This Side of Paradise
you could come.
Yours truly,
R.S.V.P. Myra St. Claire.
He had been two months in Minneapolis, and his chief struggle had
been the concealing from “the other guys at school” how
particularly superior he felt himself to be, yet this conviction
was built upon shifting sands. He had shown off one day in French
class (he was in senior French class) to the utter confusion of
Mr. Reardon, whose accent Amory damned contemptuously, and to the
delight of the class. Mr. Reardon, who had spent several weeks in
Paris ten years before, took his revenge on the verbs, whenever
he had his book open. But another time Amory showed off in
history class, with quite disastrous results, for the boys there
were his own age, and they shrilled innuendoes at each other all
the following week:
“Aw—I b’lieve, doncherknow, the Umuricun revolution was _lawgely_
an affair of the middul _clawses_,” or
“Washington came of very good blood—aw, quite good—I b’lieve.”
Amory ingeniously tried to retrieve himself by blundering on
purpose. Two years before he had commenced a history of the
United States which, though it only got as far as the Colonial
Wars, had been pronounced by his mother completely enchanting.
His chief disadvantage lay in athletics, but as soon as he
discovered that it was the touchstone of power and popularity at
school, he began to make furious, persistent efforts to excel in
the winter sports, and with his ankles aching and bending in
spite of his efforts, he skated valiantly around the Lorelie rink
every afternoon, wondering how soon he would be able to carry a
hockey-stick without getting it inexplicably tangled in his
skates.
The invitation to Miss Myra St. Claire’s bobbing party spent the
morning in his coat pocket, where it had an intense physical
affair with a dusty piece of peanut brittle. During the afternoon
he brought it to light with a sigh, and after some consideration
and a preliminary draft in the back of Collar and Daniel’s
“First-Year Latin,” composed an answer:
My dear Miss St. Claire: Your truly charming envitation for the
evening of next Thursday evening was truly delightful to receive this
morning. I will be charm and inchanted indeed to present my
compliments on next Thursday evening. Faithfully,
Amory Blaine.
On Thursday, therefore, he walked pensively along the slippery,
shovel-scraped sidewalks, and came in sight of Myra’s house, on
the half-hour after five, a lateness which he fancied his mother
would have favored. He waited on the door-step with his eyes
nonchalantly half-closed, and planned his entrance with
precision. He would cross the floor, not too hastily, to Mrs. St.
Claire, and say with exactly the correct modulation:
“My _dear_ Mrs. St. Claire, I’m _frightfully_ sorry to be late,
but my maid”—he paused there and realized he would be
quoting—“but my uncle and I had to see a fella—Yes, I’ve met your
enchanting daughter at dancing-school.”
Then he would shake hands, using that slight, half-foreign bow,
with all the starchy little females, and nod to the fellas who
would be standing ’round, paralyzed into rigid groups for mutual
protection.
A butler (one of the three in Minneapolis) swung open the door.
Amory stepped inside and divested himself of cap and coat. He was
mildly surprised not to hear the shrill squawk of conversation
from the next room, and he decided it must be quite formal. He
approved of that—as he approved of the butler.
“Miss Myra,” he said.
To his surprise the butler grinned horribly.
“Oh, yeah,” he declared, “she’s here.” He was unaware that his
failure to be cockney was ruining his standing. Amory considered
him coldly.
“But,” continued the butler, his voice rising unnecessarily,
“she’s the only one what _is_ here. The party’s gone.”
Amory gasped in sudden horror.
“What?”
“She’s been waitin’ for Amory Blaine. That’s you, ain’t it? Her
mother says that if you showed up by five-thirty you two was to
go after ’em in the Packard.”
Amory’s despair was crystallized by the appearance of Myra
herself, bundled to the ears in a polo coat, her face plainly
sulky, her voice pleasant only with difficulty.
“’Lo, Amory.”
“’Lo, Myra.” He had described the state of his vitality.
“Well—you _got_ here, _any_ways.”
“Well—I’ll tell you. I guess you don’t know about the auto
accident,” he romanced.
Myra’s eyes opened wide.
“Who was it to?”
“Well,” he continued desperately, “uncle ’n aunt ’n I.”
“Was any one _killed?_”
Amory paused and then nodded.
“Your uncle?”—alarm.
“Oh, no just a horse—a sorta gray horse.”
At this point the Erse butler snickered.
“Probably killed the engine,” he suggested. Amory would have put
him on the rack without a scruple.
“We’ll go now,” said Myra coolly. “You see, Amory, the bobs were
ordered for five and everybody was here, so we couldn’t wait—”
“Well, I couldn’t help it, could I?”
“So mama said for me to wait till ha’past five. We’ll catch the
bobs before it gets to the Minnehaha Club, Amory.”
Amory’s shredded poise dropped from him. He pictured the happy
party jingling along snowy streets, the appearance of the
limousine, the horrible public descent of him and Myra before
sixty reproachful eyes, his apology—a real one this time. He
sighed aloud.
“What?” inquired Myra.
