PARTISAN REVIEW
way he had been taught was right, for he is an honorable, and was
then, though it is difficult now to believe, a passionate man. "You'll
excuse me, Mrs.-"
"Johnson.
Ann
Johnson."
"Mrs. Johnson," I went on. "I know you have other plans-"
She was, and I speak with some authority seeing many women in
the way of business, a person of unusual charm; under what surely
must have been exacerbating provocation, she maintained that crisp
cleanliness, at once cool and exciting, that one does not hope to find
outside the ads in women's magazines, attained only for an instant
and before cameras.
"No!" Noel cried out in
his
immense rusty voice. "Stay! Stay!
I'll buy you a drink!" He moved forward, pushing me closer to his
wife, and roaring as if at the best of jokes. "4F," he explained, "4F.
You'll like him, an intellectual-"
"Just a shoe salesman," I murmured in pointless self-abnegation,
which I resented the next instant.
It
was like facing one's father:
the vague sense of guilt, the inexplicable onslaught of what can only
be
hatred. What had I done, what
was
I that justified
his
rage?
"Intellectual, my intellectual buddy!" Disorganized and fright–
ened, I had talked that day as openly as a child to everyone. "My
4F intellectual buddy. You'll have a lot in common with her-"
He pointed clumsily at his wife. "You two can talk about literature-"
It was perhaps himself he was mocking; he was not drunk, though
it would have been comforting to think so, merely-impossible.
"Timothy!" Mrs. Johnson called out with evident pleasure,
as the day's speaker sauntered toward our intolerable interview. "Mr.
Brandler, this is Timothy Cargill. Wasn't he
exciting!"
As
Timothy thanked her, reddening slightly, Noel drew me
toward him with an imperative hand. "Used to room at our house,"
he explained, with the merest pretense of not wishing to be over–
heard. "Got rid of him. Teaches at the Junior College.
Charming
fellow!" We waved his hand, to make sure I did not take his adjective
literally, in an exaggerated effeminate gesture. "Cargill, here's an–
other intellectual!" He slapped my back again grossly, but somehow
with less conviction; I had the preposterous momentary impression
that he was frightened.
Quite close, Timothy Cargill smelled improbably of lilacs; I
14
