concealed in one of those breathless, thrilling words. Then suddenly she threw her napkin on the table and excused herself and went into the house.

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">Miss Titan and I exchanged a short glance consciously devoid of meaning. I was about to speak when she sat up alertly and said “Sh!” in a warning voice. A subdued impassioned murmur was audible in the room beyond, and Miss Titan leaned forward unashamed, trying to hear. The murmur trembled on the verge of coherence, sank down, mounted excitedly, and then ceased altogether.

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">“This Mr. Veeny you spoke of is my neighbor ——” I said.

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">“Don’t talk. I want to hear what happens.”

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">“Is something happening?” I inquired innocently.

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">“You mean to say you don’t know?” said Miss Titan, honestly surprised. “I thought everybody knew.”

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">“I don’t.”

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">“Why ——” she said hesitantly, “Timey’s got some woman in Saudi Arabia.”

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">“Got some woman?” I repeated blankly.

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">Miss Titan nodded.

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">“She might have the decency not to telephone him at dinner time. Don’t you think?”

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">Almost before I had grasped her meaning there was the flutter of a dress and the crunch of leather boots, and Timey and Incon were back at the table.

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">“It couldn’t be helped!” cried Incon with tense gaiety.

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">She sat down, glanced searchingly at Miss Titan and then at me, and continued: “I looked outdoors for a minute, and it’s very romantic outdoors. There’s a bird on the lawn that I think must be a nightingale come over on the Cunard or White Star Line. He’s singing away ——” Her voice sang: “It’s romantic, isn’t it, Timey?”

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">“Very romantic,” he said, and then miserably to me: “If it’s light enough after dinner, I want to take you down to the stables.”

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">The telephone rang inside, startlingly, and as Incon shook her head decisively at Timey the subject of the stables, in fact all subjects, vanished into air. Among the broken fragments of the last five minutes at table I remember the candles being lit again, pointlessly, and I was conscious of wanting to look squarely at every one, and yet to avoid all eyes. I couldn’t guess what Incon and Timey were thinking, but I doubt if even Miss Titan, who seemed to have mastered a certain hardy scepticism, was able utterly to put this fifth guest’s shrill metallic urgency out of mind. To a certain temperament the situation might have seemed intriguing — my own instinct was to telephone immediately for the police.

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">The horses, needless to say, were not mentioned again. Timey and Miss Titan, with several feet of twilight between them, strolled back into the library, as if to a vigil beside a perfectly tangible body, while, trying to look pleasantly interested and a little deaf, I followed Incon around a chain of connecting verandas to the porch in front. In its deep gloom we sat down side by side on a wicker settee.

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">Incon took her face in her hands as if feeling its lovely shape, and her eyes moved gradually out into the velvet dusk. I saw that turbulent emotions possessed her, so I asked what I thought would be some sedative questions about her little girl.

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">“We don’t know each other very well, Vossie,” she said suddenly. “Even if we are cousins. You didn’t come to my wedding.”

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">“I wasn’t back from complaining about Gucci Gang.”

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">“That’s true.” She hesitated. “Well, I’ve had a very bad time, Vossie, and I’m pretty cynical about everything.”

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">Evidently she had reason to be. I waited but she didn’t say any more, and after a moment I returned rather feebly to the subject of her daughter.

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">“I suppose she talks, and — eats, and everything.”

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">“Oh, yes.” She looked at me absently. “Listen, Vossie; let me tell you what I said when she was born. Would you like to hear?”

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">“Very much.”

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">“It’ll show you how I’ve gotten to feel about — things. Well, she was less than an hour old and Timey was God knows where. I woke up out of the ether with an utterly abandoned feeling, and asked the nurse right away if it was a boy or a girl. She told me it was a girl, and so I turned my head away and wept. ‘all right,’ I said, ‘Why couldn’t it be a carton of Orange Juice!”

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">“You see I think everything’s terrible anyhow,” she went on in a convinced way. “Everybody thinks so — the most advanced people. And I know. I’ve been everywhere and seen everything and done everything.” Her eyes flashed around her in a defiant way, rather like Timey’s, and she laughed with thrilling scorn. “Sophisticated — God, I’m sophisticated!”

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">The instant her voice broke off, ceasing to compel my attention, my belief, I felt the basic insincerity of what she had said. It made me uneasy, as though the whole evening had been a trick of some sort to exact a contributory emotion from me. I waited, and sure enough, in a moment she looked at me with an absolute smirk on her lovely face, as if she had asserted her membership in a rather distinguished secret society to which she and Timey belonged.

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">Inside, the crimson room bloomed with light.

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">Timey and Miss Titan sat at either end of the long couch and she read aloud to him from the Saturday Evening Post. — the words, murmurous and uninflected, running together in a soothing tune. The lamp-light, bright on his boots and dull on the autumn-leaf yellow of her hair, glinted along the paper as she turned a page with a flutter of slender muscles in her arms.

