Page:The Plutocrat (1927).pdf/37

 his play building. "By George!" he said to himself. "I believe I knew what I was about, after all." And with that he began to feel sorry for his friends in wintry New York, unfortunate people bound down to desks or to nightly work in the theatre, going about through snow in jolting, dirty taxicabs and drinking poisons to alleviate the natural oppression of so dull a life.

He lighted a cigarette, found it fragrant, and, observing with pleasure that of four lively girls passing his chair in a group three were comely and all prettily dressed for sea voyaging, he believed his health almost entirely restored. Earlier in the day these damsels would have had no comeliness in his eyes; he would have looked upon them with distaste; but now, all at once, he thought them charming. He tossed off his rug, and after only a moment of uncertainty as he rose, began to pace the deck like an old hand, experienced in many crossings of the sea.

At least that was his air, convincingly worn; for he had a sometimes burdensome self-consciousness and was anxious to avoid the curious ignominy that attaches to new apprenticeship or to the doing of almost anything for the first time. What he thought of as "gaucheries" were abhorrent to him;