Warren McIntyre
The nineteen-year-old at Yale who has been in love with Marjorie for years, dances with Bernice out of duty, and changes his mind.
Marjorie, who has told him plainly that she does not love him because she forgets him whenever she is away.
The book
At a glance
- The young man both cousins want, in “Bernice Bobs Her Hair”
- Nineteen
- Yale, which the narration says he attended casually
- Grew up across the street from Marjorie Harvey
Who they are in the book
Spoiler-freeWarren McIntyre is the young man the two cousins in “Bernice Bobs Her Hair” end up competing over. He is nineteen, home for the summer from Yale, and slightly pitying towards friends who did not go east to college. He grew up across the street from Marjorie Harvey and has been crazy about her for years without getting anywhere. The story is largely seen through his eyes for its first pages, which is how the reader learns the local social arithmetic before meeting anyone in it.
How the book draws them
- The duty danceMarjorie asks him to rescue Bernice, who has been stuck with a sixteen-year-old for an hour. “Why — sure,” he answered half-heartedly. He finds the boy in question outside the ladies' room with a length of timber, telling a delighted crowd that he intends to hit her on the head with it and knock her back in.
- The line that failsBored on the veranda, he tries something he uses on girls at college proms: “You’ve got an awfully kissable mouth,” he began quietly. Bernice jumps, turns red, and calls him fresh, which he hates, and his charitable impulse dies on the spot.
- When he notices herTwo weeks later he registers that Bernice has been cut in on several times in five minutes, looks at her properly, and finds she has the one thing no woman can successfully counterfeit: she looks as if she is having a good time.
- The grey carWithin a week he is telephoning her twice a day and his car is parked outside the Harvey house daily. The parlour-maid, startled the first time he asks for Bernice instead of Marjorie, tells the cook that Miss Bernice has got hold of Miss Marjorie's best fellow.
- Outside the barber shopHe drives her down, says “All right, Bernice,” and waits. When she climbs out of the chair and asks whether he likes it, he manages only “Yes, you’ve — done it,” and his eyes go suddenly very cold.
- What he does nextMarjorie turns to him in the shop and asks him to run her down to the cleaners. He stares out of the window and lets his eyes rest coldly on Bernice before he answers. “Be glad to,” he said slowly. He never speaks in the story again.