He drank whisky and gambled for pennies, was immoral in his relations with women and as thick-skinned as he was blatant. He had been a newsboy, a contractor's clerk, and climbed up by the application of his wits. He read enormously-newspapers, cheap magazines, medical books; he had an opinion about everything, and usually worsted every one at the Grays' in arguments. And he did his patients good by giving them sympathy and massage. He would have been an excellent citizen had the city not preferred to train him, as a child in its reeling streets, to a sharp unscrupulousness.
Una was at first disgusted by Phil Benson, then perplexed. He would address her in stately Shakespearean phrases which, as a boy, he had heard from the gallery of the Academy of Music. He would quote poetry at her. She was impressed when he almost silenced the library-woman, in an argument as to whether Longfellow or Whittier was the better poet, by parroting the whole of "Snow Bound."
She fancied that Phil's general pea-weevil aspect concealed the soul of a poet. But she was shocked out of her pleasant fabling when Phil roared at Mrs. Gray: "Say, what did the baker use this pie for? A bureau or a trunk? I've found three pairs of socks and a safety-pin in my slab, so far."
Pretty Mrs. Gray was hurt and indignant, while her husband growled: "Aw, don't pay any attention to that human phonograph, Amy. He's got bats in his belfry."
Una had acquired a hesitating fondness for the mute gentleness of the others, and it infuriated her that this insect should spoil their picnic. But after dinner Phil Benson dallied over to her, sat on the arm of her chair, and said: "I'm awfully sorry that I make such a bum hit with you, Miss Golden. Oh, I can see I do, all right. You're the only one here that can understand. Somehow it seems to me-you aren't like other women I know. There's something-somehow it's different. A-a temperament. You dream about higher things than just food and clothes. Oh," he held up a deprecating hand, "don't deny it. I'm mighty serious about it, Miss Golden. I can see it, even if you haven't waked up to it as yet."
The absurd part of it was that, at least while he was talking, Mr. Phil Benson did believe what he was saying, though he had borrowed all of his sentiments from a magazine story about hobohemians which he had read the night before.
He also spoke of reading good books, seeing good plays, and the lack of good influences in this wicked city.
He didn't overdo it. He took leave in ten minutes-to find good influences in a Kelly pool-parlor on Third Avenue. He returned to his room at ten, and, sitting with his shoeless feet cocked up on his bed, read a story in Racy Yarns. While beyond the partition, about four feet from him, Una Golden lay in bed, her smooth arms behind her aching head, and worried about Phil's lack of opportunity.
She was finding in his loud impudence a twisted resemblance to Walter Babson's erratic excitability, and that won her, for love goes seeking new images of the god that is dead.
Next evening Phil varied his tactics by coming to dinner early, just touching Una's hand as she was going into the dining-room, and murmuring in a small voice, "I've been thinking so much of the helpful things you said last evening, Miss Golden."
Later, Phil talked to her about his longing to be a great surgeon-in which he had the tremendous advantage of being almost sincere. He walked down the hall to her room, and said good-night lingeringly, holding her hand.
Una went into her room, closed the door, and for full five minutes stood amazed. "Why!" she gasped, "the little man is trying to make love to me!"
She laughed over the absurdity of it. Heavens! She had her Ideal. The Right Man. He would probably be like Walter Babson-though more dependable. But whatever the nature of the paragon, he would in every respect be just the opposite of the creature who had been saying good-night to her.
She sat down, tried to read the paper, tried to put Phil out of her mind. But he kept returning. She fancied that she could hear his voice in the hall. She dropped the paper to listen.
"I'm actually interested in him!" she marveled. "Oh, that's ridiculous!"
§ 5
Now that Walter had made a man's presence natural to her, Una needed a man, the excitation of his touch, the solace of his voice. She could not patiently endure a cloistered vacuousness.
Even while she was vigorously representing to herself that he was preposterous, she was uneasily aware that Phil was masculine. His talons were strong; she could feel their clutch on her hands. "He's a rat. And I do wish he wouldn't-spit!" she shuddered. But under her scorn was a surge of emotion.... A man, not much of a man, yet a man, had wanted the contact of her hand, been eager to be with her. Sensations vast as night or the ocean whirled in her small, white room. Desire, and curiosity even more, made her restless as a wave.
She caught herself speculating as she plucked at the sleeve of her black mourning waist: "I wonder would I be more interesting if I had the orange-and-brown dress I was going to make when mother died?... Oh, shame!"
Yet she sprang up from the white-enameled rocker, tucked in her graceless cotton corset-cover, stared at her image in the mirror, smoothed her neck till the skin reddened.
§ 6
Phil talked to her for an hour after their Sunday-noon dinner. She had been to church; had confessed indeterminate sins to a formless and unresponsive deity. She felt righteous, and showed it. Phil caught the cue. He sacrificed all the witty things he was prepared to say about Mrs. Gray's dumplings; he gazed silently out of the window till she wondered what he was thinking about, then he stumblingly began to review a sermon which he said he had heard the previous Sunday-though he must have been mistaken, as he shot several games of Kelly pool every Sunday morning, or slept till noon.
"The preacher spoke of woman's influence. You don't know what it is to lack a woman's influence in a fellow's life, Miss Golden. I can see the awful consequences among my patients. I tell you, when I sat there in church and saw the colored windows-" He sighed portentously. His hand fell across hers-his lean paw, strong and warm-blooded from massaging puffy old men. "I tell you I just got sentimental, I did, thinking of all I lacked."
Phil melted mournfully away-to indulge in a highly cheerful walk on upper Broadway with Miss Becky Rosenthal, sewer for the Sans Peur Pants and Overalls Company-while in her room Una grieved over his forlorn desire to be good.
§ 7
Two evenings later, when November warmed to a passing Indian summer of golden skies that were pitifully far away from the little folk in city streets, Una was so restless that she set off for a walk by herself.
Phil had been silent, glancing at her and away, as though he were embarrassed.
"I wish I could do something to help him," she thought, as she poked down-stairs to the entrance of the apartment-house.
Phil was on the steps, smoking a cigarette-sized cigar, scratching his chin, and chattering with his kinsmen, the gutter sparrows.
He doffed his derby. He spun his cigar from him with a deft flip of his fingers which somehow agitated her. She called herself a little fool for being agitated, but she couldn't get rid of the thought that only men snapped their fingers like that.
"Goin' to the movies, Miss Golden?"
"No, I was just going for a little walk."
"Well, say, walks, that's where I live. Why don't you invite Uncle Phil to come along and show you the town? Why, I knew this burg when they went picnicking at the reservoir in Bryant Park."