The Restless Sex

"Did you think he wasn't?" she asked. "He is painfully sensitive; pitiably so. I think women divine it, and it attracts them."

"He hasn't the reputation of being very thin-skinned," remarked Cleland drily.

"The average man who is sensitive would die to conceal it. You ought to know that, Jim; it's your business to dissect people, isn't it?"

She thrust a second pin through the crown of her hat and adjusted it deftly.

"Anyway," she said, "you are a nice, polite boy to go to see him, and you have made me very happy. Good-bye! I must run – "

"Have you lunched?"

"No, but I'm going to."

"With whom?" he asked incautiously.

"A man."

"You're usually just going out to lunch or dine with some man," he said sullenly.

"I like men," she said, smiling at him.

"What you probably mean is that you like admiration."

"I do. It's agreeable; it's sanitary; it's soothing. It invigorates one's self-confidence and self-respect. And it doesn't disarrange one's hair and rumple one's gown. Therefore, I prefer the undemonstrative admiration of a man to the indiscreet demonstrations of a boy."

"Do you mean me?" he asked, furious.

But she ignored the question:

"Boys are funny," she said, swinging her velvet reticule in circles. "Any girl can upset their equilibrium. All a girl has to do is to look at a boy sideways – the way Lady Button-eyes looked at you yesterday afternoon – "

"What!"

"At the Rochambeau. And you got up and went over and renewed your friendship with her. Helen and I saw you."

"I was merely civil," he said.

"So was she. She fished out a card and wrote on it. I don't know what she wrote."

"She wrote her telephone call. There isn't the slightest chance of my using it."

Stephanie laughed:

"He certainly is the nicest, politest boy in all Manhattan, and sister is very, very proud of him. Good-bye, James – "

She offered her lips to him audaciously, bending forward on tip-toe, both hands clasped behind her. But her grey eyes were bright with malice.

"Nice, polite boy," she repeated. "Kiss little sister."

"No," he said gloomily, "I'm fed up on sisterly kisses – "

"You insulting wretch! Do you mean you won't? Then you shall– !"

She started toward him, wrath in her eyes, but he caught her wrists and held her.

"You're altogether too well satisfied with yourself," he said. "You've no emotions inside your very lovely person except discreet ones. Otherwise, you've got the devil inside you and it's getting on my nerves."

"Jim! You beast!"

"Yes, I am. What of it? Beasts have emotions. Yours have either been cultivated out of you or you were born without any. I'm glad I am part beast. I'm glad you know it. The rest of me is human; and the combination isn't a very serious menace to civilization. But the sort of expurgated girl you are is!"

"Don't you think I'm capable of any deep emotions?" she asked. The smile had died on her lips.

"Maybe. I don't know."

"Who should, if you don't?"

He shrugged:

"Your husband, perhaps."

"Jim! I told you not to call him that!"

"Well, a spade is a spade – "

"Do you mean to be offensive?"

"How can that offend you?"

She released her wrists and shot a curious, inexplicable look at him.

"I don't understand you," she said. "You can be so generous and high-minded and you can be so unkind and insolent to me."

"Insolent?"

"Yes. You meant it insolently when you spoke of Oswald as my husband. You've done it before, too. Why do you? Do you really want to hurt me? Because you know he isn't my husband except by title. He may never be."

"All right," he said. "I'm sorry I was offensive. I'm just tired of this mystery, I suppose. It's a hopeless sort of affair for me. I can't make you love me; you're married, besides. It's too much for me – I can't cope with it, Steve… So I won't ever bother you again with importunities. I'll go my own way."

"Very well," she said in an even voice.

She nodded to him and went out, saying as she passed:

"There'll be tea at five, if you care for any." And left him planted.

Which presently enraged him, and he began to pace the studio, pondering on the cruelty, insensibility and injustice of that devilish sex which had created man as a convenience.

"The thing to do," he said savagely to himself, "is to exterminate the last trace of love for her, tear it out, uproot it, trample on it without remorse – "