Worcester Democrat and the ledger-enterprise., 1934-11-23
CHAPTER l

nlVal or Forty-Second StfeeC tnaC new
Years Eve, Merle Bigbee felt that
tho world was his. He knew he had
arrived, succeeded, crashed the gate
of the stubborn town.
Leaving the theater with Sonia Far
man on his arm, all the joy of his
new horizons and his new self con-
verged and flowed through him like
q torrent through ring.
"The Ritz!" he commanded the
driver of a taxi which stood miracu-
lously vacant waiting for them at the
curb when all others were occupied.
He was able to look the driver straight
in the eye and say, "The Ritz" Six
months ago he would have choked,
scarlet-faced, upon that staggering
word.
Sonia settled herself in a corner
of the cab and pulled ermine up about
her ears. Her small jet eyes, which
the caricaturists captured questioning
upon him. "Do you want to meet the
others later-at twelve? Or shall we
just sit and talk? I never get a
chance to talk to you, Merle. We're
both so busy"
"Let's talk!" he said.
We're both so busy. That thrilled
him. Sonia the great Sonia Farman,
was including him subtly on her PIN
nacle. Well, why not? Wasn't the
thin scrawl "Merle Bigbee." emerging
more and more upon the conscious
ness of American magazine readers?
Didn't editors write to him now. in
stead of waiting for him to appear
in anterooms with a sample folder
under his arm? Perhaps in a year
or two he would be as important an
illustrator as Sonia Farman herself.
When they met, less than a year
ago, Merle was fresh from Richmond,
Virginia, from rambling frame house
across whose spacious shaded lawn
the Confederate forces had fallen back
cursing in the rain. In a gable room
with it's iron bed and hunting prints
and catcher's mask hung on a nail
in the room with the drawing board
in one bespattered corner and the files
of The American Boy moldering in
another-Merle had first dreamed of
New York. Two considerations tug
ged him: one was ambition, sharp,
restless, fed BY the knowledge of abil-
ities that all talent givess and an
other was the state OF affairs regard
ing M2ry-LOa
He was determined not to drift in
to marriage with her. Into marriage
and genteel family life; quail shoot
ing every fall and talk on the ver-
anda through spring evenings while
ice melted in tall green glasses. Thank
the Lord he had intelligence enough
to see where he was going and get
away! And it hadn't been too easy,
either. Many circumstances had COM
bined to attach him to Mary-Lou Prem
tiss.
They had grown up together, two
blocks apart, and there had been
dances, and, before that, children's
parties on her lawn and his. She
was very intense and slow-voiced and
blue-eyed; she abounded in that quail
ity which now he was able to dag
nose simply and neatly: sex appeal.
And sex appeal, he could look back
and see, would have been a frail tim
ber from which to construct the bark
of his career. From the very first
they had possessed the faculty of
making each other bitterly unhappy.
Their kisses would fade into quarrels
which left them choked and trembly,
only to be wiped out by other kisses.
The whole thing had been violent,
strenuous, young. Tonight he had
realized, stepping out into the New
Year with Sonia, that he had come
upon maturity, It was magnifi-
cent sensation,
Sonia, sitting beside him, let him
have his own thoughts. She could
do that. She didn't ever "make talk"
Indeed, she was the symbol-and, more
practically, the sculptress-of his re-
cent emancipation of his success. Those
first months in New York had been
frantic and emotionally tangled, ha-
rassed by the old hours with Mary
Lou. He had tried everything-pen
and ink, pastels, oils, water color. He
could do sharply clever little pen-and-
ink sketches that threw into relief the
absurdities of pompuous and self
satisfied folk. He sold several of
them. But he was still preoccupied
with the elaborate and rather mys-
tical things in color which Mary-Lou
LnA Il