Page:Spider Boy (1928).pdf/290

 He had, he reflected sadly, actually learned to smoke cigars.

When he left New York, it had been with the feeling that perhaps his writing days were over and he had discovered that seemingly, so far as profit was concerned, they had only just begun. The subject of matrimony had never before sufficiently interested him for him to give it a serious thought and yet he now found himself engaged to be married imminently and actually not dreading it, for Wilhelmina-Georgiana had somehow not only persuaded him of her glamour, she had also made him dependent upon her to an extraordinary degree, dependent upon her decisions, upon her tastes, and more than anything else on her protection. Pleasant as it would be to bask in the charming society of the beautiful Kansas City girl, Ambrose realized that he was inclined to rely on her as a shield, and to think of her in terms of that symbol.

She had become for him so protective a figure, indeed, that social contacts no longer alarmed him. To be exact, they were no longer actually contacts. He scarcely permitted these creatures to touch him. He walked among them, smiling, indeed, as if he were in a dream, conversing, laughing, making all the gestures they demanded without essential com-