She was the first girl that had ever left him and that impressed Roger so that he had two more that looked almost enough like her to be members of the same family. He left both of them, though, really left them, and Thomas Hudson thought that made him feel better; though not a hell of a lot better.
There are probably politer ways and more endearing ways of leaving a girl than simply, with no unpleasantness and never having been in any row, excusing yourself to go to the men’s room at 21 and never coming back. But, as Roger said, he did settle the check downstairs and he loved to think of his last glimpse of her, sitting alone at the corner table in that décor that suited her so and that she loved so well.
He planned to leave the other one at the Stork, which was the place she really loved, but he was afraid Mr. Billingsley might not like it and he needed to borrow some money from Mr. Billingsley.
“So where did you leave her?” Thomas Hudson had asked him.
“At El Morocco. So I could always remember her sitting there among those zebras. She loved El Morocco too,” he said. “But I think it was the Cub Room that was graven on her heart.”
After that he got mixed up with one of the most deceptive women Thomas Hudson had ever known. She was a complete change from his last three Cenci or Park Avenue Borgia types in looks. She looked really healthy and had tawny hair and long, good legs, a very good figure, and an intelligent, lively face. Though it was not beautiful it was much better-looking than most faces. And she had beautiful eyes. She was intelligent and very kindly and charming when you first knew her and she was a complete rummy. She was not a lush and her alcoholism had not showed yet. But she was just at it all of the time. Usually you can tell someone who is really drinking by their eyes and it always showed in Roger’s immediately. But this girl, Kathleen, had really beautiful tawny eyes that went with her hair and the little pleasant freckles of health and good nature around her nose and her cheeks; and you never saw anything in them of what was going on. She looked like a girl who was sailing regularly or living some sort of very healthy outdoor life and she looked like a girl who was very happy. Instead she was just a girl who was drinking. She was on a very strange voyage to somewhere and for a while she took Roger with her.
But he came up to the studio Thomas Hudson had rented in New York one morning with the back of his left hand covered with cigarette burns. It looked as though someone had been putting butts out by rubbing them against a tabletop; only the tabletop was the back of his hand.
“That’s what she wanted to do last night,” he said. “Have you got any iodine? I didn’t like to take those things into a drugstore.”
“Who’s she?”
“Kathleen. The fresh outdoor type.”
“You had to participate.”
“It seemed to amuse her and we’re supposed to amuse them.”
“You’re burned pretty badly.”
“Not really. But I’m going to get out of this town for a while.”
“You’ll be taking yourself along wherever you go.”
“Yes. But I won’t be taking a lot of other people I know with me.”
“Where are you going to go?”
“Out West for a while.”
“Geography isn’t any cure for what’s the matter with you.”
“No. But a healthy life and plenty of work won’t hurt. Not drinking may not cure me. But drinking sure as hell isn’t helping any now.”
“Well, get the hell out then. Do you want to go to the ranch?”
“Do you still own it?”
“Part of it.”
“Is it all right if I go out there?”
“Sure,” Thomas Hudson had told him. “But it’s rugged from now on until spring and spring isn’t easy.”
“I want it to be rugged,” Roger had said. “I’m going to start new again.”
“How many times is it now you’ve started new?”
“Too many,” Roger had said. “And you don’t have to rub it in.”