It was rumored that one summer at the Royal Palisades Hotel in Atlantic
City he had become engaged to a slim-flanked one from Akron, Ohio. But
on the evening of the first day she had seen him in a bathing suit the
rebellious young girl and a bitterly disappointed and remonstrating
mother had departed on the Buck Eye for "points west."

There was almost something of the nudity of arm and leg he must have
presented to eighteen's tender sensibilities in Mr. Latz's expression
now as he sat well forward on the overstuffed chair, his overstuffed
knees strained apart, his face nude of all pretense and creased with
anxiety.

"That's about the way of it, isn't it?" he said again into the growing
silence.

Suddenly Mrs. Samstag's fingers were rigid at their task of lace making,
the scraping of the orchestral violin tearing the roaring noises in her
ears into ribbons of alternate sound and vacuum, as if she were closing
her ears and opening them, so roaringly the blood pounded.

"I--When a woman cares for--a man like--I did--Mr. Latz, she'll never
be happy until--she cares again--like that. I always say, once an
affectionate nature, always an affectionate nature."

"You mean," he said, leaning forward the imperceptible half inch that
was left of chair--"you mean--me--?"

The smell of bay rum came out greenly then as the moisture sprang out on
his scalp.