The Genius by Theodore Dreiser Page B

I'd
better be going."
    She made no response, neither pleas nor suggestions. He went and
secured his hat and coat and came back. "Want to kiss me good-bye?"
he inquired.
    "No," she said simply.
    "Good-night," he called.
    "Good-night," she replied indifferently.
    The relationship was never amicably readjusted after this,
although it did endure for some time.

Chapter 5
     
    For the time being this encounter stirred to an almost unbridled
degree Eugene's interest in women. Most men are secretly proud of
their triumph with woman—their ability to triumph—and any evidence
of their ability to attract, entertain, hold, is one of those
things which tends to give them an air of superiority and
self-sufficiency which is sometimes lacking in those who are not so
victorious. This was, in its way, his first victory of the sort,
and it pleased him mightily. He felt much more sure of himself
instead of in any way ashamed. What, he thought, did the silly boys
back in Alexandria know of life compared to this? Nothing. He was
in Chicago now. The world was different. He was finding himself to
be a man, free, individual, of interest to other personalities.
Margaret Duff had told him many pretty things about himself. She
had complimented his looks, his total appearance, his taste in the
selection of particular things. He had felt what it is to own a
woman. He strutted about for a time, the fact that he had been
dismissed rather arbitrarily having little weight with him because
he was so very ready to be dismissed, sudden dissatisfaction with
his job now stirred up in him, for ten dollars a week was no sum
wherewith any self-respecting youth could maintain
himself,—particularly with a view to sustaining any such
relationship as that which had just ended. He felt that he ought to
get a better place.
    Then one day a woman to whom he was delivering a parcel at her
home in Warren Avenue, stopped him long enough to ask: "What do you
drivers get a week for your work?"
    "I get ten dollars," said Eugene. "I think some get more."
    "You ought to make a good collector," she went on. She was a
large, homely, incisive, straight-talking woman. "Would you like to
change to that kind of work?"
    Eugene was sick of the laundry business. The hours were killing.
He had worked as late as one o'clock Sunday morning.
    "I think I would," he exclaimed. "I don't know anything about
it, but this work is no fun."
    "My husband is the manager of The People's Furniture Company,"
she went on. "He needs a good collector now and then. I think he's
going to make a change very soon. I'll speak to him."
    Eugene smiled joyously and thanked her. This was surely a
windfall. He was anxious to know what collectors were paid but he
thought it scarcely tactful to ask.
    "If he gives you a job you will probably get fourteen dollars to
begin with," she volunteered.
    Eugene thrilled. That would be really a rise in the world. Four
dollars more! He could get some nice clothes out of that and have
spending money besides. He might get a chance to study art. His
visions began to multiply. One could get up in the world by trying.
The energetic delivery he had done for this laundry had brought him
this. Further effort in the other field might bring him more. And
he was young yet.
    He had been working for the laundry company for six months. Six
weeks later, Mr. Henry Mitchly, manager of the People's Furniture,
wrote him care of the laundry company to call at his home any
evening after eight and he would see him. "My wife has spoken to me
of you," he added.
    Eugene complied the same day that he received the note, and was
looked over by a lean, brisk, unctuous looking man of forty, who
asked him various questions as to his work, his home, how much
money he took in as a driver, and what not. Finally he said, "I
need a bright young man down at my place. It's a good job for one
who is steady and honest and hardworking. My wife seems to think
you work pretty well, so I'm willing to give you a trial. I