One depositor seemed unoffended by Neil’s presence, and that was Lucian Firelock, who sent word to him, in his isolated coop, that he would like to take him out to lunch. Neil was pleased. For two weeks now he had been creeping off to lunch alone, at some dog-wagon.

They went to the pretentious Oscar’s Montparnasse, a resort of fashion and of wit which was even more elegant than the Fiesole Room. As they walked in, Neil thought that the patrons were staring at him with contempt or hostility, and he felt more uncomfortable for Lucian than for himself.

They were amiably received, and shown to an excellent table, but he immediately saw Randy Spruce and Boone Havock peep at him and speak to the headwaiter. Was he imagining it, or did their own waiter become impertinent now? He was standing on one foot and sucking his teeth, and he threw at them, “How’s about some veal chops?”

“That would be all right,” said Lucian, while Neil found himself not liking to answer. The waiter demanded of him, “What about you, Brother?”

“All right.”

“You boys ought to like ‘em. Our best customers do!”

Or was the waiter merely friendly and untrained? Lucian looked annoyed, and Neil resolved:

–-I wouldn’t care, if I were alone. But I’ll never go with any of my white friends to a restaurant again and subject them to this embarrassment. And you can’t even explain it to them. They wouldn’t understand. They’d say “Why don’t you complain?”

* * * * *

They did not talk, till the end of lunch, of Negro lore, but of Diantha, consort of the newspaper-owner, Gregory Marl. With singular force and simplicity, Diantha tried to dominate all the polite arts in town, from the little theater to the Foreign Policy Association, and she might have succeeded if she could only have stopped after three cocktails.

(It is a fact that Neil found himself wondering if it was proper for him to discuss a white lady like this.)

Then Lucian blurted, “I know you’ve been avoiding the Federal Club. Why don’t you march right in there?”

“I’m not a member!”

“They couldn’t throw you out.”

“What would it prove?”

“I don’t know,” Lucian admitted. “Maybe it would prove something right against my whole argument for segregation, which is that there is an inherent difference between Nigras and whites. Oh, Neil, my good friend, you have led me into strange heresies, even though I scarcely know you. Maybe it’s just as well I don’t know you better. I might find myself a Rosicrucian or a sun-worshipper!”

Neil returned to the bank stepping high.

In mid-afternoon, Mr. Prutt called him in and said, with no fond fussing this time, “I don’t want you to ever cause talk again by going to lunch publicly with a white man. Will you give me your promise to that effect?”

“What? No! Certainly not!”