She got up and he did too.

‘I got some typing to finish. You going to come back?’

He thrilled at the suggestion of interest in her tone.

‘Oh yes,’ he said quickly,’ you say about an hour?’

She looked at her watch. ‘Yeh, make it an hour. I’ll tell him about you.’

Their eyes met. ‘Thanks a lot,’ he said, drawing in his stomach.

‘Chalk it up.’ She denied the fractional advance listlessly, went over to her typewriter and, ignoring him, began typing rapidly.

He sidled to the door smiling, but she did not look up, so he went out. When he got to the street he was surprised that he had forgotten to ask what salary they would be paying. It hardly mattered, naturally. Nothing – nothing else in the world seemed to matter. As he walked he felt needed, almost necessary again. She had practically implored him to come back, which at the moment was equivalent to Fred and Carlson and Gargan and Mr Lorsch giving a party in his honor; at any rate, the invisible presence of danger was nowhere on the street that day.

Chapter Twelve

HE was not happy. After two weeks he saw that he was a glorified usher to salesmen, none of whom had come to see him. He was not happy but he had never been quite so eager to get to his place of business every morning. She was making him feel so alive that his whole existence before knowing her began to look like a desert and a stupid waste of years.

They were walking along Fifth Avenue one night for the breeze. His feeling for her sometimes rose so high within him that he wanted to hug and kiss her on the street. Especially at times like this when passing men gave her a second glance – he knowing all the time that all he had to do was lean over to her ear and ask her, and she would marry him. It was a rare thing in his life to be able to reach out and get something he wanted.

The clean broad avenue was so nearly deserted that she could talk freely. She had gulped down two glasses of straight Scotch, which unnerved him a little, for he had always had a definite notion about women who enjoyed drinking. Besides, she kept talking very loud.

‘Yeh,’ she was saying, pronouncing it Yaih, ‘I’m not just what you might call a choir girl.’ She glanced at him, ready to burst out laughing. ‘That embarrasses you, don’t it?’

‘Oh, go on,’ he laughed, as though it would take more than that. She made him thirst for her when she spoke this way, and she frightened him.

‘I was going to marry an actor. Never marry an actor.’ She laughed and pulled his arm. He laughed with her, but not so loudly. Every time she had a drink this actor seemed to creep into the conversation. ‘He was younger than me, but he was beautiful. Real cute, you know?’