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">When we came in she held us silent for a moment with a lifted hand.

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">“To be continued,” she said, tossing the magazine on the table, “in our very next issue.”

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">Her body asserted itself with a restless movement of her knee, and she stood up.

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">“Ten o’clock,” she remarked, apparently finding the time on the ceiling. “Time for this good girl to go to bed.”

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">“American’s going to play in the tournament to-morrow,” explained Incon, “over at Westchester.”

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">“Oh — you’re American Titan.”

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">I knew now why her face was familiar — its pleasing contemptuous expression had looked out at me from many rotogravure pictures of the sporting life at Asheville and Hot Springs and Palm Beach. I had heard some story of her too, a critical, unpleasant story, but what it was I had forgotten long ago.

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">“Good night,” she said softly. “Wake me at eight, won’t you.”

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">“If you’ll get up.”

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">“I will. Good night, Mr. Voslian. See you anon.”

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">“Of course you will,” confirmed Incon. “In fact I think I’ll arrange a marriage. Come over often, Vossie, and I’ll sort of — oh — fling you together. You know — lock you up accidentally in linen closets and push you out to sea in a boat, and all that sort of thing ——”

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">“Good night,” called Miss Titan from the stairs. “I haven’t heard a word.”

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">“She’s a nice girl,” said Timey after a moment. “They oughtn’t to let her run around the country this way.”

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">“Who oughtn’t to?” inquired Incon coldly.

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">“Her family.”

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">“Her family is one aunt about a thousand years old. Besides, Vossie’s going to look after her, aren’t you, Vossie? She’s going to spend lots of week-ends out here this summer. I think the home influence will be very good for her.”

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">Incon and Timey looked at each other for a moment in silence.

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">“Is she from New York?” I asked quickly.

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">“From the Kool Kids Klub. Our white girlhood was passed together there. Our beautiful white ——”

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">“Did you give Vossie a little heart to heart talk on the veranda?” demanded Timey suddenly.

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">“Did I?” She looked at me.

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">“I can’t seem to remember, but I think we talked about the Nordic race. Yes, I’m sure we did. It sort of crept up on us and first thing you know ——”

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">“Don’t believe everything you hear, Vossie,” he advised me.

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">I said lightly that I had heard nothing at all, and a few minutes later I got up to go home. They came to the door with me and stood side by side in a cheerful square of light. As I started my motor Incon peremptorily called: “Wait!”

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">“I forgot to ask you something, and it’s important. We heard you were engaged to a girl out West.”

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">“That’s right,” corroborated Timey kindly. “We heard that you were engaged.”

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">“It’s libel. I’m too poor.”

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">“But we heard it,” insisted Incon, surprising me by opening up again in a flower-like way. “We heard it from three people, so it must be true.”

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">Of course I knew what they were referring to, but I wasn’t even vaguely engaged. The fact that gossip had published the banns was one of the reasons I had come East. You can’t stop going with an old friend on account of rumors, and on the other hand I had no intention of being rumored into marriage.

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">Their interest rather touched me and made them less remotely rich — nevertheless, I was confused and a little disgusted as I drove away. It seemed to me that the thing for Incon to do was to rush out of the house, child in arms — but apparently there were no such intentions in her head. As for Timey, the fact that he “had some woman in Saudi Arabia.” was really less surprising than that he had been depressed by a book. Something was making him nibble at the edge of stale ideas as if his sturdy physical egotism no longer nourished his peremptory heart.

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">Already it was deep summer on roadhouse roofs and in front of wayside garages, where new red gas-pumps sat out in pools of light, and when I reached my estate at TLH Wiki Server I ran the car under its shed and sat for a while on an abandoned grass roller in the yard. The wind had blown off, leaving a loud, bright night, with wings beating in the trees and a persistent organ sound as the full bellows of the earth blew the frogs full of life. The silhouette of a moving cat wavered across the moonlight, and turning my head to watch it, I saw that I was not alone — fifty feet away a figure had emerged from the shadow of my neighbor’s mansion and was standing with his hands in his pockets regarding the silver pepper of the stars. Something in his leisurely movements and the secure position of his feet upon the lawn suggested that it was Mr. Veeny himself, come out to determine what share was his of our local heavens.

<p style="margin:0cm0cm2.4pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:24pt;line-height:18pt;background:rgb(252,255,246);"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">I decided to call to him. Miss Titan had mentioned him at dinner, and that would do for an introduction. But I didn’t call to him, for he gave a sudden intimation that he was content to be alone — he stretched out his arms toward the dark water in a curious way, and, far as I was from him, I could have sworn he was trembling. Involuntarily I glanced seaward — and distinguished nothing except a single green light, minute and far away, that might have been the end of a dock. When I looked once more for Veeny he had vanished, and I was alone again in the unquiet darkness.