Page:Glimpses of the Moon (Wharton 1922).djvu/287

Rh a day or two—but I'm a philosopher, first and last. Before I went into banking I'd made and lost two fortunes out West. Well, how did I build 'em up again? Not by shooting anybody even myself. By just buckling to, and beginning all over again. That's how and that's what I am doing now. Beginning all over again. " His voice dropped from boastfulness to a note of wistful melancholy, the look of strained jauntiness fell from his face like a mask, and for an instant she saw the real man, old, ruined, lonely. Yes, that was it: he was lonely, desperately lonely, foundering in such deep seas of solitude that any presence out of the past was like a spar to which he clung. Whatever he knew or guessed of the part she had played in his disaster, it was not callousness that had made him greet her with such forgiving warmth, but the same sense of smallness, insignificance and isolation which perpetually hung like a cold fog on her own horizon. Suddenly she too felt old—old and unspeakably tired.

"It's been nice seeing you, Nelson. But now I must be getting home."

He offered no objection, but asked for the bill, resumed his jaunty air while he scattered largesse among the waiters, and sauntered out behind her after calling for a taxi.

They drove off in silence. Susy was thinking: "And Clarissa?" but dared not ask. Vanderlyn lit a cigarette, hummed a dance-tune, and stared