“Nothing. I was just yawning. Are we going to _surely_ catch up
with ’em before they get there?” He was encouraging a faint hope
that they might slip into the Minnehaha Club and meet the others
there, be found in blasé seclusion before the fire and quite
regain his lost attitude.
“Oh, sure Mike, we’ll catch ’em all right—let’s hurry.”
He became conscious of his stomach. As they stepped into the
machine he hurriedly slapped the paint of diplomacy over a rather
box-like plan he had conceived. It was based upon some
“trade-lasts” gleaned at dancing-school, to the effect that he
was “awful good-looking and _English_, sort of.”
“Myra,” he said, lowering his voice and choosing his words
carefully, “I beg a thousand pardons. Can you ever forgive me?”
She regarded him gravely, his intent green eyes, his mouth, that
to her thirteen-year-old, arrow-collar taste was the quintessence
of romance. Yes, Myra could forgive him very easily.
“Why—yes—sure.”
He looked at her again, and then dropped his eyes. He had lashes.
“I’m awful,” he said sadly. “I’m diff’runt. I don’t know why I
make faux pas. ’Cause I don’t care, I s’pose.” Then, recklessly:
“I been smoking too much. I’ve got t’bacca heart.”
Myra pictured an all-night tobacco debauch, with Amory pale and
reeling from the effect of nicotined lungs. She gave a little
gasp.
“Oh, _Amory_, don’t smoke. You’ll stunt your _growth!_”
“I don’t care,” he persisted gloomily. “I gotta. I got the habit.
I’ve done a lot of things that if my fambly knew”—he hesitated,
giving her imagination time to picture dark horrors—“I went to
the burlesque show last week.”
Myra was quite overcome. He turned the green eyes on her again.
“You’re the only girl in town I like much,” he exclaimed in a
rush of sentiment. “You’re simpatico.”
Myra was not sure that she was, but it sounded stylish though
vaguely improper.
Thick dusk had descended outside, and as the limousine made a
sudden turn she was jolted against him; their hands touched.
“You shouldn’t smoke, Amory,” she whispered. “Don’t you know
that?”
He shook his head.
“Nobody cares.”
Myra hesitated.
“_I_ care.”
Something stirred within Amory.
“Oh, yes, you do! You got a crush on Froggy Parker. I guess
everybody knows that.”
“No, I haven’t,” very slowly.
A silence, while Amory thrilled. There was something fascinating
about Myra, shut away here cosily from the dim, chill air. Myra,
a little bundle of clothes, with strands of yellow hair curling
out from under her skating cap.
“Because I’ve got a crush, too—” He paused, for he heard in the
distance the sound of young laughter, and, peering through the
frosted glass along the lamp-lit street, he made out the dark
outline of the bobbing party. He must act quickly. He reached
over with a violent, jerky effort, and clutched Myra’s hand—her
thumb, to be exact.
“Tell him to go to the Minnehaha straight,” he whispered. “I
wanta talk to you—I _got_ to talk to you.”
Myra made out the party ahead, had an instant vision of her
mother, and then—alas for convention—glanced into the eyes
beside. “Turn down this side street, Richard, and drive straight
to the Minnehaha Club!” she cried through the speaking tube.
Amory sank back against the cushions with a sigh of relief.
“I can kiss her,” he thought. “I’ll bet I can. I’ll _bet_ I can!”
Overhead the sky was half crystalline, half misty, and the night
around was chill and vibrant with rich tension. From the Country
Club steps the roads stretched away, dark creases on the white
blanket; huge heaps of snow lining the sides like the tracks of
giant moles. They lingered for a moment on the steps, and watched
the white holiday moon.
“Pale moons like that one”—Amory made a vague gesture—“make
people mysterieuse. You look like a young witch with her cap off
and her hair sorta mussed”—her hands clutched at her hair—“Oh,
leave it, it looks _good_.”
They drifted up the stairs and Myra led the way into the little
den of his dreams, where a cosy fire was burning before a big
sink-down couch. A few years later this was to be a great stage
for Amory, a cradle for many an emotional crisis. Now they talked
for a moment about bobbing parties.
“There’s always a bunch of shy fellas,” he commented, “sitting at
the tail of the bob, sorta lurkin’ an’ whisperin’ an’ pushin’
each other off. Then there’s always some crazy cross-eyed
girl”—he gave a terrifying imitation—“she’s always talkin’
_hard_, sorta, to the chaperon.”
“You’re such a funny boy,” puzzled Myra.
“How d’y’ mean?” Amory gave immediate attention, on his own
ground at last.
“Oh—always talking about crazy things. Why don’t you come ski-ing
with Marylyn and I to-morrow?”
“I don’t like girls in the daytime,” he said shortly, and then,
thinking this a bit abrupt, he added: “But I like you.” He
cleared his throat. “I like you first and second and third.”
Myra’s eyes became dreamy. What a story this would make to tell
Marylyn! Here on the couch with this _wonderful_-looking boy—the
little fire—the sense that they were alone in the great building—
Myra capitulated. The atmosphere was too appropriate.
“I like you the first twenty-five,” she confessed, her voice