ripeness, but not before he had postured before the mirror for a couple of minutes, boiling at the injustice that forced him to mar the handsome world-weary effect he had stumbled on.
As soon as the secondhand Chevrolet that was the official car of the Bronx River Ice Company brought the family to 2645 Mosholu Parkway, Herbie began revising his plans of gallantry. The kiss in the garden was definitely not practical. The Glass castle was a two-story red brick house, flanked on either side by similar castles, with only narrow cement driveways separating them. The garden consisted of two squares of grass on either side of the entrance, each about as large as the carpet in the Bookbinder parlor. The little hedges surrounding these compressed meadows would not have provided enough privacy for a pair of romantically inclined cats.
“What a dump!” said Felicia, with ladylike tugs through her skirt at the tops of her stockings, which were tending to slide down her bony legs.
“Don't you dare say anything like that! It isn't polite,” cried Mrs. Bookbinder. “And don't you dare fool with those stockings when anybody is looking.”
Herbie, whose disappointment quickly melted in the anticipation of seeing Lucille, could hardly breathe as he ran up the white plaster steps and rang the bell. He managed to say thickly to Felicia, “Bet it's a rotten party.”
“Oh, sure,” sneered the sister, “you don't want to see that redheaded infant. Not much. I hope they have a team of horses to pull you through the door.”
So when Lucille opened the door Herbie's face was red, but not nearly as red as the girl's instantly became under his intense, devouring look of admiration. And Felicia's face was reddest of all when, as the children entered the house, Herbie glanced back into Felicia's eyes, then at her legs, and burst out laughing.
Lucille Glass, eleven years old, her parents' spoiled darling, was also wearing silk stockings.
The children's party was at its full fury when the Bookbinders came. The basement of the Glass home, gaily decorated and finished as a game room, echoed with squeals, shouts, laughter, complaints, and clatter. Large piles of delicatessen sandwiches were vanishing under the onslaught of fifteen or twenty hungry children, and two temporary maids and a harassed aunt of Lucille were trying to serve ice cream and cake on paper plates amid a tangle of clutching hands and glittering eyes. The parents were feeding upstairs in the placid manner of well-broken-in human beings, while their young cavorted below like pygmies around a kill. Fortunately, there was much too much ice cream for everyone, and it was not long before the clamor began to subside, the hands to cease clutching, and the glitter to fade slowly into a glaze.
Herbie emerged from the basement washroom in a happy fog, water seeping down the sides of his face from his hair, which he had plastered back again with the wrong side parted. He was in Lucille Glass's home. He had shaken her hand. He had sat beside her on a sofa for ten minutes, eating corned-beef sandwiches and no more aware of the taste than if he had been chewing straw. The girl, in her blue and white party dress, with a white bow in her hair, seemed not of this world, but a changeling fallen from a star. Time had slowed down as in dreams. He had been at the party sixty minutes, but it was like a week of ordinary living. There stretched ahead the rich years and years before five o'clock, when he would have to go home.
Lucille emerged from the knot of children at the table and came to him with two plates of chocolate ice cream in her hands. “You almost missed this,” she said. “Want some?”
He took the plate gratefully and was digging the paper spoon into the sweet brown mound when she laid her hand for a moment shyly on his arm. “Don't eat it here,” she said. “Come where it's quiet.” She slipped away, threading through the crowded basement, and he followed, wondering. They
As soon as the secondhand Chevrolet that was the official car of the Bronx River Ice Company brought the family to 2645 Mosholu Parkway, Herbie began revising his plans of gallantry. The kiss in the garden was definitely not practical. The Glass castle was a two-story red brick house, flanked on either side by similar castles, with only narrow cement driveways separating them. The garden consisted of two squares of grass on either side of the entrance, each about as large as the carpet in the Bookbinder parlor. The little hedges surrounding these compressed meadows would not have provided enough privacy for a pair of romantically inclined cats.
“What a dump!” said Felicia, with ladylike tugs through her skirt at the tops of her stockings, which were tending to slide down her bony legs.
“Don't you dare say anything like that! It isn't polite,” cried Mrs. Bookbinder. “And don't you dare fool with those stockings when anybody is looking.”
Herbie, whose disappointment quickly melted in the anticipation of seeing Lucille, could hardly breathe as he ran up the white plaster steps and rang the bell. He managed to say thickly to Felicia, “Bet it's a rotten party.”
“Oh, sure,” sneered the sister, “you don't want to see that redheaded infant. Not much. I hope they have a team of horses to pull you through the door.”
So when Lucille opened the door Herbie's face was red, but not nearly as red as the girl's instantly became under his intense, devouring look of admiration. And Felicia's face was reddest of all when, as the children entered the house, Herbie glanced back into Felicia's eyes, then at her legs, and burst out laughing.
Lucille Glass, eleven years old, her parents' spoiled darling, was also wearing silk stockings.
The children's party was at its full fury when the Bookbinders came. The basement of the Glass home, gaily decorated and finished as a game room, echoed with squeals, shouts, laughter, complaints, and clatter. Large piles of delicatessen sandwiches were vanishing under the onslaught of fifteen or twenty hungry children, and two temporary maids and a harassed aunt of Lucille were trying to serve ice cream and cake on paper plates amid a tangle of clutching hands and glittering eyes. The parents were feeding upstairs in the placid manner of well-broken-in human beings, while their young cavorted below like pygmies around a kill. Fortunately, there was much too much ice cream for everyone, and it was not long before the clamor began to subside, the hands to cease clutching, and the glitter to fade slowly into a glaze.
Herbie emerged from the basement washroom in a happy fog, water seeping down the sides of his face from his hair, which he had plastered back again with the wrong side parted. He was in Lucille Glass's home. He had shaken her hand. He had sat beside her on a sofa for ten minutes, eating corned-beef sandwiches and no more aware of the taste than if he had been chewing straw. The girl, in her blue and white party dress, with a white bow in her hair, seemed not of this world, but a changeling fallen from a star. Time had slowed down as in dreams. He had been at the party sixty minutes, but it was like a week of ordinary living. There stretched ahead the rich years and years before five o'clock, when he would have to go home.
Lucille emerged from the knot of children at the table and came to him with two plates of chocolate ice cream in her hands. “You almost missed this,” she said. “Want some?”
He took the plate gratefully and was digging the paper spoon into the sweet brown mound when she laid her hand for a moment shyly on his arm. “Don't eat it here,” she said. “Come where it's quiet.” She slipped away, threading through the crowded basement, and he followed, wondering. They
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