"
Jimmy finished his drink with a jerk. "Come along," he said to Rodney.
"I don't like this place. Let's get out."
Rodney has never managed to forget little Alec McEwen. For weeks after
that bar-room encounter he was haunted by the vision of the small bright
prying eyes, the fatuously cynical smile, and by the sound of the high
crowing voice. Little Alec became monstrous to him; impersonal, a symbol
of the way the world looked at Rose, and he dreamed sometimes,
half-waking dreams, of choking the life out of him. Not out of little
Alec personally. He, obviously, wasn't worth it; but out of all the
weakly venomous slander that he typified.
He managed a nod that seemed unconcerned enough, in response to Jimmy's
suggestion, and followed him out to the sidewalk. The sort of florid
rococo chivalry that would have "vindicated his wife's honor" by
knocking little Alec down was an inconceivable thing to him. But the
thing cut deep. He felt bemired. He wouldn't have minded that, of
course, except that the miry way he'd trodden since he'd first gone to
the stage door for Rose was the way she's taken ahead of him.
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