“That fool Wardman! It isn’t just the trouble of getting another roommate though it won’t be quite the same—but he’s such a fool.”
“What’s he done?”
“Quit college,” said George aghast. “Of all the insane things.”
Lawson was silent, his nerves tingling.
“Why did he quit? Or is it a secret.”
“Oh, you can’t keep that a secret!”
“Well then—can I know—what has he done?”
“He seems to have married a little trollop named Lucy Bickmaster.”
Lawson called a passing waiter and ordered a double whiskey. George took a beer. There was silence as George took out the letter and studied it.
“Why did he marry her?” Lawson asked.
“That’s the mystery.”
“Maybe he—had to.”
“Don’t make me laugh. I’ve known Lucy three years.” Then he added quickly, “but don’t get any ideas in your head, father—I never had designs on her. I simply know her character and my guess is he must have been tight.”
“Aren’t you jumping at conclusions about the girl,” said Lawson coldly, “lacking evidence to the contrary can’t you presume that a girl of seventeen—”
He stopped himself at George’s puzzled look.
“How do you know she’s a girl of seventeen?”
“I think you told me.”
“I don’t remember mentioning her.”
Taking down his drink Lawson ordered another.
“He mentions you in the letter,” George said.
Lawson’s heart jumped.
“He sends his regards and he hopes you’ll be a good influence on me.”
“Let’s forget it all,” said Lawson. “I’m sorry because you’re sorry, but he was a fool, as you say—giving up his education for a girl.”
“He was trapped.”
“Maybe.”
They stood up.
“I don’t know the girl,” said Lawson, “speaking impersonally I only hoped she isn’t trapped too.”
He was tempted to snatch one more drink on the way out but that would have violated his rules. Then due to the slight frustration involved he made another slip.
“Maybe Wardman isn’t such a prize physical package himself.”
Stepping out of the club into the blinding sunlight Lawson felt triumphant and talkative; he was glad for the sake of discretion that George and he weren’t spending the evening together.
…Later he stopped for a nightcap at a bar where young girls waited on the customers. On departing he tipped his hat in the Latin manner.
“Multa gratia, Lucia,” he said jovially—and then to the other barmaid, “Adios Elsie.”
He tipped his hat again and bowed and as he walked out left the two girls staring, unaware that he had bowed across two generations into an American past.
The feeling of triumph persisted into the next morning when he entered his office late and full of new hopes for his son and himself. George was not yet in but on the desk was an envelope in his handwriting marked “Personal.” Lawson opened and read it. Then, as upon another occasion, he rang for his secretary and said “Please—no phones.” Then he read it a second time:
—I guessed from your last remark that there was something phoney going on. I worried about it all night and this morning when I came in early your secretary handed me a letter which she said must have got into your files by mistake. Attached to it was your answer and I’m not even pretending that it was an “accident” that I read that too.
By the time you get this I will be on the clipper. The cashier advanced the wages due me. In saying goodbye I want to state I have tried to be a good son and act like a gentleman as far as I understand what the word means.
Not till weeks later, when he saw a newspaper item about George’s marriage (“the ceremony was performed in Elkton, Maryland—Miss Elsie Johnson, the bride, is sixteen years old”) did Lawson realize that, in the welter of good intentions, that doubtful quantity, Elsie, had been saved—but the sacrifice was his son’s.
He was never quite able to realize how he could have acted otherwise, but at certain times thereafter he would remark upon modern young women and their ways. His kindest comment was that they were the only hunters desperate enough to bait a trap with crushed and broken portions of themselves. And he would qualify even this with: “—it’s not their own courage—it’s the courage of nature.”
There were other things that he caught himself saying which cannot be set down. Wardman Evans, among others, might have been honesty shocked to hear them.
