Yet there were still others, men and women, old and young, who, on meeting him occasionally when he was sober and perfectly groomed, could not help regretting that he had not married a fortune and so restored himself to the groups which he could so well adorn.
His warm southern accent, when he chose to employ it, was so delightful, and his smile so winsome.
The present affair with Rosalie Harrigan was but eight weeks old, yet bidding fair not to endure much longer.
She was merely a chorus girl, earning thirty-five dollars a week.
She was gay and sweet and affectionate, but, as he felt, not forceful enough to get anywhere.
It was her body, her lust, and her love that held him for the time being.
And now, on this particular morning, Rosalie surveyed his ruffled black hair and his finely modeled mouth and chin with a delight that was wholly pathetic, since it was tinged by the all too desperate fear that he would be taken from her by another.
It might be, as she well knew, that he would awaken with growls and savage oaths and orders. Just the same, she wished that she might remain with him for hours, if only to touch his hair.
On the other hand, the mind of Tollifer, half in dreams and half in wakefulness, was contemplating the ills with which his daily life was streaked.
For at present, other than the money he took from Rosalie, he had nothing.
And now his interest in her was already dulled.
If only he could find a woman of wealth, with whom he might splurge financially, even marry, and so show a lot of these local upstarts who now looked down on him what it meant to be a Tollifer, and a rich Tollifer!
Soon after he had come to New York, he had attempted to elope with a lovesick heiress, but her parents had spirited her abroad.
And he found himself denounced in the public press as a fortune-hunter, one who should and would be guarded against by all respectable families of wealth who wished their daughters to marry happily and well.
And that failure, or mistake, along with drink, lust, gambling, had closed to him for all of these years the doors he wished to enter.
On fully awakening this morning, and while dressing, he began growling at Rosalie about a party of the night before into which she had inveigled him, and at which he had become intoxicated and belittled and ridiculed those around him until they were heartily glad to be rid of him.
“Such people! Such bounders!” he cried.
“Why didn’t you tell me those newspapermen were going to be there?
Actors are bad enough, God knows, but those newspaper snoops, and those publicity hounds who came with your actress friends!
Bah!”
“But I didn’t know they were coming, Bruce,” pleaded Rosalie, who, pale and picturesque, was doing her best to toast a slice of bread over a gas jet.
“I thought it was just for the stars of the show.”
“Stars!
You call those people stars!
If they’re stars, then I’m a whole sidereal system!” (A comparison entirely lost on Rosalie, who had no notion of what he was talking about.) “Those bums!
You wouldn’t know a star from an oil lamp!”
Then he yawned, wondering how long before he would find nerve enough to brace up and quit this.
How low was he going to fall?
Sharing with girls who earned no more than enough for themselves, and then drinking and gambling with men with whom he couldn’t share and share alike!
“God, I can’t stand this!” he cried.
“I’ll have to quit.
I just can’t hang around here any longer.
It’s too damned degrading!”
He walked the length of the room and back again, his hands thrust angrily into his pockets, while Rosalie stood silently near him. Fear would not permit her to speak.
“Well, do you hear me?” he demanded.
“Are you going to stand there like a dummy?
Oh, you women!
You either fight like cats, or lie down and say nothing!
God, if I could find one woman, just one, with a little sense in her nut, I’d . . . I’d . . .”
Rosalie looked up at him, her mouth twisted into a tortured smile.
“Well, what would you do?” she said, quietly.
“I’d hang on to her! I might even love her!
But, my God, what’s the use?
Here I am, fiddling around in this hole, and accomplishing what?
I belong to another world, and I’m going to get back into it!
You and I are going to have to separate.
It can’t be otherwise.
I can’t go on like this a day longer!”
And so saying he went to the closet, and taking out his hat and overcoat, moved toward the door.
Rosalie, however, edged in before him, throwing her arms around him and pressing her face to his.