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PARTISAN REVIEW
scheme, for his susceptibility, for his presumption, she neverthe–
less allowed her voice to rise a little in response to him. The man
countered by turning to his neighbor and saying something exces–
sively audible about Negley Farson. The four voices, answering
each other, began to give an antiphonal effect. Negley Farson was
a fine fellow, she heard him pronounce; he could vouch for it, he
knew him
personally.
The bait was crude, she reflected. She
would have preferred the artificial fly to the angleworm, but
still.... After all, he might have done worse; judged by eternal
standards, Farson might not be much, but in the cultural atmos–
phere of the Pullman car, Farson was a titan. Moreover, if one
judged the man by his intention, one could not fail to be touched.
He was doing his best to
please
her. He had guessed from her
conversation that she was an intellectual, and was placing the
name of Farson as a humble offering at her feet. And the simple
vulgarity of the offering somehow enhanced its value; it was like
one of those home-made cakes with Paris-green icing that she used
to receive on her birthday from her colored maid.
Her own neighbor must finally have noticed a certain dis–
placement of attention, for she got up announcing that she was
going in to lunch, and her tone was stiff
~ith
reproof and dis–
appointment so that she seemed, for a moment, this rococco suf–
fragette, like a nun who discovers that her favorite novice lacks
the vocation. As she tugged open the door to go out, a blast of hot
Nebraska air rushed into the club car, where the air-cooling system
had already broken down.
The girl in the seat had an impulse to follow her. It would
surely be cooler in the diner, where there was not so much glass.
If
she stayed and let the man pick her up, it would be a question
of eating lunch together, and there would be a little quarrel about
the check, and if she let him win she would have him on her hands
all the way to Sacramento. And he was certain to be tiresome.
That monogram in Gothic script spelled out the self-made man. .She
could foresee the political pronouncements, the pictures of the wife
and children, the hand squeezed under the table. Nothing worse
than that, fortunately, for the conductors on these trains were
always very strict. Still, the whole thing would be so vulgar; one
would expose oneself so to the derision of the other passengers. It
was true, she was always wanting something exciting and romantic
.
