Page:Levenson - Butterfly Man.djvu/235

Rh. Go back to New York and follow your own Inclinations. Drink when you feel like it, never for hatred of yourself.

"I passed through a phase of my development which corresponded to yours. I was older than you—twenty-eight, I think. And successful. A somebody. The other was twenty-one, sleek, mysterious. I was always as you see me, fattish, old-womanish. Occasionally a shrew. He played golf, I played golf. He rowed, I rowed. He drank gin and bitters and I ruined my stomach drinking gin and bitters.

"We carried on until one day I was invited to the Duchess of Toodledeeoo's for a week-end. The Duchess was sixty and powerful. Had a lover once in a show, and she could be brow-beaten into backing ventures—privately, of course.

"Well—I was invited to bring a guest with me. The Duchess would have preferred a divinely tall, robust young Adonis. Walter was hollow-chested, sallow and gigoloish. The Duchess discovered, however, that he held no respect for age, titles of nobility or sex. I'm sure that he would have been made a baronet on the next honor's list, except that the Duchess said to me: 'Beckett,' she said in a deep voice, 'your friend is myopic. I'm sure he mistook me for a scullery maid. And I am short-winded.' Then she winked.

"I cracked young Walter in the face late that night. He admitted he had been bleeding me, that was all. Two weeks later he married the widow of Sir Trevalyan Botts, the tobacco merchant."

Beckett filled his pipe. "Your friend is wealthy, a genius, as you say. You can give him nothing. Already he has taught you despair. Buck up, son. Go your own way. Forget him."