CHAPTER 59

In addition to all these I can remember that Faustina O'Brien came there at least once and the Baedeker girls and young Brewer who had his nose shot off in the war and Mr.

Albrucksburger and Miss Haag, his fiancée, and Ardita Fitz-Peters, and Mr. P. Jewett, once head of the American Legion, and Miss Claudia Hip with a man rumored to be her chauffeur, and a prince of some sort whom we referred to as Duke and whose name, if I ever knew it, I have forgotten.

All these individuals visited Alex Sterling's home in the summer. One morning late in July, at nine o'clock, Alex's stunning car bumped up the rocky drive to my door and emitted a burst of melody from its three-note horn. It was the first time he had visited me, although I had attended two of his parties, ridden in his hydroplane, and frequently used his beach at his insistent invitation.

"Good morning, old sport. You're having lunch with me today, and I thought we'd ride up together."

He was balancing himself on the dashboard of his car with that distinctly American resourcefulness of movement—an attribute that likely comes from not having lifting work or rigid sitting during youth, and even more, from the fluid grace of our spontaneous games. This quality continually emerged through his precise manner in the form of restlessness. He was never quite still; there was always a tapping foot or the impatient opening and closing of a hand.

He noticed me admiring his car.

"It's pretty, isn't it, old sport?" He jumped off to give me a better view. "Haven't you ever seen it before?"

I had seen it. Everybody had seen it. It was a rich cream color, bright with nickel, swollen here and there with triumphant hatboxes and supper-boxes and toolboxes, and terraced with a labyrinth of windshields that reflected a dozen suns. Sitting behind multiple layers of glass in a sort of green leather conservatory, we headed towards town.

I had spoken with him perhaps half a dozen times in the past month and found, to my disappointment, that he had little to say. So my initial impression that he was a person of some undefined importance had gradually faded, and he had become simply the owner of an elaborate roadhouse next door.