The Manticore

The party in the school's dining-room was larger and gayer than the night before, though the food was the same. There were so many people that they stood in groups, and not in a single mass. Netty made a bee-line for Caroline, demanding to know who had sent her flowers. Caroline was busy displaying the roses and the card that was with them, on which was printed, in bold script, "From a devoted admirer, who wishes to remain unknown." The chrysanthemums and their rotten little card, on which I had printed "Congratulations and Good Luck", she gave to Netty to hold. She was in tearing high spirits and loved all mankind; she seized me by the arm and rushed me over to Judy Wolff and shrieked, "Judy, I want you to meet my baby brother; he thinks you're the tops," and left me gangling. But she immediately showed her roses to Judy, and made a great affair of wondering who could have sent them; Judy, like every girl when confronted with an obvious admirer, ignored me and chattered away to Caroline and tried to talk about the mystery of her own roses. My roses. Hopeless. Caroline was not to be distracted. But in time she did go away, and I was left with Judy, and had opened my mouth to say my carefully prepared speech – "You sang awfully well; you must have a marvellous teacher." (Oh, was it too daring? Would she think I was a pushy nuisance? Would she think it was just a line I used with all the dozens of girls I knew who sang? Would she think I was trying to move in on her like some football tough who – Knopwood, stand by me now! – wanted to use her as an object of convenience?) But near her were the same smiling, dark-skinned, big-nosed people I had seen last night, and they took me over as Judy (what manners, what aplomb, she must be foreign) introduced me as Caroline's brother. My father, Dr. Louis Wolff. My mother. My Aunt Esther. My uncle, Professor Bruno Schwarz.

They were very kind to me, but they all had X-ray eyes, or extrasensory perception, because they assumed without asking that it was I who had sent Judy the other bouquet of roses. And this flummoxed me. There I stood, a declared lover, a role for which I had no preparation whatever, and which I had entered on a level of roses, which I was utterly unable to sustain. But what was most remarkable was that they took it for granted that I should admire Judy and send her flowers as an entirely suitable way of getting to know her. I gathered that being Caroline's brother was, to them, a sufficient introduction. How little they knew Caroline! They understood. They sympathized. Of course they said nothing directly, but their attitude toward me and their conversation made it plain that they supposed I wanted to be accepted as a friend, and were willing that it should be so. I didn't know what to do. The course of true love was, contrary to everything that was right and proper, running smooth, and I was not ready for it.

Friends of mine at school were in love with girls. The parents of these girls were always hilarious nuisances, eager to tar and feather Cupid and make a clown of him; or, if not that, they were unpleasantly ironic and seemed to have forgotten all about love except as something that ailed puppies and calves. The Wolffs took me seriously as a human being. I had hoped for a furtive romance, unknown to anyone else in the world. But here was Mrs. Wolff saying that they were always at home on Sunday afternoons between four and six, and if I liked to look in, they would be delighted to see me. I asked if tomorrow would be too soon. No, tomorrow would do beautifully. They were delighted to meet me. They hoped we would meet often.

During all of this, Judy said very little, and when I shook hands with her at parting – an awful struggle; was this the thing to do, or not; did one shake the hands of girls? – she cast down her eyes.

This was something I had never seen a girl do. Caroline's friends always looked you straight in the eye, especially if they had something disagreeable to say. This dropping of the gaze almost disembowelled me with its modest beauty.

But the publicity of it all! Can I have been so obvious? On the way home even Netty remarked that I certainly seemed to be taken with that dark girl, and when I asked her haughtily what she meant she said she had eyes in her head like anybody else, and I had been lallygagging so nobody could miss it.