Letty Fox Read Free Page A

and being a great worker at the office, I was behindhand for my evening dates. Beyond such petty expenses, I needed at least two hundred and fifty dollars for a new coat. My fur coat, got from my mother, and my dinner dress, got from my grandmother, were things of the past and things with a past, mere rags and too well known to all my friends. There was no end to what I needed. My twenty-fourth birthday was just gone, and I had spent two hours this same evening ruminating upon all my love affairs which had sunk ingloriously into the past, along with my shrunken and worn outfits. Most of these affairs had been promising enough. Why had they failed? (Or I failed?) Partly, because my men, at least during the war years, had been flighty, spoiled officers in the armed services, in and out of town, looking for a good-timer by the night, the week, or the month; and if not these young officers, then my escorts were floaters of another sort, middle-aged, married civilians, journalists, economic advisers, representatives of foreign governments or my own bosses, office managers, chiefs, owners. But my failure was, too, because I had no apartment to which to take them. How easy for them to find it inconvenient to visit me at my hotel, or for me to visit them at theirs when they were dubious or cool. It seemed to me that night that a room of my own was what I principally lacked.
    I had to leave the hotel for another reason. One of my lovers had lived there for some time, had gone away on a trip, was now coming back, and, of course, was glad of the room they had promised to keep for him in the same hotel. We had been about together a great deal, our liaison and its nature was flagrant, and I had been only too happy to make it known. Now, his farewell had been too casual and while away, he had sent another man to me, without a letter of introduction, but merely with my address on a scrap of paper and the assurance that “Letty knows the ropes.” I had therefore resolved to have nothing to do with this absentee, Cornelis de Groot, unless he installed me somewhere and set up householding with me, openly. Meanwhile, I had become intimate with his friend, a very sensible, moderate man. Cornelis was too cunning and too ambitious; this is what made him dangerous for me. When with him, I behaved stupidly, incautiously, with passion, with ill temper; I was too dependent. I did whatever he wished and found him full of sang-froid . Both these men, Cornelis and his stand-in, were of about the same age, that is, about forty-two, too old, of course; yet with the absence of young men I could ask no questions, and in a way I learned much from these old men. I learned their weary, sentimental cunning, their husbandly manners; I found out that they were more generous than the young ones. But I was never fond of money, except to spend, and never went with a man for his money. My supreme idea was always to get married and join organized society. I had, always, a shrinking from what was beyond the pale.
    I had not been out walking long that night before I made up my mind that I would do better to get myself a flat than to get company. They said the only way, at that time, to get a flat was to walk up and down the streets till you saw someone moving out. I made up my mind to spend not only this night, which was a Friday, but also the whole week end doing just this. I would stay away from work the following day (I had not had a Saturday off for months anyhow). If I did not get a flat this week end, I would take it as a sign that I was meant to accept a rather shameful (but routine) offer which had been made to me, at second hand, during the week. This offer had been sent to me, verbally, by Gallant Stack, a handsome and popular young promoter of midtown Manhattan. Two nights previously Gallant Stack had come to my mother’s house, with a common friend, saying he had something important for me. It turned out that a writer who had just signed a